B&B Special 12/23/20

Coaching Carousel

The NFL changed things up, making coaches available to be remotely interviewed as soon as this week. Teams still have to ask permission, curtsey to the west, and praise Roger Goodell - you know, the normal stuff - but early interviews may make for a bit of a land grab. Looking around the league, we have three current openings (Atlanta, Detroit, and Houston) with as many as six others possibly coming open.

The first thing we could see is that those six may have to make a quick decision. Everyone will have Adam Schefter on speed dial and if he hears their lead choices are out there, they’ll have to make a move.

Of those six, I think at least two will come open. I don’t think Jerry Jones cans Mike McCarthy after just one year with the Cowboys, especially with no absolute lock coming in. Jones has shown that he’s loyal and only really makes a move when he’s made the decision, things that don’t seem to move quick. The same is true in Philly. Doug Pederson is way down, but he’s not that far removed from a Super Bowl. If he can deflect the downfall of Carson Wentz, he should get at least a year with Jalen Hurts.

It’s a bit more confusing with the NY Jets. They’re awful, but not awful enough to get Trevor Lawrence, though sources tell me Lawrence was serious about coming back to Clemson if the Jets had the 1-1. None of them say he definitely would, but he would have had leverage either to force them to trade the pick or make concessions. Now, most think they’ll be stuck with another year of Sam Darnold and if that’s the case, Adam Gase has proven he isn’t the guy to make any of this work. He should go, but it’s not clear he will.

Add in that Woody Johnson will be back from Nine Elms and likely to be back in control of the Jets franchise. That’s not a plus. Johnson could see the catastrophe the team has been while he’s been ambassador and clean house, but he’s had years to do that and hasn’t picked well in previous attempts.

The likely scenario is that Johnson brings in a new GM, dumping Joe Douglas for someone much higher profile. No one I spoke with agrees on who this is. “Bill Parcells is not walking through that door,” said one current staffer. The hot candidate right now is ESPN’s Louis Riddick, but a heated media environment might not be the best place for someone like Riddick, even coming out of the media. Moreover, he’s going to have his choice and why would that choice be the Jets? A name you might hear is Mike Borgonzi, the Chiefs draft guru. He’s very well thought of, but isn’t the big name, run everything guy that would be the fit to be “football czar” through a full rebuild, second pick coming or not. Put a pin in this, because I’ll come back to the Jets.

It’s about the same in Jacksonville. While Fulham and wrestling have taken some of the Khan’s time and money, the father-son pair is still very involved in the Jaguars, especially personnel decisions. They won’t have to make one with Trevor Lawrence - it’s a no brainer and they could essentially just offer him the max ahead of the draft and make it absolutely anticlimactic. (Honestly, I think that would be good for the draft. Let Lawrence get his name called and all the pomp, assuming a normal draft, but put the focus on the much more interesting picks after him. There’s no Manning-Leaf or Luck-Griffin to storyboard here.)

With Lawrence in house, is the current coaching staff and braintrust the right one, or could they change everything up? Sources in the NFL are mixed on this. They think Marrone/Coughlin isn’t bad for Lawrence, especially in a year where the team is likely to still be bad and the focus should just be on keeping him healthy. On the other, if Lawrence is the future, a QB friendly head coach would be a better fit in the long term.

Eric Bienemy is going to be discussed, putting Lawrence with one of the guys who helped Patrick Mahomes turn into the top talent in the league. There’s already some discussion of “how much is Andy Reid” and a question of who Bienemy could bring with him. Borgonzi is the likeliest choice, but would either want the hands-on ownership experience they haven’t had in KC?

You’re going to hear some mentions of “why not just hire Dabo Sweeney” but please put them out of your mind immediately. The Jags aren’t going to match Sweeney’s Clemson salary and Sweeney is far more focused on replacing Nick Saban than he is shifting to the NFL. In fact, I don’t think you’ll see the Jags even consider a college guy here.

[EDIT 1/15/21: I couldn’t have been more wrong here. Urban Meyer appears to have been the only serious candidate, despite multiple interviews with others.]

Houston is going to be simpler, but still problematic. There’s certainly talent here but questions about ownership and two seasons of being rudderless, wasting some of what JJ Watt and DeShaun Watson could bring. Both are locked in, so this is a readable job. The interviews will essentially be in reverse - what coach and GM will want these jobs? News that Jim Caldwell is a lead interview is telling and I expect we’ll see a safe pick here. Caldwell would be likely to keep Romeo Crennel on, functioning as something of a co-head coach, the way Wade Phillips did in both Dallas and Los Angeles. We’ll probably see a couple other names along this line, perhaps Byron Leftwich or Leslie Frazier, with a non-zero chance they just stick with Crennel and punt the real decision for now.

Detroit is more confounding - they’ve been bad under Matt Patricia, but how much was Patricia? This is the likely spot for Louis Riddick to land. He’ll have the full run of operations, a decent pick, a QB in place with an exit ramp if he wants it in a year, and did I mention full control? Riddick is likely to pick a coach he’s comfortable with and almost everyone thinks that he’ll look to Leslie Frazier. The Bills are hot now and Frazier is set up to be an “Act II” head coach. It’s obviously another one where Eric Bienemy will be mentioned, but I think we could see Robert Saleh pushed as a pick. Saleh’s a bit more speculative, but he has a lot of fans around the league, which reminds some of Hue Jackson, purely in the promotion.

Atlanta seems happy with Raheem Morris and it looks like they’re more likely to glance around just to see whether there’s a better fit with their next GM. There’s not a lot that can change in Atlanta right away, so Morris as an Act II could work, or you could drop in a college coach like Pat Fitzgerald here and know it would be tough for him to flat out fail. The hot name here is Arthur Smith, who’s father founded FedEx and is a longtime friend of Arthur Blank.

[EDIT 1/15/21: Ah, nailed this one, for exactly the right reasons.]

The Chargers are likely to dump Anthony Lynn, who seems better suited to being a coordinator. He’ll have that chance, but his seat will be filled quickly and possibly locally. Brandon Staley stepped up to defensive coordinator for the Rams and not only held his own, but turned a unit into one of the best in the league. Yes, that’s largely on the talent like Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald, but when healthy, the Chargers have that kind of talent as well. Getting Derwin James and Melvin Ingram back are a big boost to anyone. Beyond Staley, the Chargers will likely look at Bienemy, Saleh, and Byron Leftwich.

Chicago? That one is up in the air. The team could well fire Matt Nagy and clear out Halas Hall, but no one seems to have any idea which way they’d go or who’d be guiding this. The McCaskeys have become the ultimate in hands-off ownership lately and that’s not changing. In one phone call, someone asked me to remind him who else owned a piece of the Bears besides the Halas/McCaskey family. It’s Andrew McKenna, the former chairman of McDonalds, who’s not likely to make a fuss at 91. No one seems to have much of a clue about where the Bears go and that’s pretty telling. Staley, who was a positions coach here not long ago, could be a candidate here as well.

[EDIT 1/15/21: The Bears stayed with Nagy, which jibes with what I was hearing back when I wrote this. I’ll call this one a win.]

Which brings me back to the Jets. Assuming the rest go the way everyone expects, we’re going to see a jump in the number of minority head coaches and GMs. That’s a good thing which will be credited to the new system, but it will also allow the Jets to slow play the coaching search and if the numbers are all good, they’ll have to follow the letter of the Rooney Rule but not the spirit. If Bill Parcells isn’t walking through the door, can Woody Johnson find someone who is like Parcells?

One source tells me that both Woody and Chris Johnson have their eye on one candidate who could come available this off-season and if so, they’d move quickly, allowing him to bring in his own people, control the draft, and basically not only buy the groceries and cook the meals, but set the budget and do the dishes as well. “They want one guy,” I was told and that guy could be Jim Harbaugh.

(Pause for groans.)

Harbaugh’s time in San Francisco and then Michigan were mixed, at best, with a pattern not unlike that of Dusty Baker. He comes in, fires everyone up, rah-rah and us against the world, and gets a bit out of people more than some expected. By year three or four, the same old act is tired and Harbaugh is the ultimate coaching one-trick pony. If he can sell the Johnsons that things would be any different with the Jets, well, at least that would be another good trick, or maybe the Johnsons would be happy with a couple good years.

If nothing else, the NFL’s coaching searches will fill a gap where the MLB offseason has failed to distract. This earlier ability to interview will allow a couple teams to make moves that could feel distinctly different, like hiring someone on Black Monday as someone is shown the door. One NFL writer suggested Black Monday and [Your Team Color Here] Tuesday, a two-day festival of doors opening and closing, which would feed the media monster for a couple days and then get out of the way in time for the first round of the playoffs. I’ve heard worse.

[EDIT 1/15/21: Nope. Harbaugh parlayed interest into an extension at Michigan. The Jets quickly flipped to Robert Sales and got their man. I think the rest of what I said about the Jets becomes a major issue. The Johnsons wanted one guy who could fix things and they didn’t get it. They got a good young head coach, but one with no track record in that ownership and media environment. As good as Saleh is, he’s not going to turn the franchise around in a year or even two. The problem here remains the Jets overall, something Saleh can’t personally fix.]