Ray R
Club Member
Because they typically don't have any direct interaction with the players. They're simply there to analyze film based on specialized situations.
"Assistant coaches" don't always coach the players. Nowdays, everything is specialized. A lot of times you basically have two coaches at every position.
For example, in college football you're only allowed to have so many coaches on staff - coaches that are allowed to actually interact with the players, and recruit. But there's no limit on the number of "analysts" you can have. Because they're not coaching the players. They're simply walking, living, breathing databases that are earning a paycheck charting statistics.
It's similar to how Saban hired former head coaches like Lane Kiffin or Butch Jones or D.J. Durkin as analysts to be on his staff when they needed a job. The best coaches are always on the cutting edge of evolution.
Conversely, the other side of it is how Brian Flores and the Dolphins hired Coach Farrell away from Saban and Alabama a few months ago. Farrell was assistant special teams coach/offensive analyst under Saban. But he couldn't recruit or interact with the players on the field. However, Saban and Flores felt that he was ready to take the next step in his coaching career and begin teaching techniques. A lot of young coaches and/or former players might not have teaching skills yet - but they understand the ins and outs of playing a specific position. In a lot of ways, it's just a way to get former players into coaching. It's kinda what used to be referred to as a GA (graduate assistant) back in the day. That's how you got your start into coaching in my day. You didn't have analysts.
Thanks. This does address what I saw as a "dislocation" of job and accountability.