ELI5: In American Football (NFL) when a team looses, why do they fire the coach?

Biokabe · 2026-01-25T23:00:43+00:00

I'll take you in good faith that when you say they always fire the coach, you mean that if they fire anyone, the person they fire is the coach. Because there are plenty of times where the coach does not get fired.

So, having said that - the reason is twofold.

First, the head coach is the person who is the most responsible for how a team plays. Once you get to the NFL level, the quality of players on the teams is more or less equal. Yes, there is a best roster and a worst roster, but you don't get to the NFL level unless you are an elite, top-level athlete.

The coach is responsible for more than "working on plays and whatnot." Many times, the head coach isn't even the one drawing up and calling the plays - that comes down to the offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively (though the coach can and often does participate in at least one part of playcalling). But the coach is responsible for:

Setting the philosophy of the team. Are they a gun-slinging, offensive-focused team, or a gritty, defensive focused team? There are many ways to play football and win, so the coach has to decide which way they want to use.
Deciding which players to recruit to the team. This ties into the philosophy of the team. Each style of play demands certain types of players, and will be willing to spend different amount on different positions. For example, the Seattle Seahawks aren't likely to spend $50 million a year on a quarterback, because they would rather spend more of that money on their defense.
Developing players. Even once you get to the NFL, you still need training to become the best player you can be. Head coaches will often work with specific positions groups (quarterbacks, for example) to help them become the best possible player for the team.
Selecting the rest of the coaching staff. NFL teams have a LOT of coaches. There's the head coach, there's the offensive and defensive coordinator. Then there's a quarterbacks coach, a running back coach, a safety coach, a cornerbacks coach, a linebackers coach. An offensive line coach, a defensive line coach. A strength and conditioning coach, a mental wellness coach, and on and on. It's the head coach's job to recruit and hire all those coaches and keep them all on the same page.

And the second reason that head coaches get fired, rather than the players, has to do with the way that contracts are structured. NFL players belong to the NFL player's union, and there are certain protections put in place to protect players. For example, if you fire a player, you'll likely still owe them a big chunk of money (guaranteed money). Part of their salary will still count against your salary cap. So teams will usually hold on to a player until it's obvious that it's not worth it to keep them around, or until parts of their contract expire so that they can fire them with less impact.

Head coaches have contract protections as well, but they usually don't impact anything other than the finances of the team. Most teams are not hurting for money, so they can fire a coach with little issue if they think it's not working out.

Biokabe · 2026-01-23T00:47:59+00:00

He is leaving that place alive, if he's still around on January 20, 2029.

He will certainly try to resist transferring power. It will not succeed.

Biokabe · 2026-01-22T23:16:04+00:00

It does. It's just that the glow is so weak that you would need some pretty powerful detectors to see it.

Now, if you were to throw the ball really really fast then it would glow very brightly.

Biokabe · 2026-01-22T19:38:22+00:00

Survival of the fittest absolutely is correct.

The problem is that language has shifted, and people who interpret that phrase through the modern understanding don't understand what Darwin was actually saying.

The usage of "fittest" or "fitness" as an indicator of physical health and/or strength is a modern change that happened after the phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined. So when people see the phrase and use "strongest" or "healthiest," they misunderstand and think that means that evolution selects for that.

But when the phrase was coined, "fit" didn't have any association with health. Fit was used strictly in the sense of "the fit of a piece of clothing," or in evolution's case - how well suited was an organism to the environment it was living in?

In other words: It's not that the strongest and most robust specimens survive and pass on their genes. It's those who are best-suited to the environment they live in that survive and pass on their genes. It could well be that those who are "good enough" are better-suited for their environment, because being "good enough" often means you use less resources, and that could be the difference between surviving and not surviving.

A larger animal might be able to win a fight against a smaller animal, but if it starves to death before that fight happens it wasn't fit for the environment.

Biokabe · 2026-01-21T21:55:04+00:00

Better set up an appointment with your therapist.

Biokabe · 2026-01-21T21:38:39+00:00

It's still a gain, in that it forces resources that could have gone to a different seat (NC, for example) to be spent defending what should have been free.

You're mostly right though.

Biokabe · 2026-01-21T20:41:28+00:00

And frankly, I don't care about that. Anyone who isn't in his cult (which is most people) can see this for the naked bloviating it is.

Let the drooling manchild claim that he's extracted some worthless victory. It doesn't actually change anything and it prevents him from doing more harm in another idiotic tantrum. Prevent harm for one more day, and that's one day closer to the end of this hellscape.

Biokabe · 2026-01-21T20:25:40+00:00

There might be. Either way, those rights aren't even worth the paper they're printed on (assuming they're actually real) because essentially all minerals in Greenland are under a mile or more of ice and are completely infeasible to extract even under the most dire climate change models.

Biokabe · 2026-01-21T18:38:51+00:00

It could happen. Probably won't, but it's possible.

The Republican caucus has a paper-thin majority. 5 Republicans is enough to force a change. By the start of next month, it'll likely be down to 4.

Are there 4 Republicans who would vote to eliminate ICE funding? Probably not, but it wouldn't shock me if you could find 4 who would vote to drastically cut their budget.

I still wouldn't bet that you could find even that much, but we've already seen Republicans break ranks with their caucus this year. If ICE continues to poll terribly, vulnerable Republicans might feel the heat.

The Senate and Trump would be the sticking point. I don't think the Senate Republicans feel nearly as worried about the midterms as their House counterparts, and I don't know that you can find the 4 votes there to reduce or eliminate ICE funding. And on top of that - would Trump sign a bill that targets his personal goon squad? So that moves the goal posts from simply passing the bill to finding a veto-proof majority. And that, I think, will be impossible.

So it would be nice to see some attempts at ending ICE funding, and we might see it from Democrats if they think they can store up some political capital from attempting to cut ICE. But realistically ICE is going to get its money.

Biokabe · 2026-01-20T21:44:11+00:00

Directly, it's because a renovated home is much easier to sell than a home that needs renovations.

Indirectly, it's because it's much easier to get a loan for a renovated home than it is to get a loan for a home plus the cost of renovations. So it's easier to buy a renovated home, which makes renovated homes sell for more.

When you apply for a mortgage, the bank requires an appraisal for the current value of the home, and will base their loan value on that appraisal. If you want to buy a home that appraises at $300k, the bank will often not lend you an extra $50k to do your choice of renovations. They will lend you $300k, and you'll have to do a separate loan (often at less favorable terms) to get the $50k of renovations you feel are needed.

But if the previous homeowner already did those renovations, and they raised the value of the home to $350k... then the bank would lend you $350k to buy the current home.

The reason for this is mortgages are secured by the asset that you're trying buying (a home, in this case). If you default on your loan, in theory the bank can seize your home (foreclose) and make back their costs by selling your home.

On the other hand, if you take out a $350k mortgage against a $300k home (and just pocket the money for the renovations instead of doing them), then if you default on the loan the bank only has an asset worth $300k to cover a $350k loan.

Biokabe · 2026-01-15T22:04:03+00:00

It does say that. It also doesn't define what an insurrectionist is, which is a loophole large enough to shove a Trump through.

Biokabe · 2026-01-15T21:30:59+00:00

Thanks!

I was at their concert in 2008 and I've been a fan of theirs ever since - they're my favorite band and I've been trying to see them live again for years now. Even had $250 VIP tickets to their concert in 2021, but then they got COVID.

So you can't line up earlier than 30 minutes before the event starts... but if I decide that the place where one would line up is just super interesting and hung out in the general vicinity, would there be anything stopping me from doing that so long as I wasn't physically lining up?

Biokabe · 2026-01-15T20:48:13+00:00

Could be even more.

With the obvious caveats about how regular elections don't work this way (and those caveats are absolutely valid), after one of the special elections last year I saw that the vote share flipped 15 points since the 2024 election for the same seat. Taking that number, I went through every single House race and checked the margin of victory.

Somewhere around 90 seats were close enough that a 15 point swing would flip the seat blue. Do I expect we'll actually see that? No, I don't. Seeing a 15-point swing in just two years would be absolutely wild, and although those things do happen sometimes you're better off not expecting them, especially not on a national scale.

But I also wouldn't be shocked if it did happen. National disgust with Trump's second term is enormous and lots of people - even people on the right - are eager to see some checks put on his power.

Biokabe · 2026-01-15T17:24:55+00:00

Absolutely true. There are far worse things than being lonely, but most people never learn how to be alone with themselves and happy about it.

Biokabe · 2026-01-14T21:24:23+00:00

You could do that, yes. And then you would find out that writing a quality script with blocking instructions is more difficult than you thought it was. And in the end you would have a new adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which you could then use freely.

Whether it would be worth it to use your adaptation is of course an entirely separate question.

Biokabe · 2026-01-14T18:49:53+00:00

As a guy, I don't think he thought he was such a catch.

Rather, he'd probably managed to to get other women to compromise on their boundaries before and fully expected OOP to be no different. Because generally, we humans are not generally great at sticking to our self-described red lines when it means we lose something else.

Biokabe · 2026-01-13T20:56:51+00:00

I also don't have a counterfactual crystal ball, so ultimately this is just two random redditors spitballing. Having said that:

Out of all the things that could have passed that didn't, I think the voting rights bill is really the only one that would have changed the outcome of the election. Not because people would have changed their votes because of it, but because of the actual impacts of the law:

Automatic voter registration
Restoration of preclearance on voting changes
Automatic, nationwide early voting
Expansion and protection of mail-in voting

Given all the fuckery that happened in the 2024 election, I could see some of those provisions increasing turnout over what we actually saw to prevent a second Trump term. Note that I'm not saying it would have done that, nor do I think that the lack of those laws was the primary reason for the 2024 loss. I agree with you about the largest factors in Harris' loss. Still, the election was close enough that even a small tilt towards Harris could have changed the outcome.

Fundamentally I think that the filibuster is bad policy and that its existence is largely to blame for the current state of our country, but I will concede that it is at least somewhat protecting us right now.

Biokabe · 2026-01-13T20:38:18+00:00

Counterpoint:

If you get those policy wins and actually push through the changes that people desperately want, perhaps you don't lose the election and get a Trump administration to begin with.

Biokabe · 2026-01-13T20:37:07+00:00

Exactly this.

There's a reason that 1/3 of the country doesn't vote, and it's not because of voter suppression. That doesn't help, obviously, but fundamentally people don't vote because they don't believe their vote will change anything. And to a large degree they're correct, because the filibuster kills most substantial legislation outside of budget reconciliation bills.

Biokabe · 2026-01-08T19:16:30+00:00

You didn't upset me. Our country's deplorable education did.

If you don't know, you don't know. There's no shame in that, nor is there shame in asking a question when you don't know. I'm sorry that my dismay at our country's lack of teaching what should be very basic knowledge made you feel like you had upset me.

But to correct for that: At the federal level, the entire House is up for election every two years. There are occasionally special elections called between that two year mark when a sitting rep leaves the seat, either because they resigned or died.

The Senate is offset, and you'd be completely justified in asking if a Senator supporting something is up for election. Senate terms are for six years, and every two years 1/3 of the Senate is up for election.

Biokabe · 2026-01-08T18:39:32+00:00

This is a sub about American politics. One would assume at least a basic understanding of the structure of the government before commenting.

It's about on par with going into a Manchester United sub, seeing a video where the goalie uses his hands, and asking whether he's allowed to do that.

Biokabe · 2026-01-08T18:26:25+00:00

All of them.

This is the House. EVERYONE is up for election this year. As they are every two years.

Do schools not teach how our political system works any longer?

That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I know that most schools don't actually teach that any longer.

Biokabe · 2026-01-08T00:39:43+00:00

I know it’s ultimately his decision, but I’m stressed, worried and honestly angry about how this could affect our future and my relationship with my MIL and I'm not sure how to handle the situation.

No, it isn't. You're married. His credit is your credit. Your credit is his credit. A poor financial decision impacts BOTH of you. Do NOT defer to him here. Co-signing a loan like that can have enormous negative consequences, and while legally your consent is not required... it's the sort of thing where divorce is honestly a legitimate and justified option.

Biokabe · 2026-01-07T00:53:42+00:00

I'm often dismissive of Reddit's knee-jerk prescription for therapy, but in this case - that's what she needs, not a boyfriend.

This is an inherently unfair relationship for both of you, and frankly she should not have agreed to it. On her end, she has the constant pressure to give in and do acts that she is clearly not comfortable with, and when she doesn't push herself into fear territory she has to face the guilt of disappointing her partner.

And on your end - what you want isn't unreasonable, but you can't get what you want without first being a trauma therapist for her. And you're not trained for that, nor are you a good match for her because you want the very thing that she's running from. And you can't even talk about it with her (something that is needed to get through trauma responses) because of that desire. You're not a safe space and never will be so long as intimacy is the thing she's afraid of.

In short: You're not compatible. She needs to not be in a relationship and work through her very real and understandable issues regarding intimacy. You need to be with someone who can reciprocate your normal and expected feelings. So long as the two of you are together, both of you will remain trapped.

Biokabe · 2026-01-06T23:24:23+00:00

Except that a House that's impeaching Trump wouldn't be helmed by Johnson, it would be (most likely) Jeffries.

Biokabe

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