I came across the really interesting piece written by an author who obviously follows NFL first and got introduced to rugby union second.
Nationalfootballpost.com
– Jack Bechta
While living in southern California I have followed rugby pretty closely and have befriended many current and former players. I have grown to respect everything that it stands for, let alone I just love the majestic brutality of the sport. As it stands rugby is not just a sport but also the world’s greatest fraternity where the team concept reigns supreme over any individual’s personal agenda.
The heart and soul of rugby is playing for your brothers. The antics of Ocho and TO would never stand a chance, as there is no tolerance for individualism.
What the NFL can learn from Rugby
An intimate atmosphere: While I was in London this past week for the Bears vs Bucs game, I attended an English Premiership League match featuring the Saracens and the Exeter Chiefs. The Saracens, one of England’s legendary clubs founded in 1876, whipped up on the Chiefs 43 to 20. Sitting with the Saracens fans was like sitting with the family of the players. There is a unique dedication, intimacy and loyalty that differ from how NFL fans support their team. I’m not saying one is better than the other, just different. For instance, when a rugby club has a losing season there is more sympathy, compassion and understanding versus the sharp criticism that we see in the NFL. The two sports do carry some similarities on the field but differ greatly in the locker room and in the stands.
Chemistry and team building: The Saracens are notorious for taking good care of their players. For example, the team goes on several retreats a year together in the off-season for some R&R and serious bonding. The goal is to build an environment where players play for the guy next to them. It’s a also a way for the owners to say “thank you” for their players’ service and a way to continuously build team chemistry. On the contrary, NFL owners say thank you by rewarding rich individual contracts. Although Rugby doesn’t have the riches the NFL does, they work hard to make their players feel appreciated. Even more importantly, building unselfishness, a team first attitude and chemistry is where rugby smashes the NFL.
Fostering life skills: While talking to some of the players I was shocked to discover that 85% of the team was pursuing graduate degrees facilitated by the club. It’s actually mandatory for a Saracens’ player under 23 to pursue an education curriculum. Additionally, the players take pride in being daily ambassadors for their team and sport. The team actually attended the NFL game together. The owners supplied the tickets. Many of the team supporters have an open door policy for internships and social opportunities. If I were an NFL coach or GM I would study how the Rugby way fosters team chemistry.
Tackling: As physically brutal as Rugby is, the players do a fantastic job of tackling with proper form, thus, preventing injuries, especially concussions. Tackling drills are a daily component of any rugby practice whether it’s in season or off-season. In football, at any level, it just doesn’t get taught enough and there is an expectation from NFL coaches that it should be mastered by the time a player hits the league. Maybe if we spent more time on proper football tackling techniques, fewer players will be hurt.
What Rugby can learn from the NFL
League Management: Each individual rugby club does a magnificent job in taking care of its own. Teams like the All Blacks, or Auckland Blues are significantly richer than many other clubs, mainly because each club is managed with significant differences. The owners and managers don’t work on a collective level such as the NFL does by centralizing their powers to the commissioners’ office and creating collective marketing efforts. The stuffed shirts who are navigating top Rugby leagues are missing the mark dramatically. They are also so resistant to change that they can’t get out of their own way and hence have dramatically limited the profitability and growth of the sport. The bottom line is they do a great job in running individual teams but not a league. These powers that be in rugby need to study the NFL model.
TV and rights fees: There is no better league in the world than the NFL when it comes to marketing their media rights. Rugby does a horrible job at this and has challenges with the way their markets consume sports on TV.
Union leadership and structure: To my surprise, the Rugby Union does not collect player salary information and share it with the players. Although Rugby has only been a professional sport for about 16 years there is money to be made and shared by all. The need for a solid union must come about and the players have to come together and share their collective concerns.
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October 27th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Hi Morne
Really interesting piece, thanks for posting. I’m going to get a link to it on my feed so that my US-readers can get a little insight as to what they’re missing!
I’m a big fan of NFL, I love the technical quality of the sport. That’s the one thing that the article doesn’t put in, because the NFL is many, many years ahead of rugby in terms of the analysis done by coaches and players to work out opposition. The game analysis side of the sport is at another level, it’s quite astonishing. The professionalism of the coaches is similarly mind-blowing.
In fact, if there is anyone reading this, who is an aspirant coach, then the “must-read” books to become a better coach are almost all written by coaches from the NFL – Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy are three of the most incredible, and their books on team management, player selection, coaching and organization are the “bibles” of coaching.
I think rugby needs to learn from these men, because if rugby could introduce even some of that approach, the game would move forward enormously.
The other big difference is the analysis and insight provided through the media. Easy in the USA to do this, of course, because they have probably 1000 journalists who cover professional football and another 1000 who cover college football. But it’s at another level, compared to our rugby coverage on SuperSport, which is frankly really tepid, at least in terms of insight.
That show “Masterplan”, for example, was a step up from the usual SuperSport rugby offering, but it was really nothing compared to what is produced by the networks in the USA. I’m partial to good, intelligent analysis, but that’s something else rugby can learn from the NFL.
Ross
October 27th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Reply to Ross Tucker @ 6:14 pm:
Hi Ross,
I must say upon reading this first up my initial reaction was; ‘Do we want rugby to become as commercially dependent as the NFL is?’
Which leaves me with a bit of a conflict as I have, for many years stated rugby needs to become more professional not only in administration, but also commercialisation, analysis, coaching and player responsibility.
I think we need to be careful to adopt a model or any aspect of a model in isolation from one code or sport to the next.
What this author highlights for me is what the amateur side of rugby union has managed to preserve (and NFL lost) which is essential in a team sport – so a balance is needed in some way or form.
But the fact that we can learn from each other is quite obvious.
October 27th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
“The Saracens are notorious for taking good care of their players.”
——–
Notorious?
I always thought the word has a
negative connotation?
Certainly according to the way it
is translated into Afrikaans.
?
October 27th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 6:21 pm:
Correct…
Perhaps there are too many trips to the ‘knocking shops’
October 27th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
hmmm good article. did jake white not visit nfl clubs at some stage?
October 28th, 2011 at 3:40 am
What I think NFL can learn from rugby:
Head coach should be up in the box for a better view vs being on the sidelines. Such a better vantage point and the coordinator coaches on the sidelines could manage just fine it’s a machine with all the coordinators they have. Besides, New Orleans head coach blew his knee out last weekend with an out of bounds collision.
What NFL is hella-serious about now & will rugby catch on:
Concussions. NFL is the USA sport by a country mile. Nothing even close. The only vulnerability I have ever seen in nFL has been bad press about older players killing themselves due to concussions later in life. If you get concussed – you are out of the game full stop. You have to undergo a battery of tests to get back the next week. 2nd concussion? Looking at missing 2-4 weeks. 3rd in season – it’s over for that year.
If Habana was in NFL when he got wobbly during the Aus game I think it was, he would have been gone.
Not too much good natured-ness with opposing fans. Are there many fights in the stands or after the game in rugby?
NFL has many altercations in the stands-especially pre-season games.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Reply to Americano @ 3:40 am: I may be wrong here but I think in NFL they have a technical analyst type of guy who communicates with the coach on the sidelines, he analyses the game as its happening and gets the info to the coach.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:22 am
Reply to Provincejoulekkading @ 9:09 am:
As far as I know some of the top teams have heart monitors etc. attached and often replacements are done according to recovery rates based on this monitors.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Reply to Ollie @ 9:22 am: Hell even the Springboks have that.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:42 am
Reply to Provincejoulekkading @ 9:34 am:
True, it’s at S15 and CC level as well. But just trying to point out that there is some sort of analysis happening.
Also, those laptops open in front of the (ass.) coaches is not for causal web surfing. It’s probably not on the level of the NFL but Prozone is doing a lot to improve rugby’s real time stats and helping analysis
October 28th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Reply to Ollie @ 9:42 am: True true, I guess in the NFL its a case of techie upstairs doing the nitty gritty while the coach is on the deck where he can still “feel” the game.
Its still a game and not all about the stats.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:31 am
Reply to Provincejoulekkading @ 9:09 am:
Indeed they do… a number of them… however most rugby teams do too (Dick Muir to Percy ‘the waterboy’)… although I didn’t see that happening this RWC?
October 28th, 2011 at 10:36 am
Reply to bryce_in_oz @ 10:31 am: Almost all rugby teams use the water boy or doctor to convery the messages to the team, what we were referring to in NFL is the headcoach being on the sidelines instead of in the skybox
October 28th, 2011 at 11:41 am
Reply to bryce_in_oz @ 10:31 am:
BRYCE
Do the Wobblies tour EOY or is the
match vs the Baabaas a one-off?
And the Kiwis?
October 28th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 11:41 am:
They play the Welsh as well which should be a good rematch.
Matfield and Brian going over for the Barbarians… Brian will probably score another hat-trick now he’s away from Bok coaches, like his last Barbarians win against the AB’s…
Reply to Provincejoulekkading @ 10:36 am:
I thought you were emphasising the ‘techie in the stands to game-side’ bit…
October 28th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Reply to Ollie @ 9:22 am:
I’ve seen the straps the players have around their chests but I do not see how it can be legal and useful during a game.
(j) A player must not wear communication devices within that player’s clothing or attached to
the body
(c) A player must not wear any items containing buckles, clips, rings, hinges, zippers, screws,
bolts or rigid material or projection not otherwise permitted under this Law.
A heart rate monitor must have a battery and that would be rigid. For a coach to get information from the monitor during the game it must have a communication device.
Or is it another law that is just ignored?
October 28th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Reply to bryce_in_oz @ 12:31 pm:
Thanks.
October 28th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 11:41 am:
Speaking of NFL and Rugby… Ireland have just SMASHED Australia in the annual International Rules Tour (an AFL/Gaelic football hybrid)…
October 28th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Reply to Timeo @ 1:18 pm:
I’m not sure about the laws, but I think by communication they mean ear pieces for verbal communication whereby instructions can be passed to the players.
The batteries in those heart monitors etc. are really small and they velcro the straps so it is no danger to players.
October 29th, 2011 at 12:20 am
Maybe referring to this?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/02/25/nfl-hopefuls-new-smart-shirts-know-them-inside-out/
The only electronic gear I’m familiar with in actual games is the 2-way radio in QB helmet and on defense in the Middle LB helmet.
They go out often so hand signals/sub bring in play have to then be used.
October 29th, 2011 at 2:13 am
Reply to Ollie @ 2:32 pm:
The law is exactly as I post it up there and the directives the law refers to make no exemptions. A heart rate monitor that communicate information would be illegal.
They can change it if they want, but just like the scrum put-in they just tolerate the transgressions. From it follows the reduced credibility we discussed on the other thread.
October 29th, 2011 at 2:20 am
Reply to Americano @ 3:40 am:
Don’t know how it is these days but fights in the stands at Loftus used to be very common. Saw a couple every game I attended.
I remember some cans being thrown on the field in Durban a year or two ago.
Rugby has a dark side also. Named Piet van Zyl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8S2bJN2pY
November 1st, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Interesting read.