The hunting season for NFL coaches may not be over – – but surely the majority of the “harvesting’ is done. As of this morning, the Raiders still have their interim head coach – – but they have fired their GM, Mike Mayock – – and there are rumors that Jerry Jones might be sufficiently disappointed in the Cowboys’ self-inflicted exit from the playoffs to give in to his impulses and fire Mike McCarthy – – but that still remains to be seen.
- [Aside: I am not sure what McCarthy does for a living in Dallas. He does not call the offense; he does not call the defense; he does not call the special teams. If his job is motivation and coaching up the players to play “smart football” then he should be fired immediately because the Cowboys were flat last weekend and were beyond stupid on the field.]
In any event, let me review the teams that have actual coaching vacancies as of this morning and try to assess how good those jobs might look to potential candidates. I’ll take them in alphabetical order to avoid any hint of rank ordering on my part.
Bears: This roster needs improvement on the OL and at WR and the “draft capital” has been depleted in previous trades for Khalil Mack and in the deals that got the Bears earlier draft slots such that they could take Mitchell Trubisky and later Justin Fields. If Fields is “for real” and can be developed over a year or two, that will ease the severity of the Bears’ situation, but Fields looked like an early work-in-progress when he got time as the starter in mid-season. The biggest question mark facing a coach who seeks out this job resides about 200 miles north of Chicago in Green Bay, WI. That question mark is:
- Will Aaron Rodgers stay with the Packers?
The stark reality is that if Rodgers stays in Green Bay – and therefore in the NFC North – the Bears are not winning that division until he leaves. This is neither the best job opening out there nor is it the worst – – unless Rodgers stays in Green Bay and plays as long as Tom Brady has played in the NFL…
Broncos: Stop me if you have heard this before, but the Broncos desperately need a top-shelf QB. One would think that having John Elway involved in the selection process for a starting QB would give the Broncos the inside track on resolving that issue. Not so. Ever since the end of the 2015 season when Peyton Manning retired, here are the QBs who have started for the Broncos:
- Trevor Siemian (24 games)
- Paxton Lynch (4 games)
- Brock Osweiler (11 games)
- Case Keenum (16 games)
- Joe Flacco (8 games)
- Drew Lock (21 games)
- Brandon Allen (3 games)
- Jeff Driskel (1 game)
- Brett Rypien (1game)
- Philip Lindsey (1 game)
- Teddy Bridgewater (14 games)
That represents 6 seasons of mediocrity and this year’s Draft class for QBs is ”not highly regarded”. The rest of the Broncos’ roster is solid particularly in the defensive backfield and at wide receiver. The coach that takes the job in Denver must either get Teddy Bridgewater to improve his game significantly AND to stay healthy – – or pray for a miraculous anointing of a journeyman QB plucked from the world ether to become “elite”. This job is probably good for a 3-year run before a lack of playoff success gets the new guy fired. Oh, and just for giggles, the ownership of the team is in the process of changing; who knows what the new owner will be like… Ergo, the key in the deal for the new coach is how much gets paid out to him by the deal when he gets fired…
Dolphins: I still have no understanding as to why Brian Flores was fired. One bit of “inside information” is that Flores’ relationship with QB Tua Tagovaiola had soured. Pardon me, but what has Tua done in his NFL career that would make an owner take his side in a dispute with a coach that has had a winning record with the franchise – – assuming that such a dispute actually existed. In these days of “offensive football” where things favor the passing game, Tua has yet to have a season with more than 2653 yards passing – – and he has been injured enough to miss 9 games in 2 seasons. [Aside: If a coaching aspirant is looking at the “successes” of the GM above him, he should focus on the fact that the current GM selected Tua instead of Justin Herbert – – for whatever that is worth.] The good news here is that the Dolphins’ defense is very good, and they have Jaylen Waddle at WR who appears poised to have a fine NFL career; the bad news is that team ownership/leadership has been sub-par over the past decade or so. This would not be a good job for a first-time coach because it could stamp him as “a loser”; if the team can convince an experienced coach to take the job, it would be somewhat better…
Giants: This team is a mess. Daniel Jones has been in the league for 3 seasons now; he has started 38 games; the Giants’ record in those games is 12-26. I do not mean to say that Jones is a lost cause – – but he is not someone who can put a mediocre team on his back and scratch out victories. Oh, and he missed the last 6 games of the 2021 season with a neck injury. Having said that, Jones is not the weak link in the Giants’ offense; part of his lack of success has to be attributed to a bad offensive line and a wide receiving cadre that elicits “Meh!” when under consideration. So, the owners let the GM who assembled this roster “retire” with a ceremony on the field for the final game but then fired the coach who had to deal with that hot mess. Is that a situation a new coach will find “favorable”? The last three head coaches and the last GM hired by John Mara have been singularly unsuccessful; if this coaching search goes differently, it will be fortunate indeed. Given the microscopic scrutiny the Giants will get by the NY press corps, this is not a job that looks to be “coach-friendly”…
Jags: From what I saw in his time at Clemson, Trevor Lawrence is a generational talent at QB; prior to Lawrence’s time at Clemson, the last college QB to make me take notice to the same degree was Andrew Luck at Stanford. James Robinson is a solid running back who averaged 4.7 yards per carry last year. The defense is young and inexperienced but has talent. However, the offensive line and the wide receivers are sub-standard. Unlike most of these job openings, the QB situation is in good shape; but the rest of the team needs talent upgrades and significant additions to the “coaching-up” processes. If a competent coaching staff can come together here and develop the players much more successfully than happened last year, it will not be difficult to show improvement. There should be no exotic expectations for the Jags among its fans – or even its owner –; there will not be a fan revolt if the team does not “make a playoff run” sometime in the next two seasons; with competence and steady improvement, the new coach here has a chance to make a positive impression on fans and in Front Offices around the league. One downside to this position is that the GM, Trent Baalke, does not enjoy a positive reputation around the league and many Jags’ fans wanted him fired at the end of the season too. All in all, this is a job worth chasing…
Texans: The Texans ranked dead last in the NFL in total offense for 2021; that result is directly tied to the Deshaun Watson “situation”; until and unless the Texans get Watson back under center – a status he says is unacceptable to him – or they acquire a competent QB in a trade or through the draft, the Texans are consigned to the bottom of the AFC South. The real issue here in my mind relates to reports out of Houston about how the disenchantment with management came to be for Watson and then how all the parties to that tension found ways to make a bad situation lots and lots worse. Let me be polite here and say that more than a few reports about the environment in Houston regarding the owner and the GM and the football operations folks paint them as “flaky” or “not in line with folks in similar positions around the league”. Aspirants for this position need to consider these two parallel realities:
- The roster is gutted and without Watson the offense is going to be at or near the bottom of the league again in 2022.
- There are only 32 NFL head coaching jobs on the planet – – and this is one of them.
Vikings: Mike Zimmer had been in that job for 8 seasons; his firing was not some knee-jerk reaction by ownership. For me, the telltale stats that say it was time for the team to move on are these:
- The Vikings’ defense ranked 30th in the NFL in total yards allowed (383.6 yards per game). Only the Texans and Jets were worse.
- The Vikings’ defense ranked 29th in the NFL in points allowed per game
- In 2020, the Vikings’ defense ranked 27th in the NFL in total yards allowed (393.3 yards per game).
- In 2020, the Vikings’ defense ranked 24th in the NFL in points allowed per game.
- Mike Zimmer is a “defensive coach”; those results are not even remotely “acceptable”.
The positive side of this job opening is the offense. Kirk Cousins is a serviceable QB; Dalvin Cook is a top-shelf running back and Justin Jefferson is a monster at WR. If the new coach and GM – – the team is looking for both – – can find a way to shore up the defense and make it only “middle of the pack” when it comes to those sorts of defensive stats, this could be a very rewarding position…
So, there is my overview for what it is worth. Since you get it for free, you know exactly what it is worth…
Finally, these hirings in the coaching domain will be finalized by team owners – – incredibly rich people. So, let me close today with an observation about “The Rich” by George Bernard Shaw:
“What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………