the names in the new head coaching hire playlist

A Quick Spin on the Coaching Carousel: 10 Nuggets as Black Monday Looms

Albert Breer

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/12/27/nfl-coaching-rumors-2019-browns-jets-buccaneers-dolphins-ravens

Let’s do some math.

Since the year the current CBA was agreed to—a CBA that lead to new TV deals, which showered owners in disposable cash with which to pay plenty of fired coaches—there have been 57 head-coaching changes (not including interim coaching switches) over eight hiring cycles. Only six clubs (New England, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Seattle) haven’t hired coaches over that span.

That adds up to 26 teams accounting for more than two coaching changes per team since 2011. Take that, and you may be able to guess the affect on the candidate pool.

It’s been sapped dry.

The effect has forced teams in recent years to take chances on younger or less experienced candidates. It’s worked out in some cases, as with Sean McVay in Los Angeles. It hasn’t in others, as seems to be the case with Vance Joseph in Denver. And this is looking like the year that the destabilization of the NFL coaching ranks approaches its nadir.

One prominent agent said he regards the 2019 crop of prospective head coaches the weakest he’s seen in decades. That situation, I’m told, was part of the reason Baltimore slammed the brakes on the persistent buzz that it would part ways with John Harbaugh after the season. Why make a change, after all, when the most attractive candidate for an opening is already on your payroll?

So this is the backdrop to all the movement coming over the next week. Some teams may look at the landscape and decide to give their coach a stay of execution. Others will get creative with their coaching searches. And teams will take chances, like the Rams and Broncos did two years ago, or like the Titans and Cardinals did in 2018 on one-year defensive coordinators who’ve since gone in divergent directions.

This much we know: There aren’t easy answers for teams that are looking.

In this week’s Game Plan, we’re going to give you players to watch in the college football playoffs this weekend, and in Week 17 in the NFL, and we’ll answer questions from you, the readers, on the Browns’ potential mindset going into Sunday (with the rival Steelers and Ravens vying for the AFC’s last playoff spot), running back value, the Cowboys’ coaching situation, Matt Patricia’s punctuality, and much, much more.

But we’re starting with the 2019 NFL hiring cycle, one arriving to more uncertainty and unusual twists than any I can remember in the past. There’s no obvious belle-of-the-ball candidate. The closest thing is probably a guy who’s coaching in college (Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley). What you do have is a number of candidates the casual fan isn’t aware of, and others they might not be too inspired by.

That said, hope exists. Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll weren’t the most popular hires in 2000 or 2010, respectively, and both of them have been OK. Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh weren’t exactly brand-name candidates ahead of landing their jobs, which all three have held for more than a decade. Each of those five coaches, in case you didn’t pick up on it, has won Super Bowls. And their teams, as a result, have been spared taking part in the explosion of New CBA coaching tumult.

OK, so if you’re not so lucky, and your team is out there looking? Or you just want to know what’s happening? Here’s the word around the NFL campfire:

• The Harbaugh announcement reset the plans of several teams, including the Jets and Broncos (with the Dolphins having lurked as a potential suitor for the Ravens’ coach). So do the teams that coveted Harbaugh take their ball and go home? I’d say … not until Harbaugh actually signs his extension. As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has pointed out, it’s not hard to see a scenario in which someone goes to Baltimore with draft picks. Which would make good sense, given that Harbaugh is still regarded as a top-tier head coach in NFL circle.

• Another one to watch in that regard could be Miami’s Adam Gase. If EVP Mike Tannenbaum takes the fall (we told you Monday, it’d be a shocker if both Gase and Tannenbaum survive), Gase and GM Chris Grier could remain. So do the Dolphins just elevate Grier in responsibility or find someone to replace Tannenbaum? If they take latter route, would they dig into Gase’s power (i.e. control over the 53-man roster) to lure that someone—a move that would require adjusting Gase’s contract and open the door for him to look at other jobs? I’m told other clubs are monitoring this one. It’s not crazy to think a team like Cleveland, which tried to interview Gase on the recommendation of Jimmy Haslam’s buddy Peyton Manning in 2014, then did interview him in ‘16, could lie in the weeds, with Baker Mayfield as bait. Again, if it’s Gase and Grier’s show, this is status quo. But some change could bring more change.

• As for the Browns and what I believe, again, is a wide-open search, remember that Jimmy and Dee Haslam have kicked the tires on a lot of coaches over the last few years. Gase was one they liked. Another: Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. The big question on McDaniels would be more about how he’d mesh with GM John Dorsey.

• The ouster of Bucs coach Dirk Koetter has been considered a forgone conclusion since September, but there’s been chatter over the last couple weeks that this one isn’t quite over yet. I’ve heard Tampa wants to make a splashy hire, if they are going to go get a new coach, which contextualizes Mike McCarthy’s name being connected to the job. If that’s not there for them? Maybe Koetter survives. A big issue, though, is that the vast majority of Koetter’s assistants are on expiring contracts, so Tampa would need to commit to those guys for another two years, and all of them would have the chance to leave on their own volition if they saw Koetter as a lame duck going into 2019.

• Speaking of McCarthy, the Jets are another team to watch there. They’ve done their research on ex-Packers coach. And even though there might some question about fit in the New York market, my expectation is that McCarthy will be under consideration there next week. He and ex-Lions and Colts coach Jim Caldwell, both of whom have coached in the Super Bowl, are examples of coaches on the other end of the spectrum—given the lack of hot young names on the market, some teams will value experience and the ability to assemble a staff over the chance to catch lightning in a bottle. In the case of McCarthy and Caldwell, there’s also the benefit of both having background coaching the quarterback position, and having done so with all-time greats.

• Regarding assistants, there could be some interesting offensive coordinator movement, and a name at the top of that list is right off Koetter’s staff. Per sources, Bucs OC Todd Monken’s contract is up. And I believe he’ll be a hot candidate for coordinator openings, and even could get an interview or two at the head-coaching level. His creativity and blending of college and pro concepts have more than a couple teams intrigued.

• Lions OC Jim Bob Cooter is another coordinator on an expiring contract who could look around—and will garner interest. The marriage with Matt Patricia hasn’t been perfect, and other teams seem willing to chalk up the Detroit offense’s decline in production to that reality. If Cooter bolts, Patricia does have a QBs coach with coordinator experience on staff, in George Godsey, if he doesn’t turn to a vet he has a background with, like ex-Patriots OC Charlie Weis.

• There’s a persistent drumbeat out there on potential changes coming in Atlanta at some level. Yes, Dan Quinn is safe. But changes on his staff seem inevitable at this point.

• College coaches will be in the mix, even though that interest is usually kept quiet (with recruiting concerns a reason why). Lincoln Riley, as we said, will have opportunity—and past just this year, which should enable him to pick his spot. (And he’s already got one of the best jobs in the sport, so there’s no need to rush.) I’d expect Iowa State’s Matt Campbell’s name to surface in more than one place—a couple people on the scouting trail brought his name to me in September, and I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback on him since. He’s a Northeast Ohio native (he’s actually from the same town as Paul Brown), so Cleveland would certainly be interesting, and he’s the type of hire that may allow the Browns to make a run at holding on to Freddie Kitchens. Other college coaches to watch who have an interest in the NFL are Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly and Baylor’s Matt Rhule. And I wouldn’t be stunned to see Florida’s Dan Mullen, who is said to have NFL aspirations, start to pop up somewhere along the line.

• Two college names that I’ve learned to group together, while we’re there—Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald and Stanford’s David Shaw. Both have won in places that have unique challenges. Both are coaching at their alma mater. Both are well compensated, loved and happy in regions where they have deep roots in. Both can win eight or nine games a year with their college teams and be celebrated for it. And both have garnered more than a little interest from the NFL. That’s a long way of saying a lot of NFL teams love those guys, but it’d take a lot to lure them to leave what they’ve got now. Maybe the presence of ex-Northwestern AD Mark Murphy in Green Bay—Murphy hired Fitzgerald as head coach at NU—will be enough to coax Fitzgerald to the NFL. I just wouldn’t count on it.