A Head coach of a football team has responsibilities that change from team to team, week to week, and season to season. It really depends on who the coach is.
Some head coaches have defensive coaching backgrounds, offensive coaching backgrounds, special teams coaching backgrounds, or as we saw this year with the Indianapolis Colts, absolutely zero coaching background at all. Those backgrounds are really shown in how teams operate.
You look at guys like Bill Belichick who have defensive backgrounds, and his teams are consistently performing at or above average defensively. You look at guys like Andy Reid, who have offensive backgrounds, and his teams perform WELL above average on offense. You look at Jeff Saturday for the Colts and his team did nothing at all.
Some coaches call the plays for either the offense or defense and some coaches forfeit/delegate the play-calling to their offensive or defensive coordinators. In 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles head coach gave up the offensive play-calling duties to his offensive coordinator midway through the season because what he was doing wasn’t working. Some of the head coaches’ duties can be fluid.
But, there are some things all head coaches do, or at least should do. Game planning, providing the structure for offense and defense, analyzing, and most importantly, being a leader.
While again, it’s not the only thing, but that leadership aspect is huge. In the 2021 season, the Jacksonville Jaguars hired a guy named Urban Meyer; a notably not-great guy. This dude was anything and everything but a leader. He was a prolific head coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes, but when it came to the NFL he took zero accountability and blamed his team for their shortcomings rather than take any blame for himself. He also soccer-kicked the kicker (again, he’s famously a bad guy). It was a historic case of “losing the locker room”. Urban was ultimately fired during the season and in the off-season, the Jaguars hired Doug Pederson, a Superbowl winning coach and all around likable guy. He took the team that was the worst in the NFL for two straight seasons and lead them to the Playoffs. Doug is a guy who can lead grown men who are paid millions of dollars which is a pretty difficult thing to do and he does so at a legendary level. Also, he doesn’t straight-up kick his players while they are stretching, so that’s also a plus.
In College and the NFL, coaches have diverse backgrounds and they try to get the best of the best and well-tested people for their coaches, duh. In the XFL it’s shaping up to look quite a bit different. There are a couple of coaches in the XFL who have backgrounds as NFL head coaches (Wade Phillips) and college coaching backgrounds (Bob Stoops). There are a lot more who don’t have anywhere near that level of experience.
Enter Anthony Becht, the Battlehawks’ head coach.
Anthony Becht:
If his name doesn’t sound familiar to you, that makes a lot of sense. If his name does sound familiar to you, good job, you’re crushing it with the obscure Tight End knowledge of the mid-2000s.
His professional career spanned from 2004 to 2011. He played tight end for the New York Jets, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Marc Bulger-Era St. Louis Rams, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Kansas City Chiefs.
He does have a coaching background, but it is nowhere near as impressive as most professional head coaches (the XFL is a professional football league). He was a head coach for a high school team, a draft prep coach for IMG academy (the Gillette of sports training prep schools), and the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl Tight Ends coach. So, you know, take from that what you will. Personally, I’m not taking much from it, but you do you.
We can assume he’s going to be an offense-driven head coach since he’s spent his career being a Tight End, but we don't know exactly what kind of offense he will be running. He’s gone on record saying he wants to have an explosive offense because fans don’t want to see games that end 6-3. He says he wants to take his chances when they are given to them. All of that sounds great, but no one is going to say, “We’re going to take it slow and steady to really grind through low-scoring games. We’re going to be really conservative with the ball.” So, talk is cheap and coach-talk is worth nothing. I think Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until their team gets down 21-0 before halftime” or something like that. We’ll have to wait and see how Becht does in tense situations, and what kind of offense and personnel Becht decides to center his offense on.
I will say this though, he looks like he’s having fun, which is good. On a human note, guys who are having fun are much more likely to not absolutely blast a kicker in the ribs with their foot, probably.
He’s said that he’s had his eyes set on being the Battlehawks’ Head Coach since he saw the opportunity present itself. I’ve listened to some interviews with him from small sites and personal blogs. In those interviews, he’s stayed engaged pretty much the entire time, so it at least seems like he’s a good dude.