NFL

A lot of them become commentators instead. Better pay and way less hours.

They are loaded and want to enjoy retirement.

Because they don’t want to.

Because playing something doesn't mean you're good at coaching it. The vast majority of anyone in the coaching side of things never makes the NFL level, they get to CFB, don't get drafted and start over.

Why can't you just be as gifted as me.

They want to enjoy their lives and families and millions of dollars and not get back to the insane grind of being a coach

Probably the fact that coaching hours and stress is insane and generational wealth makes them realize it’s not worth it at the nfl level.

coaches are insane people - harbaugh went through his week in 2013 and basically the only free time he had was on friday night lol

if you're already a multimillionaire from playing football there's just no reason to subject yourself to that grind unless you really really love coaching

Being an NFL coach is a ton of work and most of them get fired within 4 years of taking the job. A TV career is a lot more relaxing and arguably more lucrative. Fox offered Brady a 375 million dollar contract to call games and work significantly less than a coach would.

Peter Principle. Coaching and playing are two different things. Sure, they overlap, but just because you played doesn’t mean you can coach.

I dont think a lot of people who reached those heights wanna start from ground zero. Like Jeff Saturday, he wanted to be a coach but didn't wanna start as an intern and work his way up. I think if more players were offered head coaching gigs without having to grind you'd see it more. And like Saturday a lot of them would flame out.

That's like asking why most waiters can't cook food.

Different skill set. Many great football players have physical attributes you can't teach. Many also aren't good at articulating the nuances of how to play well, they just did it. Things like anticipation and vision. There's also the difference between understanding how plays work and designing an offensive system yourself. A little bit like the difference between a musician and a record producer.

Lol "coach" prime 😂🤣🤣

MLB coach Charlie Manuel is always the example I think of.

Talented, superstar players aren’t dumb, but ultimately they need what works for them, and they master it… less talented players need to grind, to find any and every advantage they can get. (They also need people skills, cause locker room presence is more important in those mid/replaceable players)

So when it comes to teaching various body types or mindsets. One of those coaches is MUCH more prepared to teach what they themselves aren’t.

That’s my head canon at least.

Some people can do but not teach. If something just comes naturally to you, but you don't know how to explain it to someone else, you'll probably be a pretty bad coach.

Others can teach but not do. It's easy for them to understand what is happening and what should happen and convey that to someone else, but they might not have the physical ability to go execute that themselves. You'll probably see at least a few career backup QB's each week now as offensive coordinators or offensive assistants for this very reason.

They already got their legacy. They (usually) already got their money. The added stress, crazy hours, and risk to the reputation probably just isn't worth it when they could take a booth job for similar money.

Coaching in football is very stressful and tiring with the amount of hours they have to put in. It isn't like coaching basketball where you just come in and collect a check and go home.

Deion is probably the best player ever to try to actually be a football coach. Then you’ve got Mike Ditka/Mike Singletary. That’s really it at least in the modern era.

Guys who are at that level are probably just over it. Why coach for 2 mill a year when you can be analyst for 1 mill a year and not have to deal with a bunch of shit? Think about how many former greats are littering pregame shows there’s easier gigs for past HOF than being a coach.

Twofold. First, coaching isn't something you can just casually walk into. It takes years and years of study and practice and getting the little things right before being able to take that to the next stages. Every year spent staying on top of the game as a player and athlete is a year not spent learning personel management and how to draw up plays.

Second, top end athletes tend to not understand the limitations other players might have. Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are prime examples of GOATs who can't coach or teach or lead, because "just draw a double+ team and slide the puck between the defenders right onto the tape for a one timer" is a strategy that only works for the elite of the elite.

Third, there's a necessary component of hunger that is needed to truely grind your way up. Someone who has made millions of dollars and racked up accolade after accolade may think starting from the bottom is "beneath me". Not to harp too hard on Deion Sanders, but he's a good example of this. He did good-not-great at Jackson State, won by recruiting more talent than others but would lose big games against better coached teams, and then the first P5 coaching offer he received he jumped ship because coaching in the lower leagues wasn't prestigious enough. He didn't learn the fundamentals of coaching and assumed he would be successful anywhere, because he's been successful anywhere as a player.

Most coaches are players in the sport that they coach in, but very few are successful. Tom Izzo and Coach K played basketball, but once their limitations were reached they managed to use what they learned overcoming limitations to teach better players how to overcome limitations.

Because they have name, experience, knowledge, and probably don't know jack shit about anything else but football.

Pro athletes give up a lot of the perks of having a normal life. Coaching puts them right back into having a lot of disruption if you want to start a family, or pursue other interests.

There are actually a ton of star players that are coaches, they are usually positional coaches

Head coaches are typically very old so they may have been star players at one point I dunno lol

My 2 personal theories:

1. Money. Star players usually make a ton of money, and if they're wise with it, they'll never have to work again and pass their wealth to their children, and so on. Guys who know the game but where never athletically gifted enough to make it to the pros or make a name for themselves in the pros seem more likely to turn to coaching as a profession, since it offers them a chance to be involved with the sport they love while still making a good income.
2. It's an entirely different skillset. Leading people is not the same as performing on the field. There are plenty of talented players that aren't team captains for a reason. Sure, they can catch a ball and run routes, but can they lead a group of people? If not, they're not cut out for coaching.

The stars are mostly stars because they have incredible genetics and enough brain to learn how to play football. You can’t teach someone to be Randy Moss or JJ Watt.

Some guys are brilliant and innovative and can get by (or even shine) while being less talented physically. Some of these are the types who would make good coaches. These are the vast minority of stars, though.

There are plenty of great minds that just never had the body to make it to the NFL, let alone become a superstar.

• The best players have sooooo much fucking money. They just don't need the money or stress of coaching, probably just happy to retire. You're more likely to find backups and journeymen become coaches later, because the money is actually still life changing for them.
• Positions are so specialized, just because you're good at rushing the passer doesn't mean you can coach a whole team, or even just the defense. You don't really have to have knowledge of the whole field. So playing well doesn't necessarily translate to coaching well.
• You might be surprised by the number of players that really just don't care about football all that much. They're there to be good enough to make a boat load of money, then they check out and never want to be involved in football again.

Deion Sanders actually talked about how much of a grind coaching is which is why stars won’t coach. He mentioned incentivizing things by promising closer to a 9-5 then the usually 12-13 hours a day

Coaching and playing are different skillsets.

Also the reason you'll often see backup players become coaches. They might understand everything very well, but just lack the athleticism.

Another good explanation I heard is...

Talented players get by on just that, talent. Coaching requires you to explain how it works and it's hard to do that when it comes so easy to you. This is why there are so many backup QBs who became coaches.

Coaching football is insanely difficult compared to other sports

I think partially because the NFL is so specialized. Most positions are mutually exclusive to one another, and don't really give anyone full coverage of the team dynamic like soccer or basketball would. Even a QB probably can't convert much of their knowledge to the RB position, for example.

Coaching staffs in the NFL are enormous. Head Coach, OC & DC usually take the spotlight, but every team also has dozens of positional or unit coaches (like a defensive line coach) for the reasons above.

Your playing experience doesn't transfer over cleanly to a Head Coach position in the NFL because Head Coaching is closer the executive level of things than I think most people realize. It's more to do with personnel decisions, PR, and being an overseer to a large staff, with some also taking on the direct play-calling and training duties.

Also like everyone else mentioned, coaching is a lot more work for a typically less lucrative job. I would wager Messi or Ronaldo won't be working 80-100 hour weeks when they do eventually coach.

The real answer is that skill is way different than strategy. Similar to asking why the best calligraphers never become great novelists.

Coaching is a 24/7 job for nearly 365 days a year. Even in the off-season, coaches don't get a lot of downtime. I would bet most players who have what it takes to be a coach, don't really want to keep the grind going once their careers are over.

I have a couple theories on this tbh,

1. CTE- a lot of these guys have symptoms of cte alarmingly early and it can cause mental deficits (can’t be slow to process info and call plays as a head coach)

2. Pride- a lot of athletes watching players do what they used to be able to do but can’t anymore can be painful, and a lot of these guys have the mind set that they are the absolute best and to not be able to compete at all can be crushing

3. general intelligence- this could go hand in hand with the cte issue, but football players a lot of the time aren’t known for being exactly cerebral (not saying all I’m just talking about a stereotype)

4. Boredom-Doing the same thing for the entirety of your life with few to no other interests will burn a person out, might just be time for a change

Insane hours for far less pay than they were making before and the pinnacle of the career has 32 total positions available.

Concussions and racist billionaires, more or less.

1. There are way more soccer players than football players, so more will pipeline into coaching.

2. Being good at a position doesn't mean you are good at the sport as a whole. There is everything from QBs who couldn't design, understand, and execute their own offense to linemen who don't know the difference between Cover 2 and Cover 3 concepts because their job is the same in both.

Lots of answers here already but given you're European like me, let me explain why you cannot compare NFL coaching to ⚽ coaching.

1. NFL players are way more specialised than soccer. The only position in soccer that is truly specialised compared to other positions is the goalkeeper. Otherwise the principles and coaching need for the other 10 outfield positions have huge amounts of overlap (formations, set pieces, passing drills etc). Apart from the goalkeepers, everyone has to practice corners, free kicks, dribbling, passing, aerial ball control etc. Maybe only half your team needs to practice shooting at goal but generally everyone needs to practice penalties. Therefore if you are a star midfielder, outside of the goalkeeper, you probably know already what everyone else on your team needs to do well. Compare that to the NFL, where there are three distinct units and within that incredibly specialised roles. QBs don't need to practice catching, receivers don't need to throw the ball and offensive tackles rarely ever even touch the ball. The coaching day for a linebacker is completely different to a quarterback, running back or kicker and the head coach has to manage assistants for all of these.

2. There are only 32 professional franchises and after that it's college football where there is completely different mindset in terms of drafting and developing your players. Competition for these roles is tough. In football, every European country has multiple divisions in a league structure and the second division teams are functionally the same so the transition between say League One or the Championship to the Premier League is much less than college to NFL. This means instead of fighting for 32 opportunities, you have hundreds of teams you can go manage.

3. Outside of maybe set pieces, soccer is way less scripted and designed on a whiteboard with scripted plays and schemes. Play is much fluid and instinctive where you trust your players to move around the pitch, find the passes and generally play more reactively. This is probably similar to playing defense in the NFL but on offense, the playcalling side is a completely different beast where you have to design plays ahead of time which again is not a skill you would get from playing the game as a star

Because playing isnt the same as coaching.

I can easily see Messi or Ronaldo coaching down the road. Many players of their status have done it.

And many more have failed. Pele, maradona are 2 failed managers and 2 of the top 5 players ever.

Zidane/guardiola are exceptions, not the rule.

MLB manager could be done by a scarecrow, NBA and Soccer coaching is mostly giving your team a general plan and supervising their execution

NFL coaching has infinity times more to it than all of those other sports put together. Every single aspect of every play is scrutinized down to the single player, the the position and execution of every single one of them is on the coach; the time that you have to put into has been well documented in this post, but it is absolutely absurd

Well, I'm curious why so many former soccer stars become coaches. Isn't it a ton of work for less money than they made while playing?

Because being a talented individual contributor doesn’t necessarily make you a leader of men.

“Glue” people tend to make the best leaders because they can’t rely solely on their limited talents and most importantly, understand their shortcomings. This allows them to recognize shortcomings in others and motivate them to address them with credibility.

Look no further than Dan Campbell.

They dont wanna have to guard their desks

Its one thing to know your profession and a completely different thing to know how to teach it to others.

Its a completely different skill set.

1. a lot of star players simply do not have the temperament to coach.
2. just because you were good doesn’t mean you understand the tactics of the game enough to actually be a coach that calls plays. They would likely be position coaches.

Deion gets around this because in college you can simply be a recruiter and leave the play calling to the coordinators and still provide a lot of value to the program. If an NFL head coach didn’t have at least some involvement in on the field strategy, I’m not sure what the hell they would be getting paid for.

a lot of times great players don't make great coaches because they were athletic freaks or born with intuition on this stuff and don't "get" how other players don't instinctively understand how to do something like they did when they explain it. they also probably want to enjoy their last couple years with their money before the consequences of a lifetime of concussions catches up to them.

Being an NFL head coach is massively stressful, if you're set up for life from playing there's no reason to do that to get paid less than what you did for playing. Most coaches are like former backup QB's for that reason, they didn't make enough to be set and have to actually work for a living and being a coach is their best career path since their only work experience is playing football.

Not a soccer expert but I think you're underestimating how tactically complex football is in comparison and how hard it would be to just jump straight into being a head coach with no coaching experience. I would never in a million years offer an NFL HC job to someone with no coaching experience no matter how great of a player he was. You have to understand EVERYTHING to be a HC, not just your own position. I'd offer a great QB like Peyton a QB coach job on the spot but there's no reason for him to get paid peanuts for doing that when he can just sit on the stack of money he already got paid and get paid millions more to do a glorified live stream for ESPN.

I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about something similar to this. It was more of a why don’t stars make as good of a coach as a guy that bounces around the league. The stars typically play for one team and therefore learn a very limited number of schemes while the guys bouncing around have to learn several.

They used Wayne Gretzky as an example of a star not being a successful coach. Apparently in practice he was criticizing a player for not being to see something. I don’t remember what it was or if they even said. The point of it though was that for some players, especially the stars, the game slows down so much that the average person or even some other players just can’t see it. You can’t coach that vision.

How else are soccer players gonna pay off their tax evasion charge?

Coaching a football team is a lot of work. The amount of personnel to manage and the degree of strategy going on at both ends of the field is astounding compared to soccer.

Soccer is a free-flowing game and it's a hell of a lot easier on the managers, you're being more of a psychologist and motivator than an actual coach most of the time anyway.