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There are few players as esteemed in the NFL today as Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Aside from being a future Hall of Famer, his leadership has long served as a stabilizing factor for the Cardinals organization during their grueling rebuild.
Fortunately, the arrival of head coach Kliff Kingsbury helped spark a newfound sense of optimism within the locker room. Fitzgerald recently gave his piece on the best traits that a head coach must possess, via NFL Network's Jim Trotter:
1) Gaining a player's trust: If a player knows you care for him and his well-being, he will run through a wall for you.
2) Honesty: That consists of being real with him no matter what, not telling a player what you think he wants to hear.
3) Being a student as well as a teacher: Find the things a player does well, as opposed to harping on the things he doesn't do as well. Everyone learns differently. Some guys are visual learners, some guys are walk-through learners; so being a great teacher means you need to be a good observer and listener.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the qualities that Fitzgerald listed was that they appear to transcend just the X's and O's of football. Cultivating true relationships and having their best interest involved goes a long way in uniting the locker room toward a single purpose.
Fitzgerald can take solace in the fact that Kingsbury appears to have each of those qualities. Although there was plenty of concern over the Cardinals decision to hire a candidate without any NFL coaching experience, it clearly helped pay huge dividends with their resurgence on offense.
While there is no question having players like Cardinals legend Fitzgerald around helps to smoothen the transition, the onus ultimately falls on each coach to keep improving as well.
