It makes plenty of sense. Player-coaches are a real thing, and in a realm where you're not worried about peak fitness then it's reasonable to demand the coaches become player-coaches.
Sure, there are good player-coaches, but there are also great pure leaders. There are also very bad player-coaches. A coach who is trying too hard and too deep to be a player when they are less "fit" (or skilled) has historically led to many problems in many cases
There's not much equivalent to "fit" here, just skill, and they decided they don't want the pure leaders, they want ones that are knuckle deep in the sausage.
Good decision or not, that very basic analogy is completely fine.