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Examining ideal coaching fits for NFL teams ahead of Black Monday
’Tis the season for coaching and regime changes around the NFL. We’ve already seen the Rams, Jaguars and Bills get a jumpstart on the job market by dumping their coaches; there will surely be more to follow, accompanied by the musical chairs of coaching interviews and hirings.
With that in mind, let’s play a little fantasy off-season football. What follows are the seven most likely head coaching openings along with our dream fits from the pool of likely available coaches.
Already open
Los Angeles Rams
After five straight losing seasons under Jeff Fisher (bottoming out with this 4–11-and-counting campaign), the Rams finally fired him—a choice they should have made two years ago. Complicating this situation is the fact that GM Les Snead is still running personnel, but team president Kevin Demoff said Snead’s future has not yet been determined. Rookie quarterback Jared Goff may get mixed reviews, but candidates will be enticed by the location, deep pockets and owner Stan Kroenke, who is fairly hands off.
Best fit: Sean Payton, current head coach of the Saints. He’s had a successful 11-year run with the Saints (including a Super Bowl win), but after three-straight losing seasons, plus Drew Brees nearing the end of his contract/career, instability with the ownership and a team mired in salary-cap hell, it’s a good time for Payton to move on and start fresh. The question is, what kind of compensation would the Saints want in return? After the Goff trade, the Rams have limited draft resources, but perhaps second-round picks the next two years could do the deal. As an added bonus for Payton, he could fire defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who pointed the finger at Payton in the bounty scandal that cost Payton a year on the sidelines and millions in salary.
Jacksonville Jaguars
After three-plus seasons and a 14–48 record, the Jaguars moved on from Gus Bradley and have reportedly interviewed former Giants and Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin for the head coaching position. This job is promising because the team features young talent on both sides of the ball, an owner with patience and loads of cap space. But the QB position needs to be fixed, as Blake Bortles’s future is up in the air.
Best fit: Josh McDaniels, OC, Patriots. McDaniels, the former Broncos coach, and Jaguars GM David Caldwell were teammates in college at John Carroll. Caldwell is well liked by the ownership in Jacksonville and has done a good job upgrading the roster and fixing a financial mess. Caldwell also worked in Atlanta under Thomas Dimitroff, who previously was with the Patriots, so they’ll see things in similar terms. Bortles will be entering the final year of his contract if the team doesn’t pick up the fifth-year option, and McDaniels could bring Jimmy Garoppolo with him in a trade, or wait for his free agency after 2017.
Buffalo Bills
This job could be viewed as Browns-level toxic because owner Terry Pegula has shown he has no idea what he’s doing in the NFL and NHL (Sabres). If Pegula were smart (new owners take a while to smarten up), he would clean house and hire a football czar to fix this mess. But that won’t happen—sure, he axed Rex Ryan already, but they kept GM Doug Whaley.
Best fit: Anthony Lynn, interim coach, Bills. The way things are currently constituted, and it doesn’t appear the situation will change, the Bills are going to have a hard time convincing someone to come in and serve under Whaley, who will have a strong hand in selecting his third coach in five seasons. Current Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, who directed the Bills defense before Ryan was named head coach, would be a top outside candidate.
Should be open
San Diego Chargers
Even though the Chargers, despite suffering some brutal injuries this season, have been able to remain in every game, it’s still hard to see the team retaining coach Mike McCoy after back-to-back losing seasons, including Saturday’s loss to the winless Browns. The team has a cloudy future with the messy issue of relocation lingering, but working with QB Philip Rivers will be attractive to anyone.
Best fit: Dave Toub, special teams coordinator, Chiefs
The Chargers have already gone the offensive coordinator route with Norv Turner and Mike McCoy, and that hasn’t worked. Going with a defensive coordinator like Sean McDermott or Jim Schwartz runs the risk of negatively affecting Rivers. And would OCs Frank Reich or Ken Whisenhunt be all that different from McCoy? It’s time to go in a different direction and take the league’s best special teams coach. Maybe he likes the schemes on both sides of the ball and keeps the status quo, but Toub knows how to manage different personalities. No NFL coach has to deal with as many changes on the fly as a special teams coach.
Could be open
Cincinnati Bengals
There is speculation that Marvin Lewis’s 14th season with the Bengals could be his last after his first losing season in six years and an 0–7 postseason record. It could be retirement, as former Redskins TE Chris Cooley reported, or Lewis could be bumped up to a front office role.
Best fit: Paul Guenther, DC, Bengals. Cincinnati doesn’t tons of change under owner Mike Brown because it costs money, and this move would provide continuity. There are plenty of in-house candidates (Kevin Coyle, Jim Haslett) to take over for Guenther. Dolphins defensive coordinator Vance Joseph would be a top candidate but the Bengals wouldn’t let him out of his contract when Gary Kubiak wanted Joseph as his coordinator in Denver, and there might be some hard feelings there.
New York Jets
Reports are starting to surface that Todd Bowles is safe, and he should be. The Jets are in the midst of an entire rebuild, and the deficiencies are in the personnel, not the coaching.
Best fit: Bowles should be retained. Of course, things won’t get much better next year, but people don’t realize the size of this personnel mess.
Detroit Lions
If the Lions lose their third-straight game and miss the playoffs, there will be a lot of heat for Detroit to fire Jim Caldwell. I’m not his biggest fan, but he’s assembled a good staff and the team has played above its ability for much of the season.
Best fit: Caldwell should be retained. It’s very tempting to oust Caldwell and insert a Patriots coordinator (Josh McDaniels or Matt Patricia) to work with GM Bob Quinn, a former New England personnel executive, but the Lions are going in the right direction.
Indianapolis Colts
Owner Jim Irsay should have blown up the GM Ryan Grigson-coach Chuck Pagano tandem after last season (or at least just Grigson), but instead he signed them to contract extensions and the team marginally improved. Will Irsay swallow all that money? Doubt it. But he should.
Best fit: Likely the status quo for one more season... But if Irsay were smart, he’d hire Chiefs VP of player personnel Chris Ballard and let him figure out who should be the coach, with one favorite being Chiefs ST coordinator Dave Toub. That would be a good start at salvaging the rest of Andrew Luck’s career.
New Orleans Saints
If the Saints decide to let Payton leave for another job, they’ll have plenty of in-house candidates to fill the spot, including coordinators Pete Carmichael and Dennis Allen, while giving the team continuity in figuring out how to deal with the end of Drew Brees’s career and the inevitable rebuilding period that will follow.
Best fit: Dennis Allen, DC, Saints. Carmichael has been there longer but this setup gives New Orleans the best chance to be successful the next couple of seasons.
This article originally appeared on Sports Illustrated.
