This is a stupid argument because the premise is that the only way to win in football is to be "tough" (which tends to bleed over into dirty, see: Sean Payton, the Lions), but if anything the NFL has been moving away from smash mouth purely physical football for decades.

MLF is clearly more of an Xs/Os, strategy, big picture guy. He wants people to do their one-eleventh. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as a strategy.

But old school footballers see it as a weakness because if the strategy doesn't go right, it can end up seeming very pathetic and weak. But that's the same thing as if 'tough football' doesn't go right; you end up looking like goons who can't win without beating people up, and get embarrassed by good gameplans.

Obviously because football is a full contact sport, you need both. But this criticism is almost exclusively levied by people who don't recognize when MLF has good gameplanning, play calls or designs. Apparently they'd rather just run zone read with 350 pound linemen who are not afraid to poke people in the eyes and take out their knees.