While this coach hiring season will lack the panache of its college football counterpart, the NFL could see some fairly sweeping changes this offseason, as well as the return of some familiar faces. In conversation with a handful of folks plugged into the process, the theme of this year (at least right now, a few weeks before we might see our first dismissal) is second chances. The market for future head coaches seems to be boiling over with head coaches who have already had a shot but have worked their way back up the ladder of interest.
The reasons for this, I think, are twofold:
• Aside from the success of Kliff Kingsbury (which also comes with some qualifiers, given the load carried by assistants Vance Joseph and Jeff Rodgers) owners are watching as certain hires deemed “outside the box” or without enough seasoning are flaming out spectacularly or, at the least, can cause their organization to stick out like a shock of red hair in a sea of brown, black and blonde. They are not fond of this feeling, which is why the process has largely been devoted to risk-averse maneuvers for the longest time. Also, while coaches like Andy Reid, Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh were outside-the-box hires at the time, the fact that they, along with other tenured coaches like Bruce Arians and Mike McCarthy, are sitting in first place as owners begin the process doesn’t bode well for the idea that they should pluck someone from (relative) obscurity.
• The most recent series of experiments involving college coaches has not gone well. We’ll get to potential openings in a few paragraphs, but it seems like there have been notable personality conflicts between owners of teams with recent college head coaches and their former all-powerful university leaders.
In addition, outside of a few names that we’ll list below, the hot-rising-I-know-Sean-McVay-and-coach-quarterbacks market has pretty much dried up. We went from a glut of up-and-coming offensive minds to a bit of a dearth.
In September I released my annual comprehensive list of future head coaches, which this year included 49 names. As I did last December, here’s a more targeted look at how the next couple of months could play out, based on conversations around the league.
