It seemed NFL coaches were so old when I was a kid. Don Shula, Marv Levy, Bill Parcells, Dan Reeves, they all looked so old. Maybe I was just young and all those guys were just in their 40’s (which now, I might add, is quite young). No doubt, NFL coaching seemed like an old man’s game.
No longer is that the trend. The following NFL coaches are in the 40-or-younger crowd: Mike McDaniel, Kevin Stefanski, Brandon Staley, Sean McVay, Kevin O’Connell, ZacTaylor, Nick Sirianni and Arthur Smith. That’s one quarter of the head coaches in the NFL that are 40-years-old or younger. The NFL coaching youth movement is a very real thing.
When will that move to the NFL studio shows? That remains to be seen. Those shows are massive money makers for FOX and CBS but they have also started to trend a bit older. The networks are doing all they can to hook younger viewers to guarantee a long term viewership of games they pay billions to air. Need I remind you of the CBS/Nickelodeon simulcast of NFL Playoff games? The Over 50 crowd doesn’t know what it meant to “get slimed”; shoutout, Marc Summers.
It is startling to look at the cast of each studio show and the last time they were active in the NFL. Start with the desk of The NFL Today on CBS:
Bill Cowher – 2006
Boomer Esaiason – 1997
Phil Simms – 1993
Nate Burleson – 2013
The FOX numbers are even more startling. Look at the last active years of the analysis on FOX NFL Sunday:
Terry Bradshaw- 1983
Howie Long – 1993
Jimmy Johnson – 1999
Michael Strahan – 2007
If you are a 20-year-old NFL viewer, the only person of those eight analysts you can reasonably be expected to remember playing or coaching is Nate Burleson. This is not to say these shows don’t serve their purpose, to entertain and inform, not at all. Those shows can be very entertaining and the combined Hall of Fame knowledge on those two desks is unparalleled. But, in an entertainment world that is trending younger, when does the youth movement start?
Here’s one major issue, that list of players and coaches above have a lot of mustard jackets among them. Having a Hall of Fame lineup certainly lends credibility to any group of analysts, that said credibility can’t outweigh entertainment. If any show isn’t entertaining, it will not last long. These shows have found a way to weave in humor with the Pro Football Hall of Fame level of analysis.
But humor to some generations is not humor to all generations. What is funny to a guy in his 60’s may not reel in the 20-30’s crowd. Don’t tell me FOX and CBS are not interested in that group, they know it is crucial to long term success. FOX is so interested in that group they spent time using Snapchat filters on their hosts during the Thanksgiving studio shows. Make no mistake, that day brings a massive audience for FOX and CBS.
In fact, according to FOX Sports, the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game was watched by 42 Million viewers, the most-watched regular season game on any network on record. This is as big as it gets until the NFL reaches the postseason. It was on that stage FOX chose to use the Snapchat angle, knowing families were gathered across the nation watching that game. That meant an entryway to the younger demographic looking for anything to watch to get away from the conversation with their elderly aunt.
According to Omnicore Agency, Snapchat has 319,000,000 users and 65% of 18-29-year-olds in the United States use Snapchat. This is the audience FOX was trying to reach on their Thanksgiving studio show. It is the audience they would love to reach every Sunday.
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have shown even the biggest names will walk straight from the most successful of careers to an NFL telecast. Manning is part of his production company’s Manning Cast during Monday Night Football and Tom Brady is slated for the main FOX booth after his retirement. If those two guys see value in it, you can bet most any player would.
FOX’s hand will soon be forced, Jimmy Johnson is 79 and Terry Bradshaw is 74. Those two can’t work forever and there will need to be a plan in place for the sake of continuity. The difficult thing is identifying which players or coaches have the gravitas to sit on that desk with those Hall of Famers.
Age comes for all of us and there isn’t a Snapchat filter that can change that. If they do invent one, maybe my kids will tell me about it…and show me how to use it.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
