NFL Head Coaching Opportunities

Congratulations to the Indiana Hoosiers as the CFP Champions for the 2025/2026 college football season.  At his introductory press event, Coach Cignetti said he came to Indiana with the intention of winning championships; last night, he fulfilled that intent.  If there were still any doubt about Fernando Mendoza’s worthiness as the Heisman Trophy winner, I suspect that last night’s performance would have erased any such doubts.

Moving on …  Yesterday, I wrote about the 10 NFL head coaching openings; there is always turnover in those jobs, but this year seems to be a hyperactive marketplace.  That could be a chance event; low probability events happen all the time; or perhaps there is a reason for so many firings/hirings this year.

Recency is a powerful element of one’s memory; sometimes we say that one had an experience or an event “fresh in mind” when offering a basis for a decision or an action.  Perhaps the NFL owners as a collective mind looked at last year’s “hiring season” and saw some dramatically improved results:

• Liam Coen – Jags:  He took over a team that had gone 4-13-0 in 2024 and posted a 13-4-0 record in 2025.  The last time the Jags had a season with double-digit wins was back in 2017 and the team had suffered through a miserable 2020 season with a 1-15-0 record.
• Ben Johnson – Bears:  He took over a team that had gone 5-12-0 in 2024 and posted an 11-6-0 record in 2025.  The last time the Bears had a winning record at the end of a regular season was in 2018 when they made the playoffs as the NFC North champions.  Everyone will remember how that season ended for the Bears in the playoffs when I use the words, “Double Doink”.
• Mike Vrabel – Pats:  He took over a team that had gone 4-13-0 in 2024 and posted a 13-4-0 record in 2025.  The Pats were living off the legacy of the “Brady/Belichick Era” in recent years when the facts say that the team had been a sub-.500 performer in each of the last three seasons.

            If the collective mind of “NFL Ownership” is focused on those dramatic turnarounds and concludes that such success is the new normal, I suggest that would be an erroneous conclusion.  There are three other common elements involved in those three turnarounds:

1. All three teams have young talented QBs.  Granted that Caleb Williams and Drake Maye went through some painful learning experiences in 2024, but both along with Trevor Lawrence possess natural QB talents.
2. All three teams have a balanced offense that does not place an inordinate burden on that young talented QB.  They can run the ball more than just once in a while particularly if they need to “bleed the clock” a bit.
3. All three teams have solid defenses; they need not score 35 points every week to post a winning record.

If you look at the list of job openings this year, notice that the first two hires were by teams with a young/promising QB in place – – Jaxson Dart and Michael Penix, Jr. (assuming he can stay healthy).  Coaches looking for work see that element as critical to their success, and they jump at the chance to work there.  Of the eight job openings extant, there are two with obvious QB talent – – the Bills and the Ravens.  Maybe Cam Ward in Tennessee will pan out; maybe the Raiders will have a talent at the position after they draft Fernando Mendoza; or maybe not.  Coaches taking jobs at any of the current openings other than the Bills or the Ravens are gambling their reputations as NFL head coaches on QB positions that are up in the air.

Moreover, look at the teams with job openings this morning.  How many of them would you say have a balanced offense or a dominant defense?  I would say few to none of them.  So, if my assessment of the value of the talent in place at six of the teams with a job opening this morning is correct and if indeed the owners are expecting results like those posted by Coen/Johnson/Vrabel in 2026, I fear there will be dashed hopes.  And when NFL owners’ hopes are dashed, there are new job openings.

Finally, maybe these words from Sigmund Freud apply here:

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………