The coach calls in the play, he doesn't tell players specifically what to do.
Now, that's duplicitous.
The coach has in advance drawn up the play very carefully. Each player has been told exactly what he or she (there are getting to be a few shes now) is to do, and they rehearse the plays over and over until the coach is satisfied that each player knows precisely what he or she is to do. It's true that the play never works exactly as diagrammed, that there is a good deal of intelligence required (American football players may well be the most educated professional athletes in the world), and that the smartest players do best. But still, the coach has tried very hard to work out everything the opposition might do and has told each player specifically what to do if, say, this opponent does this or that or the other, and has practiced that until it becomes second nature.
So to say that the coach calls the plays but doesn't tell the players specifically what to do is not really accurate. By drawing up the plays in excruciating detail, and by practicing them under his watchful eye dozens or hundreds of times, he has indeed told them specifically what to do.
But football has evolved into a sport of great flexibility, so that what a player does when he gets to the line of scrimmage may well depend on how well he reads or predicts what the opponent will do -- if it's a blitz, he does this, if not, he does that, if zone coverage, this, if man-to-man that, if the defender is shading in, this, if the defender is playing straight away that, if the defender is shading out, the other, etc.
But still, the coach is doing his level best to make sure every player does precisely what he has been told to do. The best coaches are the ones who can communicate this best. |
