Now that the NFL season has ended for 20 of the 32 teams, the coaching carousel has already begun to spin. There are currently eight vacant head coaching positions, and with a long way to go in the offseason, we still might see a few more changes. Coaches come and go every year, and the saying goes that as a coach in the NFL, you are only hired to get fired. The only question is exactly how long it will take for that to happen. It is very rare for a head coach to retire on their own and then ride off into the sunset and never coach again.
People get hired and fired from their jobs every day throughout the world, so being a head coach in the NFL is no different than the world of the bartender or janitor or any other given field of work. When someone gets fired from a job, they are welcome to try to find a new job in whatever field they would like, and the same is the case in the world of football coaches. I have no problem with a coach being fired and then taking a job in the same position elsewhere. The head coach is usually the highest paid member of the staff, so who wouldn't want to be a head coach as opposed to a tight ends coach or a linebackers coach? However, what I do have a bit of a gripe with is organizations hiring coaches who have already been fired from previous jobs and not looking for new candidates who might end up being better suited for the position.
Last year, of the 12 teams in the playoffs, eight of them were led by first time head coaches. This year, nine out of the twelve playoff teams are led by first time head coaches. I don't mean that these teams are led by coaches in their first year on the job, but I mean that the current job they have is their first as a head coach. Frank Reich is a first year head coach, and he brought the Colts to the playoffs in his first season. Sean Payton has been the head coach of the Saints since 2006, but he had never been a head coach prior to that. Those teams, along with seven other ones, took a chance and hired someone new, and those teams have been rewarded for taking that chance. That is why when it seems like Mike McCarthy has almost already been given the job as the new head coach of the Browns, and Vance Joseph is a frontrunner for the Bengals job, I question the decisions of those organizations.
McCarthy was fired earlier this season from his position in Green Bay, and Joseph was fired less than a week ago in Denver. So why are these other teams so willing to scoop these guys up right away and install them in the same position? I understand that there are many different reasons for a head coach being fired, and each situation is different, but the performance of the team under the leadership of the coach plays at least some part in any firing. There are rare cases when head coaches get fired after successful seasons, and usually that is due to some sort of rift between the coach and some other part of the organization, usually either management or the players on the team. However, that is not something that happens often, and I don't believe it was the case with McCarthy or Joseph.
The Broncos finished this year 6-10, and while there certainly were problems with the roster, one of the biggest being a bad offense, it isn't as though Joseph was completely devoid of any blame. He was brought in with a defensive background, but the Broncos went from allowing 290 yards per game, third best in the NFL, to allowing 365 yards per game, which put them as the 22nd ranked defense in the league. So, clearly Joseph did not help to improve the defense.
McCarthy had been the coach of the Packers since 2006, and it was a common belief throughout the football world that he underperformed with the team he had. Green Bay won 10 playoff games in 12 years with McCarthy at the helm, despite having a very talented quarterback and often times a lot of talent around him on the offensive side of the ball. So, it seems like McCarthy was not as successful as he should have been in Green Bay.
Despite the shortcomings of those two men, they both immediately went to the top of the lists of the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals. Part of this, I believe, is that Cincinnati and Cleveland are two of the worst run organizations in the entire sport, and I think their lack of imagination here shows that. However, it isn't as though those are the only teams that have picked out their head coaches off the scrap heap.
My favorite team actually currently employs a former head coach who was fired, but at least they didn't hire him immediately after he was fired from his last head coaching job. Pat Shurmur was hired by the Giants before this season, and while he was formerly a head coach, he went back to being a coordinator for a few years before the Giants hired him. I must say also, that I was not thrilled with their decision to hire Shurmur, but he did have some success as an offensive coordinator following his previous head coaching job, and the team improved somewhat this season, even though they still did not make the playoffs.
I already mentioned how successful Frank Reich was this year as a first time head coach with Indianapolis, but some of the top contenders in the league for the Super Bowl this year are all led by first time head coaches. The Chargers, Saints, Rams, Eagles, and Bears would be considered by most fans to be legitimate contenders to win it all. They are led by coaches who their organizations were willing to take a chance on, and those organizations have been rewarded for their decisions.
When I hear teams looking at guys like Matt LaFleur or Eric Bieniemy to be their new coaches, I applaud them for doing so. Those guys have put in time as assistant coaches, and will have earned their way to the top of the coaching chain. I commend teams for trying to get new blood and new voices into their coaching rooms. Will those men end up being successful coaches if they are hired? No one knows. But at least they don't have a history of failing in the exact same position.
The only coach who has his team in the playoffs right now that went straight from one NFL head coaching position to his current one is Andy Reid. Other coaches like Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick were previously head coaches in the NFL prior to their current jobs, but they moved on to new positions before being hired by their current teams I am not counting Belichick in this case because he was only the head coach of the Jets for one day, so he never actually coached a game for them. Carroll was also the head coach of the Jets in 1994, but he moved on to other positions before returning to lead the Seahawks.
The NFL is often known as a league that lacks imagination when it comes to playcalling, schemes, and also coaching. Guys who have made inroads with owners or general managers seem to be more likely to land higher positions, even if their track records are not exactly stellar. And again, I am not omitting the Giants from the discussion here. I do think hiring Shurmur showed a lack of imagination.
If your team hires a first time head coach and it doesn't work out, then that's ok. You can move on. You picked the wrong guy. That happens at law firms and schools all the time. But if that same school hires a math teacher a week after he or she was just fired from the same position at another school, that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
You can be fired from a job, take a new job in a new field or at a lesser position in the same field. You should use that as an opportunity to learn new methods to make you successful, and after being able to incorporate that new knowledge, you should be able to get another opportunity. So Pete Carroll going to the collegiate ranks to coach USC is fine. He experienced a great level of success there, and I am sure he would say that he used what he learned during his time there to better prepare himself to return to head coaching in the NFL, and he ended up winning a Super Bowl because of it.
Anthony Lynn began his coaching career in Denver in 2000 as a special teams assistant, and now he is the head coach of a 12-4 Chargers team that has its eyes on the Super Bowl. Doug Pederson started his coaching career as a high school coach in Louisiana, and now he is the head coach of the defending Super Bowl champions.
After Eric Bieniemy retired from the league, he got a job as a running backs coach at the University of Colorado. Since then, he entered the NFL as a running backs coach, and now has worked his way up to the offensive coordinator of the top seeded team in the AFC. A team like the Jets or the Packers should seriously consider him as their next head coach. Don't grab a guy who was just fired because he has a relationship with your general manager and they happen to be friends.
Out with the old and in with the new. My message to NFL teams is to think with some creativity. You might fail, but I would rather fail with a fresh mind and fresh ideas as opposed to failing with a stale method and a stubborn coach who is not willing to think outside the box. The next Sean McVay or Matt Nagy is out there somewhere. All it takes is a team to be willing to go find him, and instead of being in a never ending parade to the top of the draft, you might find yourself playing deep into January, and maybe even on the first Sunday of February.
Daily Rangers Update: The Rangers will try to make it three consecutive wins tonight at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are currently seven points ahead of the Rangers in the standings.
Daily Giants Update: General Manager Dave Gettleman had an end-of-season press conference today. I didn't hear anything too groundbreaking from him, and it was pretty much just football talk that really told us very little about what he is going to do this offseason. Actions will speak louder than words, so once free agency and the draft occur, we will know what the real plans of the organization are.
Daily NBA Update: Jusuf Nurkic lit up the box score last night with a historic performance. I had never even heard of a 5 by 5 game until yesterday, as Nurkic had five or more points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. He finished with 24-23-7-5-5, and it was the first time in the history of league since blocks and steals became an official statistic that someone had a 5x5 game with over 20 rebounds. Truly remarkable.
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