Vermeil? He had a rough first couple of years in his comeback with the Rams by reenacting the Bear Bryant/Junction Boys days, but that ‘99 team was really good.
2023 NFL Coaching Carousel
- Thread starter luckiestman
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Ah Vermeil, I should have remembered him. Also, Parcells to some extent. (I think he took at least a few years off)
Some updates...
Colts hire PHI OC as HC: View: https://twitter.com/Colts/status/1625518835800350721
Ravens hire Georgia OC for same position: View: https://twitter.com/Ravens/status/1625522793088516097?s=20&t=U3-IjFJTFSX_6TkDb2okQQ
Cardinals down to PHI / CIN DCs for their HC: various sources
Chargers hire Doug Nussmeier as QB coach: View: https://twitter.com/diannaespn/status/1625536805255757844?s=46&t=8mIcYmunMLODezXRrIScDg
Colts hire PHI OC as HC: View: https://twitter.com/Colts/status/1625518835800350721
Ravens hire Georgia OC for same position: View: https://twitter.com/Ravens/status/1625522793088516097?s=20&t=U3-IjFJTFSX_6TkDb2okQQ
Cardinals down to PHI / CIN DCs for their HC: various sources
Chargers hire Doug Nussmeier as QB coach: View: https://twitter.com/diannaespn/status/1625536805255757844?s=46&t=8mIcYmunMLODezXRrIScDg
His past is well documented. But those types of issues are routinely ignored or scrubbed in this League. (See Patricia, Matt). I am surprised he's not given a shot, and he deserves one based purely on his performance.
None of us know how he offensive-coordinates or calls plays! Being the OC to reid is a mixed blessing.
Five years oughta be long enough for him to finally figure out how to get a defensive stop in AZ. Maybe.
Talk here is that WAS might be his landing spot to OC away from Reid. Crap job, though, Rivera is a gonner once new owners are in place though if he is awesome maybe he stays with whomever replaces Rivera.
It feels like the hot coaching candidates change dramatically from one year to the next. Kinda shows why guys need to take a job once they are offered one, wait too long and suddenly you aren’t a hot name anymore.
After his Super Bowl performance, Cardinals fans must feel like Lions fans did after hiring Matt Patricia.
Aside from the obvious, I also think having a very good offense with Alex Smith is more attractive than having a great offense with Patrick Mahomes. Being a non-playcalling OC under Reid with Mahomes is the cushiest gig in football. Becomes really hard to separate.
They say he calls the plays. I think he has to be a bad interview or it’s the background check. Otherwise, why arent they hiring him? Teams that have hired other black coaches have passed. It doesn’t seem as simple as racism to me because, like I said teams have hired other black coaches but not him. Someone brought up Peterson. Didn’t Leftwich pass on the Jags job? So Jags would have hired a black coach. I’m sure there are racist owners but I’m not sure they are racist in a way that given the opportunity to win they pass because of their racism.
I think Nathaniel Hackett is another reasonable comp for Bieniemy. Hackett also didn't call plays for the Packers very successful offense led by an elite QB. I also can't imagine Hackett interviewing decently.
Racism? Agism (Bieniemy is 10 years older than Hackett)? The arrests from 30 years ago? Who knows?
Racism? Agism (Bieniemy is 10 years older than Hackett)? The arrests from 30 years ago? Who knows?
Andy Reid has said on occasion that Bienemy calls plays--but then Andy Reid is usually pretty obviously calling plays himself while eyeing the playsheet like a cheesecake factory menu, and players have often spoken about Andy Reid's play calling, so it's a little hard to be sure. For better or worse when the head coach has been a top offensive mind in the nfl for more than 20 years OC's won't always get full credit.
One quirk in all of this is that every team has a very different idea of what they're looking for in a head coach. Is it a leader of a 300 person football operation including players? An elite schemer on one side of the ball? A face of the franchise? A motivator? A CEO for the coaches and players? A motivator for the players (or perhaps in some cases for particular elite players, especially QBs?) A friend for confused manchild Jim Irsay? An expert tactician on gameday managing the team as a whole and clock management? Every process is going to prioritize different things and that can certainly help or hurt different candidates.
Bienemy also had some allegations from his Colorado days surface over the past few years: https://www.sportscasting.com/chiefs-oc-eric-bieniemys-troubling-rap-sheet-includes-a-disturbing-assault-charge-against-a-woman/
1. I think Reid has consistently said that EB calls some plays when he feels like it & he trusts him when he does.
View: https://twitter.com/aaronladd0/status/1485696310628036610
It's obviously a collaborative effort, but Reid is the one with final authority.
2. & then he was fired the next season after they started 3-8.
3. He's only relevant insomuch as he was given a job & EB was not. It obviously was a terrible idea to give him a job & seems likely to have been on the back of Aaron Rodgers - but there is likely a reason he got a job but Bieniemy has not. It could be any of those things I mentioned, or even nepotism.
It often isn't. Bienemy has flaws. Would a white coach be more likely to have those flaws overlooked? That's the question. Based on history the answer is almost certainly a yes.
A young white coach absolutely. Especially on the offensive side
We don’t have a lot of experience in the #metoo era. I don’t think guys like Matt Patricia are going to be getting coveted NFL coaching jobs anymore. I don’t know if Bienemy deserves that comparison, but he’s not the right measuring stick for how the NFL is doing on minority hiring. What happened to Flores, Wilks, and others is a lot more relevant.
I don’t know with Patricia-the allegations are obviously very serious but the indictment was dropped (fairly quickly iirc) he always maintained his innocence no one involved in the case continued to speak out against Patricia and by the time he was hired by the lions they were more than 20 years old. I’m sure some employers will walk away from a potential hire because of a 20 year old indictment but I think many will not - at least not in a field like football where there’s a perception that getting a particularly skilled head coach regardless of his off the field activities is crucial to an organization’s success. Like put Patricia out of the picture-if it turned out that indictment against Sean Payton had been issued and dropped twenty years ago do you think he wouldn’t have been able to get a top job?
My gut is that Patricia probably wasn’t indicted for nothing but I think it’s hard for me to believe that a dropped indictment long ago is going to be career ending in lots of professions-particularly “macho” professions like the NFL. Hell the Chiefs hired one of Andy Reid’s kids after he’d been sentenced to prison (and spent more than a year in an intensive drug rehab program) for drug trafficking and for waving a gun at another driver in a road rage incident-and then while in staff he put a fucking kid in coma and causes the kid lifelong brain damage -and you don’t hear squat about it.
Gannon took pay cut to be Cardinals head coach
I guess he didn't technically take a pay cut, but he was offered more to stay.
I guess he didn't technically take a pay cut, but he was offered more to stay.
This seems like a good example of why the Eagles were in the Super Bowl & the Cardinals were not.
Not speaking for JM3 but maybe it's that the Eagles seem willing to pay a Defensive Coordinator more than the Cardinals are willing to pay a Head Coach?
Yup.
The willingness to spend money on things that aren't cap controlled but can materially help your team is a big deal. The Bidwills have never really been into such things & have a 45-year reputation for cheapness. It may be not totally fair to paint Michael with Bill's brush, but yeahhh...
The last successful Cardinals head coach hire? Bruce Arians, who retired from the Cardinals rather than coach the last year of his contract in 2018 - & then became the coach of the Bucs in 2019, where he won the Super Bowl.
Before that? Don "Air" Coryell who was another offensive assistant given his first head coaching gig, & met with really good results...until basically he didn't want to work for the Cardinals anymore. He complained about their management & spending policies so they locked him out of his office prior to the 1978 season. He went on to coach the Chargers starting in 1979, where his offenses were massively successful.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1978/01/18/cards-lock-out-coryell/d471c935-ec96-4d68-a162-177725a3d02d/
Before that? Jimmy Conzelman did really good in 3 seasons for the Chicago Cardinals from 1946 to 1948. Why did he leave after the '48 season where they went 11-1 & lost in the Championship Game to the Eagles? To focus on his advertising career...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Conzelman
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Arizona is also a team that extended a terrible coach in Kliff and a brittle malcontent in Kyler Murrary after they collapsed in the 2nd half of 2021 and then just got completely embarrassed in a playoff game against the Rams.
The team management is dumb. Making those moves was dumb. And expensive. It was dumb at the time and roundly mocked and they still did it. Kyler obviously had a WAY worse season than even the biggest critics expected due to the injuries. But he's tiny and his play style isn't conducive to staying on the field because he is so small. He's had injuries every season he's played even before the catastrophic knee injury.
Arizona is going to be a non-event in the NFL for the next couple of seasons. And then maybe they can turn it around with some rebuilding through the draft. Buy Kyler isn't the answer, even if he is healthy, which he isn't.
The team management is dumb. Making those moves was dumb. And expensive. It was dumb at the time and roundly mocked and they still did it. Kyler obviously had a WAY worse season than even the biggest critics expected due to the injuries. But he's tiny and his play style isn't conducive to staying on the field because he is so small. He's had injuries every season he's played even before the catastrophic knee injury.
Arizona is going to be a non-event in the NFL for the next couple of seasons. And then maybe they can turn it around with some rebuilding through the draft. Buy Kyler isn't the answer, even if he is healthy, which he isn't.
Can’t be many. Interestingly, the Broncos have done it before: Wade Phillips served short stints with the Broncos as head coach in the early 90s then, of course, as DC in the mid-10s.
EDIT - Looks like Tom Cable did it with the Raiders if you count OL coaches.
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Sean “Doc” Desai gets the gig as Eagles DC. It’s his 3rd DC position in 3 years - First Chicago, where he came up through Fangio’s system, and then last season as the Seahawks’ DC and associate head coach. Fangio had a consulting role with Philly last season, so he surely recommended Desai to the team and there will be a lot of continuity in the concepts and philosophy.
The Eagles have 11 defensive free agents, including a lot of d-line/edge talent. So there’s definitely going to be some change and Desai will probably start reshaping the the front in tandem with personnel turnover.
The Eagles have 11 defensive free agents, including a lot of d-line/edge talent. So there’s definitely going to be some change and Desai will probably start reshaping the the front in tandem with personnel turnover.
Desai was not the DC for the Seahawks last year; that was Clint Hurtt. He was an associate head coach, so I think this becomes a promotion (again) for him.
Yeah, he was apparently the "Assistant Head Coach - Defense". I think Desai was in the running for Seattle DC but Hurtt got it, and then Desai was added after that happened.
I am looking forward to Desai replacing Gannon. Gannon never seemed to be able to call a good defense against good QBs.
On offense the Eagles named Brian Johnson as the OC. Johnson has known Hurts since he was 4 years old; apparently Hurts' dad coached Johnson in high school. What a crazy connection there. I don't expect the offense to miss a beat.
All in all I think while it's tough to lose both coordinators in the same offseason that the Eagles will be alright in this regard.