The Coach and the GM.

"You kind of go off your gut and your instinct," Rick Spielman said. "I don't want to compare it to, but it's like when I met my wife, not that I had a lot of options, but you just know."
 -Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman on his search for a coach.

I can sit from so far away and know that one of the most important relationships in all of professional football is that between the general manager and the head coach.

The Minnesota Vikings have a Hall of Fame general manager in their history. He's the only general manager in the Hall of Fame. They have a Hall of Fame coach in their history. Jim Finks is the general manager. Bud Grant is the coach. They worked together. They worked well together. They worked together to build a football team that would play in four Super Bowls. The fact that the Vikings didn't win any of those games shouldn't take away from the great teams that Finks and Grant built.

There might be no more important relationship for an NFL team than the relationship between coach and general manager. Even in today's passing-dominated league, the coach-general manager relationship might be more important than that between the coach and quarterback. The coach and general manager have to get along. They don't have to always agree but there has to be a mutual respect.

I'm not sure that it quite reaches Spielman's comparison to the more personal finding of a spouse but there might be some love at first site when a general manager finds the perfect coach. It does sound like Spielman and Minneosta Vikings new head coach Mike Zimmer immediately found a connection. They have a similar Midwest upbringing. Both are sons of football coaches. Both have obviously pursued a career in football. Sharing a connection is only the first step. They also have to share a vision of their football team. They have to always remember that they share the exact same goal. The Spielman-Zimmer relationship is already better than the relationship between Spielman and former head coach Leslie Frazier. If for no other reason, Spielman inherited Frazier as his head coach. Spielman chose Zimmer to be his head coach.

There are a lot of head coaches that have excelled in the dual role of coach and general manager. Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, and Bill Belichick. Each is a full time job so it's a tough juggling act. Only a few coaches can keep all of the balls in the air. I also think that there should be something of a separation between the coach and management decisions. I think that it helps in the relationship between the head coach and the players.

The coach-general manager relationship has been on my mind a great deal lately. It's still too early to truly judge but I think that Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer will form a beautiful relationship. I hope that it is as successful as the Bud Grant-Jim Finks relationship of forty years ago. With Super Bowl wins rather than losses, of course.