When Tony Dungy was named head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996, he reached out to one of the assistants with whom he had worked on Chuck Noll's staff to be his offensive coordinator. But Dick Hoak, who was a running back coach with the Steelers for 35 years, declined the offer.

It is a decision Hoak never has regretted.

Why?

Because, of all the jobs in the National Football League, none should carry a health warning or occupational disclaimer as much as offensive coordinator, the Mr. Yuk of coaching positions.

"If you did something wrong in a game, they don't look at the 59 plays you did right," Hoak said. "They looked at the one play that went bad."

Offensive coordinator might be the most reviled position in professional sports. They are second-guessed more than a weatherman, and their play calls get more scrutiny than a campaign promise. Want to start a discussion and see a talk show break out? Just mention offensive coordinator.

In stadiums routinely filled with 65,000 or more people, the offensive coordinator is the only coach who needs to understand that 64,000 of them think they can do the job better.

"Everybody has an opinion about it -- you should have passed, you should have run, you should have thrown deep, you should have thrown short," Hoak said. "Everyone thinks they can be an offensive coordinator."

Since Bill Cowher became coach in 1992, the Steelers have had three offensive coordinators go on to be head coaches -- Chan Gailey, Mike Mularkey and Ken Whisenhunt. With the possible exception of Whisenhunt, none of those coordinators had as much success as Bruce Arians, who spent the past five years running the Steelers offense. For that, though, Arians didn't have his contract renewed last week.

Talk about being second-guessed.

"I've always felt when you make a play call, 50 percent are going to like it and 50 percent are not," said Mularkey, who is in his second stint as a head coach after being hired two weeks ago by the Jacksonville Jaguars. "You can't please everybody, and the first person you can't please is you, because, if the play didn't work, you don't like it before anybody else does. You are your own worst critic."