Who is the single most important figure in an NFL franchise?

[Tastycles]

In Britain, we have pretty low rent NFL coverage, but they asked this question the other day, and I thought it was a bit of an interesting one. They offered a number of suggestions, which I'll briefly explain below, but I was wondering which you, as people who certainly understand the sport better than I, would suggest is the most important.

Suggestions:

Owner

The owner is the money man, and obviously without them, there's no way the franchise can function. However, unlike in European sports, there is a salary cap and other budgetary restrictions that prevents a sugar daddy.

GM

The GM handling the running of the club is obviously vital, but do they have the short term impact on the franchise in the same way as the coach?

Head Coach

The coach runs the show on the field and though many have a good deal of autonomy, they don't necessarily have as much say in the playing staff as their European counterparts.

Quarterback

There are few team sports that have a player as obviously integral to the game as American Football's quarterback. However, good but not great quarterbacks have won more often than many of the best people in this position.

They are the lay man arguments, now wow me with something a bit more sophisticated.

 

[Akhilleus]

It is really hard to say and explain, but it depends on a lot of different things. Every one of these options could be the most important, but it really depends on what personnel they have and how their system is set up.

Like you said the biggest responsibilities of the owner all trace back to the money they own, and how much they can spend for their team. Some big time owners, or bigger cities have a lot more money than the smaller ones. This is actually more the case in Major League Baseball rather than football, because in baseball there is no salary cap. The owner also has the make the judgement on who to hire as a GM and other front office positions, and also how to allocate their money. Some owners get their teams into trouble when they have their team overflowed in cap to the point where they cannot make any big free agent moves during the off-season. And with the Dallas Cowboys Jerry Jones is actually not only the owner, but he is also the GM of his team as well. Something that I credit the Cowboy's lack of success on.

So for GM. What the General Manager does on a daily basis is huge in the NFL. Have you ever seen the movie Moneyball? It's a baseball movie, but the role of Billy Beane (The Oakland As GM) in that movie gives you a good idea of what roles a General Manager has, and what they can do for a ball club. Most General Managers have the most influencing in drafting a team, along with the help of the Head Coach and the Owners, but a lot of it has to do with the GM. They also have the responsibility of hiring the on-field staff, and are a big influence for most teams in signing/cutting players along with the Head Coach.

So the Head Coach. In High School and mostly even college the HC I would say is the more important factor of the team, but in the NFL there are so many revolving factors that I don't think the HC is always the biggest reason for success or even decline. They have offensive and defensive coordinators that call the plays, but I'm not sure as to how much or when the head coach overrules those decisions. They decide who to start, who to cut, etc. Another important job of the head coach is game management. When to go for it on fourth down, when to call a timeout, when to challenge a play, etc.

For the Quarterback. In some cases the Quarterback could make the team, but still the QB is nothing without the head coach. Take Tom Brady away from Bill Belichick and I honestly believe you have a different QB. Still a QB that can throw the ball, but nowhere close to what he does on the field now. And plus there are some teams such as the Minnesota Vikings where they don't have a strong Quarterback, but their team is carried by running back Adrian Peterson. The unfortunate thing is I do not think a team can often times win the Super Bowl without a good Quarterback. They can have the best runner in the league, but never reach the Super Bowl. That may be the case with the Vikings, and it was the case with the Lions back in the Barry Sanders day. So without a good enough QB it is extremely difficult to win the Super Bowl especially in this day and age.

So to rank them from least important to most important, I would say the Owner is the least important. Then it's a tossup between Head Coach and Quarterback I couldn't decide which is more important because they both are extremely important. That leaves the GM. The General Manager I think is the most important factor of an NFL team, or an MLB team, or really any professional sports team. They are the ones who build the team. They sign the staff, draft the players, make the trades. Like I said if you haven't seen the movie Moneyball, watch it and you will get exactly what kind of role the GM has in a team.