Quarterback & Coach: A Relationship That Shapes Legacies
Season two of Netflix’s Quarterback series is another must-watch. This season features Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and a return performance by Kirk Cousins. But what stood out most wasn’t just the on-field action — it was the off-field dynamic between quarterbacks and their head coaches.
For both Jared and Kirk, the feeling of betrayal by their coaching staffs and front office was palpable. That struck a chord with me and brought back memories of my own transition from college football into the NFL — and how the QB-coach relationship changed dramatically along the way.
A Foundation Built at Lehigh
While at Lehigh University, I couldn’t have asked for a better relationship with my coaching staff. Head coach Fred Dunlap was my kind of leader — a military man with sharp organizational skills, disciplined but also a good listener who could show compassion when it mattered. At Lehigh, then a Division II program (now FCS), player retention was vital. Fred had to navigate not only high academic standards but also every kind of student-athlete quirk you can imagine.
Our offensive coordinator, John Whitehead, doubled as the offensive line coach and was a tough taskmaster. Together, Whitehead and Dunlap ran a collaborative operation. I often found myself in their cigar smoke-filled offices after practice — first observing their game-planning process, and eventually contributing to it. By my senior year, I was calling 80% of our plays either from the huddle or at the line of scrimmage.
It was a high-functioning, trust-based relationship. They taught. I learned. They supported. I grew. Coach Dunlap is in his 90s now — still shooting his age in golf and sending me handwritten notes about The Quarterback Connection. I’m still learning from him.
A Rude Awakening in the NFL
When I was drafted in the third round by the Atlanta Falcons, I assumed the NFL QB-coach relationship would be just as collaborative.
It wasn’t.
In my first five years in the league, I had five different head coaches — four in just four years with the Falcons alone. Stability was non-existent. I found most of my early NFL coaches to be aloof and distant. Hell, most of them were too worried about job security to invest in developing players. Relationships felt transactional.
So when I see quarterbacks today navigating similar challenges, I understand exactly what they’re going through.
Jared Goff: From Franchise Face to Trade Bait
Jared Goff was the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NFL Draft by the Rams. By 2018, he had led the team to a 13–3 season and a Super Bowl appearance. That same year, Goff was named second-team All-Pro and in 2019 signed a four-year, $134 million extension — including a record-setting $110 million guaranteed.
And yet, less than two years later, Goff was shipped to Detroit as part of the trade for Matthew Stafford. The Rams gave up two first-round picks and a third-rounder just to make the deal happen — making Goff feel like a throw-in.
The worst part? Goff said he never saw it coming. “There was nothing,” he said in the Netflix series. “No heads-up, no warning. Just a quick call from Sean McVay — and 30 seconds later, it was on Twitter.”
There’s an old adage in the NFL: You’re only as good as your last game. It certainly seems to apply to quarterbacks.
Losing the Luster
Goff had a 44–27 record in five seasons as the Rams’ starter, 107 touchdown passes, and only one missed start due to injury. He was twice named All-Pro and played through pain. But that one missed start came in Week 17, when he broke a finger.
Cleared to play in the Wild Card Round, he began the game as the backup to little-used John Wolford. The Rams won with defense as Jared struggled to regain form. Los Angeles exited the playoffs with a whimper the next week, with Goff passing for just 174 yards in a road loss at Green Bay.
Dan Campbell: A Players’ Coach?
To his credit, Goff didn’t sulk. In Detroit, he found a new home and a coach who believed in him: Dan Campbell.
“In hindsight, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Goff said on the Trading Cards podcast. “I feel like I’ve got the keys here.”
And he’s used them well. In 2024, the Lions went 15–2 with Goff throwing for 37 touchdowns, completing 72.4% of his passes, and posting a QBR of 68.4 — all career highs. He made his fourth Pro Bowl and finished fifth in MVP voting.
Goff has repeatedly praised Campbell’s “emotional intelligence” and leadership skills, noting his ability to connect with players on a personal level — something Goff didn’t always experience as a younger player with the Rams.
Kirk Cousins: Loyalty, Leadership, and Fallout in Minnesota and Atlanta
Kirk Cousins has long been underestimated. Drafted in the fourth round by Washington in 2012, he sat for three years until eventually supplanting Robert Griffin III. He went on to post three straight 4,000-yard seasons.
In 2018, Cousins tested free agency and signed the NFL’s first fully guaranteed contract: three years, $84 million with the Minnesota Vikings. His tenure there was statistically strong — a 50–31 record and over 150 touchdown passes — but his relationship with then-head coach Mike Zimmer was rocky. Reports suggested Zimmer never truly respected Cousins.
Everything changed when Kevin O’Connell arrived as head coach in 2022. The two had worked together in Washington, where O’Connell was Cousins’ QB coach. When O’Connell took the job in Minnesota, he cited his relationship with Cousins as a key factor.
According to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, O’Connell replayed a 2021 clip in their first team meeting — Cousins standing tall against a blitz and delivering a perfect strike. O’Connell told the room: “It takes a special ability to sit there, stare down the barrel, get hit in the face and throw with accuracy.”
Cousins recalled, “He was empowering me in front of the team. He wasn’t just building a football team — he was building people.”
That season, Cousins led the Vikings to a 13–4 record, engineered eight game-winning drives (tying an NFL record), and orchestrated the largest comeback in NFL history — a 39–36 OT win over the Colts after trailing by 33. The Vikings went 11–0 in one-score games and made the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
But Then It All Changed
In 2023, Cousins got off to a lightning start, throwing 18 touchdowns while completing 69.5% of his passes through the first seven games. But in the fourth quarter of Week 8 vs. the Packers, he suffered a season-ending torn Achilles.
Without him, the team limped to a 3–6 finish and missed the playoffs. The Vikings, unsure of his long-term future, offered just a one-year deal. Cousins wanted more security.
As he said on Netflix: “There was nothing about anywhere that made me want to leave Minnesota. We wanted to be in Minnesota, but it became clear we were going to be there year-to-year. And that’s what we didn’t want. At that point, we said, ‘Alright, we need to look elsewhere.’”
Did the Falcons Hand Him the Keys?
Cousins found a suitor willing to commit: the Atlanta Falcons. In March 2024, they signed him to a four-year, $180 million deal with $100 million guaranteed — the largest free-agent contract in NFL history.
He thought he had his long-term security.
Then came the twist. Just a month later, the Falcons shocked the NFL world by using the No. 8 overall pick on … another quarterback; Washington’s Michael Penix Jr.
Cousins later said he felt “a little misled” — especially since the team didn’t inform him until they were on the clock.
He’s Always Been a Grinder
Still, Cousins kept his head down and went to work. The Falcons started 6–3 with Kirk posting 17 touchdowns and just 8 interceptions. But after a shoulder injury in Week 10, his performance fell off. Speculation swirled that he was hurt more than he let on.
Over four games, he threw 8 interceptions and no touchdowns — the worst stretch of his career. He was eventually benched for Penix.
Columnist Ken Sugiura of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution criticized Cousins for revealing — after the fact — that he had been hiding the injury. “This was a team leader… publicly revealing that he acted out of self-interest to keep a backup on the bench,” Sugiura wrote.
Wally Pipp He Is Not
I disagree. Every NFL player fights to keep his job. With the average NFL career lasting less than four years, Cousins — now entering his 14th season — has earned the right to bet on himself.
After the Vikings beat the Falcons in Week 14, Kevin O’Connell sought out Cousins on the field. “I love him as a person,” O’Connell said. “He stands for so many great things.”
Bottom line: the Falcons made a huge bet and investment on Kirk Cousins in March 2024 — then ambushed the relationship just a month later by not being transparent about their long-term quarterback strategy. Did that affect Kirk’s approach to playing through pain?
You bet it did.
The Power of Partnership: Coach and QB
In the NFL, the coach-quarterback bond is everything. Dysfunction doesn’t win titles. Even when successful relationships were strained — like Belichick and Brady — they were never broken.
Want to see a “broken” relationship? Look no further than the infamous video of Baker Mayfield giving former head coach Hue Jackson “The Stare.” https://youtu.be/TFlCv2-JBcE
And if you need more confirmation on the value of QB-coach dynamics, just look at the Hall of Fame. Of the 15 coaches inducted in the last 50 years, 13 had Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Think Lombardi/Starr, Noll/Bradshaw, Shula/Marino, Landry/Staubach and Walsh/Montana.
The GOAT Relationship?
So what’s the greatest one-season collaboration ever between a Quarterback and coach?
I’m putting my money on the QB GOAT — Tom Brady.
But not with Bill Belichick.
Nope. It’s Brady’s first season with “The Quarterback Whisperer,” Bruce Arians.
When Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, many believed his best days were behind him. Arians — known as the “QB Whisperer” because of a deep and successful resume of developing QBs like Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger, and Carson Palmer — took him in, coached him hard, and gave him the keys.
From Arians’ perspective Brady was the missing ingredient in Tampa Bay. Said Arians in an interview with Jenna Laine of ESPN “I told Tom, if you come here we will win the Super Bowl.” This from the coach of a franchise that had not been to a Super Bowl since 2002 and had missed the playoffs for the past 13 straight seasons.
The result? An 11–5 season, a historic playoff run, and a Super Bowl victory.
Brady at age 43 threw 40 touchdowns in the regular season and another 10 in the playoffs. Arians, age 68, became the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl. They did it all in Year One.
Rocky Start
The Brady-Arians relationship got off to a rocky start. At least that’s what the press was reporting. In Week One, Brady threw two interceptions in a loss to the Saints. Arians publicly called him out.
Many pundits slammed Arians for criticizing the GOAT.
But Brady responded like a pro on NFL Network: “There’s nothing about my game that’s infallible. I think the team has high expectations for me — and when I don’t meet those, he should be pissed. Ya know?”
That’s leadership.
QB Whisperer Wisdom
Arians is known for his ability to read quarterback psychology and motivate effectively. In Brady’s case, that meant trust and flexibility.
“With him it’s not about Xs and Os,” Arians told the L.A. Times following the Super Bowl win. “It’s making sure he’s comfortable and feels good about the game plan.”
Brady, raised on the hard-edged “Patriot Way,” welcomed Arians’ relaxed vibe.
“He’d text me and say, ‘Do you mind if I don’t throw Wednesday?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, I don’t care.’ I’d ask, ‘Want to take mental reps or just sit back?’ He’d say, ‘I just need to sit back.’ And we did that.”
Clearly, Tom Brady had earned special consideration over his brilliant career. But Bruce Arians didn’t just play favorites with QB1s.
QB2s Need Love, Too
Arians built trust with more than just legends. As Jenna Laine explained on ESPN, backup Drew Stanton followed him from Indianapolis to Arizona hoping for a shot. Arians told him up front they’d be bringing in another QB — Carson Palmer. Said Stanton, “He put it out there, and I was well aware of it, even before I signed. “He said, ‘This is our plan, but I want you here no matter what,’”
Stanton would go on to enjoy a 14 year NFL career and had this to say about his coach, “He invested time with his players… you can’t motivate everyone the same way.” He describes his five years with Arians as “the best stretch of my career… he built this confidence up in me that I’d kind of lost in Detroit.”
It Can’t All Be About the $$$$
NFL football players are paid handsomely to do a job. NFL Quarterbacks are paid exceedingly well to lead the team. But you can’t make it in the NFL without a great deal of pride and self-confidence.
There are probably a few exceptions, but safe to say almost every great athlete has periods of self-doubt. You might be injured, or in the wrong scheme for your talents, or just with a bad team with a negative environment.
The paycheck doesn’t get you through those times. The really gifted coaches build an environment that guards against self-doubt. These coaches sense when to let you know you’re my guy.
There are not many true Quarterback Whisperers out there, but those few have uncanny timing on when to hand over the keys and let it ride.
A Game Ball!
In the NFL, I never heard a coach say, “You’re my guy.” I never felt like I was given the keys. There’s certainly evidence that I didn’t earn it. With five head coaches in my first five years, I still wonder if they got very little mileage out of me — or if it was the other way around?
But I remember one coach who came close; Leeman Bennett, my fourth head coach in Atlanta. In 1977, Leeman’s first year in Atlanta, I came off the bench against the NY Giants and led an 80-yard game-winning drive capped by a TD pass to Alfred Jenkins in the back corner of the end zone. Leeman awarded me the game ball. Probably the highlight of my NFL career.
The next year, he waived me in training camp.
When he called me into his office he explained he had tried to trade me, but no one would bite since they knew I’d soon be a free agent. I wound up signing a three-year deal with the Washington Redskins so it worked out fine.
Looks Like I Made a Mistake?
Years later, Leeman and I reunited on the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Team Selection Committee. After a few years of working together I took a chance and showed him the film of that game-winning drive.
He looked me in the eye and said, “Looks like I made a mistake.” I had never heard those words from an NFL coach.
Even 30 years later, that moment meant more to me than he’ll ever know.