1 of 5 | Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike MacDonald said he found more balance by spending more time at home during the 2025-26 campaign. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Andy Reid’s 3 a.m. daily rise, Mike Vrabel’s face-tingling energy drink habit and Dan Campbell’s 40-ounce quad espresso orders provide insight into the havoc bred by an NFL head coach’s agenda.
But professional football coaches say they are increasingly prioritizing balance and sleep while weaponizing scientific data.
And it’s leading to Super Bowl success.
“We are trying to find more ways throughout the week for me to like separate from football,” Seattle Seahawks coach Mike MacDonald said at the NFL scouting combine.
“I just felt like as a leader, that’s what I needed to do to be a better version of myself.”
MacDonald adjusted his schedule after analyzing his routine from 2024, his first year as an NFL head coach. He shifted weight and found momentum by doing more work at home, away from the facility, while spending more time with family.
“It worked out great,” said MacDonald, who watched his Seahawks dominate the Vrabel’s New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX. “There was more time at home and a more refreshed better version of myself in the office that hopefully people were more excited to be around me than maybe the year before.”
One of the Seahawks’ secret weapons was Cheri D. Mah, a sleep physician and performance specialist who also worked with the 2017 champion Philadelphia Eagles, among other NFL teams, over the last 15 years.
Experts recommend seven or more hours of sleep per night for adults to avoid the health risks of chronic inadequate sleep. Mah suggests eight to 10 hours for athletes to meet physiological demands, but said there remains a range of opinions about “how sleep is viewed” among coaches.
Personal lives, lifestyle choices, schedule constraints and travel are among challenges coaches face when trying to find time to recharge. Mah provides them with research studies to explain how detrimental sleep deprivation or chronic sleep loss can be for cognitive functioning. The data shows sleep issues can impair reaction time, decision making and judgement calls and can hinder emotional resilience.
Countless avenues of pressure, including job security and competitive advantage, often lead to long hours for NFL head coaches and their staffs. High salaries often outshine the harsh, shaded realities of the job, which include sacrificing family time, moving around the country and potential health risks.
Studies show that stress and sleep deprivation can lead to high blood pressure and increased risk for heart disease, heart attacks and strokes, but poor sleep habits also impact performance for players and the men tasked with leading them.
Coaches often obsesses over game film and study notes, looking to find a winning edge. Mah says more sleep could lead to a big boost — even a half-hour more a day. The weekly accumulation of 3 1/2 hours is about the same length as an NFL game.
“I would say the vast majority of them are under-slept, don’t have great strategies around their sleep and aren’t always armed with the strategies of how to implement that within their schedule constraints,” Mah said.
Approaches vary
Only 32 men on earth hold the role thousands seek — NFL head coach. They manage dozens of assistant coaches and players, for whom they provide motivation, strategy and more. Illness within the profession is nearly invisible for casual observers, as coaches rarely miss time because of sickness or even acknowledge when they don’t feel their best.
Proximity to world-class medical care is one of the reasons some say they maintain a Superman-like aura. But fitting intense agendas into a 168-hour week can be daunting, especially considering rules that limit the time they can spend with players.
“You’ve gotta do whatever it takes to get the job done,” Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson said. “Each day is kinda its own story that way. I’m not going to get into specifics into how long I was in the office, but we’ve got a great staff and we’re all committed to getting whatever work done that’s necessary.
“But at the same time, we need to bring energy each and every day for the players, as well.”
Todd Monken, who was hired to coach the Cleveland Browns after spending more than three decades as an assistant and college coach, said he was surprised by the tasks required for the role, “outside of the Xs and Os,” but doesn’t find it challenging to balance quality of work with his work ethic.
“I think we’ve got it pretty good,” Monken said. “I don’t see it that way. We get to coach football for a living. I don’t understand how hard that is.
“The season is long. and it’s hard. It’s a grind, but holy [expletive], we coach football for a living. We get to be around great players and get to do this. It’s so cool.”
New York Giants coach John Harbaugh, who worked with Monken while with the Baltimore Ravens, once detailed his schedule for ESPN. The outline included several 16- to 18-hour days, with designated windows for Bible study, mass, talks with his wife, meetings with staff and players, time with his daughter, workouts and sleep on his office couch.
Mah estimates that coaches gain only about one hour of daily sleep during the off-season. While some NFL facilities offer sleep pods and rest areas for coaches and players, Mah said she prefers that coaches go home to rest.
“I encourage them to leave,” Mah said. “That actually has been brought up. [They ask] ‘Dr. Ma, should I leave earlier?’ I’m like, yes, because when you’re better rested, you actually are more productive. You’re more efficient. You’re able to get more done in that shorter amount of time, even though you feel like you might be ‘giving up an hour of work time,’ to get an hour more sleep.
“But the reality is you’re actually more productive when you are getting better rest and then with the time that you have in your day. But they often are the first in and often the last out.”
Former Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay and Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid are among the Super Bowl-winning coaches who have worked marathon days, going against scientific data. Belichick often eclipsed 18 hours during his workdays, but went on to win six titles as a head coach.
Reid admits that his personal routine is “pretty dumb.” McVay has said “used to think it was cool” to work 18-hour days, but has re-evaluated his approach. Dave Canalas of the Carolina Panthers and Nick Sirianni of the Philadelphia Eagles are among other coaches to address sleeping habits in a quest to summon energy.
Coaching not building rockets on the moon
General manager Brett Veach, who has won three Super Bowls alongside Reid, pointed to the coach’s history of having his family at the facility and even working for the Chiefs as a way he keeps balance.
“The work is done in the facility, but also the life balance is done in the facility,” Veach said. “With the way he mentors everyone, the coaches and players and his family are part of it. He is just a unique individual and you don’t run into people like that very often — where their work becomes them, but they give so much on and off the field.”
New Miami Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan, who will oversee first-year head coach Jeff Hafley in 2026, said he is a “huge believer in balance” and thinks coaches need to evaluate their process if they are spending too much time at the office.
“Look, we aren’t trying to build rockets on the moon,” Sullivan said. “Football is complex, but at the end of the day, it’s still 11 on 11 every week. The field is still 100 yards long. I think if you’re here in the office 16 hours a day, seven days a week, you’ve got to look at your process.”
Mindfulness is a key player in the energy game for coaches, Mah says. Recognizing chronotype — or the natural inclination of the body to sleep at a certain time — and matching high-energy windows with highly cognitive tasks one way she recommends coaches strategize.
“If you’re a morning lark, you do better going to bed or waking up earlier and you’re going to more productive and efficient, doing high cognitive tasks in the first couple of hours when you wake up,” Mah said. “Or, if you are going to go work out, that’s a good time to go work out. You’ll be more productive. So, do those things earlier on in the day.
“For someone who’s more like an evening owl chronotype, you are going to not function well and be at your peak in those first couple of hours in the morning. You’re going to do better late morning, arguably really the afternoon to evening.
“So, I advise more about thinking about how you take the time of your day and strategize it to your advantage so you can be most productive and efficient in those windows of time.”
Mah said chugging cappuccino, relying on energy drinks and desiring heavy caffeine loads are signs of sleep deprivation and heavy sleep debt and are not a replacement for sleep. Those avenues block adenosine receptors, temporarily eliminating the feeling of tiredness. But the compound continues to build, despite the respite, and often leads to caffeine crashes.
“I’m hoping that there will be more coaches, general managers and teams that are really going to be the leaders in changing the culture of what the role of sleep is,” Mah said.
“It is a non-negotiable. You need to have sleep for you to be at your best, for you to win the Super Bowl.”
Super Bowl LX: Seattle Seahawks defeat New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (L) embraces the Super Bowl MVP, running back Kenneth Walker III, after the Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 29-13 to win Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on February 8, 2026. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
