Belichick and Carroll are all-powerful - and now Kelly is, too

PHOENIX - Chip Kelly should look no further than the Seattle Seahawks for a successful pairing of a head coach with full control in Pete Carroll and a general manager in John Schneider who agreed to work under him.

"You mean with Pete," Schneider said.

Indeed.

The key to Carroll and Schneider's relationship isn't that the coach makes all the personnel decisions and the general manager nods in agreement every time. It is that Carroll looks at Schneider as an equal and cedes authority in various ways.

That isn't to say other models won't work. But after Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie gave him final say earlier this month, Kelly finds himself where few coaches have gone and even fewer coaches have succeeded.

And while Patriots coach Bill Belichick has proved to be the exception - a coach who wields his power over almost every facet of football operations and has succeeded - the NFL has been rife with coaches who have burned out and busted when given full control.

Carroll likely knew as much. That is why he was on board when the Seahawks signed Schneider just weeks after he was hired following a six-year run at Southern Cal. Schneider was a relative unknown at the time, but he had built up his resumé with scouting stops with several teams, including the Packers, and had strong ideas on how to build a roster.

Carroll knew he couldn't do it all on his own, and even Belichick, who will face Carroll's Seahawks in the Super Bowl on Sunday, has said as much. But he insisted on final say because he had seen the value of having the coach in charge of everything in college. That wasn't the case when he was coach of the New York Jets and the Patriots.

"It's been really instrumental, because the way we do things isn't the way a lot of other people do things and so we really needed our own way to do it," Carroll said. "We needed our own language and our own control and our own decision-making process. I think it's made all the difference in the world for us."

You could almost see Kelly nodding in agreement if he heard Carroll's comments. He had full control at Oregon. He runs a very particular type of system. And he probably felt, in muscling former general manager Howie Roseman out of personnel, that he needed to have the same amount of power and a new GM who had more of an understanding of his needs.

But the risk is that Kelly, who hadn't worked in the NFL until two years ago, will stretch himself too thin. Lurie gave both of his previous coaches - Andy Reid and Ray Rhodes - final say and had said after both failed to win Super Bowls that he wanted a two-headed power structure like most teams.

But he relented to a coach once again.

"It's what every coach needs, I think, to be at his best," Carroll said. "The format and the structure that is generally accepted in the league is not that. I understand why, but this is a football game that we play. There's a business that goes along with it, but the football, I think, has to be run by the football people."

Carroll and Belichick are two of only four coaches with complete authority. The Saints' Sean Payton and Kelly, who already had final say over the 53-man roster, are the others. Former Colts and Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy said he never had it or wanted it.

"Every model works," Dungy said. "The big thing is you have to have everybody in the organization on the same page. Whether that's being on the same page with two of us or the same page with one, it doesn't matter. The key is you've got to believe in what you're doing.

"I personally didn't want to pick the players and do all that. I wanted to coach the team. But it was important for me to work with a GM who had the same philosophy and brought the same type of players in that I wanted. I had that with Rich McKay and Bill Polian."

Schneider, 43, was scheduled to interview with the Seahawks before Carroll even agreed to take the job. But when Carroll was announced as the new coach, he said he ripped 30 pages on the coaches he would try to hire out of the planning book he was bringing to the interview.

When he met with Carroll for the first time, they hit it off and realized they had many of the same team-building philosophies. He said they rarely disagree because of their similar approaches. But if they do, Carroll is willing to listen before a final decision is made.

"In my opinion, it's never been a one-person job," Schneider said. "To me, if you have a coach that is open-minded and loves great ideas and is an easy communicator, then it doesn't matter who has final say on the 53."

Kelly has not yet found his Schneider. Several candidates have either had their teams decline interview requests or have interviewed once and stayed with their respective teams. The Seahawks' director of college scouting, Scott Fitterer, chose to stay after talking with the Eagles.

Schneider said he advises Fitterer and director of pro personnel Trent Kirchner about potential GM opportunities. With Schneider having been in their shoes, you have to wonder if Kelly has a similar power structure in mind and what kind of advice Schneider gave Fitterer after the interview.

"You just have to have the tools," Schneider said, "to be able to do your job."

@Jeff_McLane