“Vision” has become a hackneyed business trope, and many vision statements are cringe-worthy collections of empty nonsense. A football team’s vision has to be more specific. Some teams want to be old-school ground-and-pound. Some want to be a diverse passing attack. Some want to be an aggressive, attacking defense. Some want to game plan coverage to take away an opponent’s most dangerous weapon.

Without a vision, they cannot begin to make coherent decisions. Who do they use on their first round pick on? Which positions do they need quality backups at? Do they pick the physically impressive linebacker with questionable mental game, or the average athlete with plus intelligence? Do they re-sign the cornerback or the wide receiver? Obviously the individual circumstances and evaluations are going to factor into these decisions, but looming just as significant is the team’s vision of what it wants to be. A zone blocking team is going to seek different players than a gap / power team. A cover 2 team needs different defensive pieces than a man / blitz team.

Vision doesn’t just pertain to what happens on the field. Some teams have more tolerance for injury risk or players with arrest history or other past troubles. Some teams have height / weight requirements, or thresholds at certain Combine drills. Some teams prefer players from big-time college programs; others seek diamonds-in-the-rough from small schools.

Football people often mention “culture” and a team must consider cultural fit as well as scheme needs. A defense that prides itself on being big and physical might not want to pay a speedster linebacker who isn’t a physical hitter, even if he brings desired coverage traits. A team that changes game plans week-to-week will place a great emphasis on practice availability, which might clash with a veteran who wants “maintenance days” off, cutting into practice time. A team with quiet leadership might value a vocal leader; a team that already has strong voices might be concerned about how another talkative player fits in.

Sometimes vision impacts the player acquisition avenues. The Green Bay Packers under Ted Thompson, for instance, consistently built by drafting, developing, and retaining their own players, rather than going outside the organization for free agents. Only in rare instances would they fill holes in free agency, and only with great care as to the fit and quality of the signee.

That sounds limiting—and it is. Vision is necessarily limiting. Knowing what you want means also knowing what you don’t want. That will close you off to some possibilities, but it is a necessary step to building a coherent team. If you just take the “best player available” without regard for fit, you will end up with a bunch of mismatched pieces that don’t work together. The only way to have the whole equal—or exceed—the sum of its parts is to have the parts fit, and the only way to have the parts fit is to have them aligned with a vision.

“We are not just collecting talent; we are building a team.” - New England Patriots head coach and de facto general manager Bill Belichick

Teams have limited resources, both in terms of salary cap space and in draft picks. You can’t build a superteam stacked up and down the roster. Team builders have to decide where to invest those resources. Some positions will necessarily get less attention. A team’s vision helps clarify what they’re going to “major” in and what they’re just going to try to get by with. The New York Giants won two Super Bowls this century with defensive backfields that were just OK—but dominant pass rush fronts where they would even line up four edge rushers in “NASCAR” packages. The strength of the team, that rush front, allowed the team to get by with less investment in the back seven.

“I think you have a philosophy, and I think you stick with that philosophy. [Changing] doesn’t make sense to me. Everybody is talking about how we’ve been in position to be fairly successful for some time. You can’t do that if you’re changing all the time.” - former Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson