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Steve Spurrier has written a book reflecting on his coaching career, and a big chunk of that book is devoted to his least successful stop, in Washington.

Spurrier, who went 12-20 in 2002-03 in his only stint as an NFL head coach, says that the biggest lesson owner Dan Snyder needed to learn was that he couldn’t be his own General Manager.

“I think he’s doing it the right way now,” Spurrier said of Snyder, via the New York Times. “When I was coaching, he was the general manager and the personnel director. I thought he was going to hire someone else as general manager.”

Spurrier said at the time he took the job that he thought Snyder was going to coax the legendary G.M. Bobby Beathard out of retirement.

“I thought he was going to be my general manager,” Spurrier said of Beathard. “That didn’t work out. After two years, I learned the NFL was not for me. I’m more a college style of coach. It maybe helped me learn that.”

Spurrier was one of the all-time great coaches in college football. It was wise of him to realize he wasn’t suited to the NFL. Even if there’s a part of him that wonders if he might have succeeded in the NFL, if only someone other than Snyder had been choosing the players.