Tommy: It depends on your coach. There have been coaches at the NFL and college levels that have excelled and won championships as a head coach and playcaller, and there are those that have been both and struggled mightily, but did better once they delegated those duties elsewhere. You have to treat it on a case-by-case basis, and ultimately the head coach needs to decide what’s best for the team: Him calling plays, or him focusing on oversight of everything. Brian Schottenheimer will start out as both for the Cowboys in his first season, and it may stay that way throughout the entire course of his tenure. That said, he could also realize at some point along the way that it’d be better for everyone if someone else called the plays so he could focus on everybody. Either way, there is a chance to be successful and win games, so I don’t think there’s any clear-cut yes or no answer to whether or not head coaches should also be playcallers simply because it’s so different for everyone.
