Carolina Panthers
Las Vegas Raiders
Los Angeles Chargers
Atlanta Falcons
Washington Commanders
Tennessee Titans
Seattle Seahawks
New England Patriots
The last two were perhaps the most surprising as Super Bowl-winners Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick had become synonymous with the respective franchises they led for so long. The team’s might as well have been called the Carroll Seahawks and Belichick Patriots. Change is inevitable.
Unless something unexpected happens in the coming weeks, the Washington Commanders closed this year’s head coach churn with the hiring of Dan Quinn as their new head coach. With that, here are this year’s new head coaches.
Carolina Panthers - Dave Canales
Las Vegas Raiders - Antonio Pierce
Los Angeles Chargers - Jim Harbaugh
Atlanta Falcons - Raheem Morris
Washington Commanders - Dan Quinn
Tennessee Titans - Brian Callahan
Seattle Seahawks - Mike Macdonald
New England Patriots - Jerod Mayo
Perhaps because Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, and Mike Vrabel didn’t get one of these jobs, fresh, young coaches were this year’s hiring theme. While Antonio Pierce was the Raiders interim head coach for a handful of games, five of the eight jobs went to coaches that have never been an NFL head coach.
Dave Canales, 42
Antonio Pierce, 45
Brian Callahan, 39
Mike Macdonald, 36
Jerod Mayo, 37
Mike Macdonald and Jerod Mayo are the league’s youngest head coaches. Brian Callahan is the sixth youngest. After swapping out 70-year old coaches for these newbies, the NFL’s head coach fraternity got a lot younger.
Even more important, the NFL head coach fraternity got a little more diverse. Half of the head coach jobs went to minorities.
Dave Canales
Antonio Pierce
Jerod Mayo
Raheem Morris
While it’s the most equal opportunity hiring cycle that I can recall, the league has a long way to go. Only nine of the 32 head coach jobs are held by a minority coach.
Mike Tomlin
Robert Saleh
Todd Bowles
Mike McDaniel
DeMeco Ryans
Dave Canales
Antonio Pierce
Jerod Mayo
Raheem Morris
Looking forward.
Anything can happen in Year 1 of a new NFL head coach. DeMeco Ryans and the Houston Texans are the most recent example of that. They went from terrible to the playoffs. It doesn’t take much thought to see that Jim Harbaugh and Mike Macdonald are in position for early success. It will be fun to see what comes of the coach-quarterback pairing of Harbaugh and uber-talented Justin Herbert. As for Macdonald, he’s joining a team coming off a couple of terrific drafts. I might not be sold on their quarterback but there’s talent in Seattle. The defensive talent molded by Macdonald will be intriguing.
I’m probably most curious about Raheem Morris in Atlanta. He was one of my favorites (with DeMeco Ryans and Kevin O’Connell) for the Minnesota Vikings head coach job during the 2022 churn. In his first head coach shot, Morris started fast with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers then faded just as fast. I believe that he learned a lot from that experience and learned even more through his experience since. He’s 47. He’s been coaching football since he was 21. 26 years. For 22 of those years, he’s been a defensive football coach. In his first run with the Falcons (2015-2020), he coached defensive backs for a year and then flipped to the offense. He wanted to learn coaching from that side of the ball. From 2016-19 he coached receivers and coordinated the offensive passing game. He’s had a remarkable coaching career and I believe that he’s very ready for this opportunity. He’s definitely earned it.
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s head coach churn.
No comments:
Post a Comment