Oh, Jim.
On Wednesday, a curious news piece came floating through the news feeds concerning new Arizona Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury. It turns out that Kingsbury will be allowing his teams to have cell phone breaks.
This is rather interesting because the last time such a thing was heard around these parts was when then-San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Tomsula implemented a similar policy in 2015. What was the ending to that again? Oh that’s right, the worst offense in the league. Maybe the worst 49ers offense in team history. And the defense was also right up there in shame, 29th in yards allowed.
Ugh.
The balance of being the right type of players’ coach can be an enigma. If you aren’t a hard-nosed disciplinarian, some might say you can’t keep the team on task. If you hard-nosed, you run the risk of losing the locker room if you push them too hard. If you are a players’ coach, and one that tries to be liked by all, you run the risk of the team getting too buddy-buddy and sloppy as seen in 2015.
Now, to be fair, Kliff Kingsbury isn’t Jim Tomsula, and there’s more than one way to skin a cat in this scenario. Tomsula gave a 10-minute break every 30 minutes, which means in a two-hour meeting, you’re getting 40 minutes of cell phone time. So for nearly three hours, you spend almost a third of that time on your phone. It doesn’t appear to be the best ratio. If it’s a 30 second break just to answer those nagging text messages or argue with your most hated 49ers writer on Twitter, it’s doubtful that will have an impact on the efficiency.
But who wants to use logic at a time like this? All I can think of is how this blew up in Tomsula’s face. The players sure loved him, but boy, did the 49ers stink that year.
The 49ers fan in me endorses this cell phone policy, because it worked soooo well for the Cardinals’ division rivals when they tried it.
About the Author: Insidethe49
