Analyzing decisions made by NFL teams is inherently an exercise in asking to be cold takes roasted down the road. Whether it’s preseason picks, week-to-week selections, draft grades or commentary on coaching hires, there’s always going to be some things in this league that don’t go according to plan or that go in the opposite direction of what we expect.
You can try to rank quarterbacks in tiers with a semblance of nuance and the same list will be thrown back in your face for a different year later without the proper context.
Which is a long way of saying, let’s hand out some grades for the coaching hires this offseason! Yup, I’m going to grade all seven coaching hires and I fully expect at least one of them to completely blow up in my face in hilarious fashion within a year.
Look at Dan Quinn in Washington — a hire I liked but one that was treated to some “meh” responses because he was considered a retread — and his success with the Commanders in Year 1. Bruce Arians in Arizona is a great example of a coaching hire that was panned and paid immediate dividends as well.
I’m going to note it here and it probably won’t ultimately matter when people come back with receipts, but I’m going to include the process of the team as part of the grade. I love Mike Vrabel, but I’m going to ding the Patriots for several reasons, whether it’s panicking over the Jets interviewing him or treating the Rooney Rule as a traveshamockery in the process of hiring him.
With that in mind, let’s do something that is almost certainly going to end up getting roasted later and grade every single coaching hire so far.
Truth be told, I didn’t think the Bears could get Ben Johnson. But they did. They have issues in the front office and with ownership that should scare off candidates, but they also have Caleb Williams. Johnson has been the top candidate for three straight coaching cycles, has been immensely patient and the Bears still lured him away from a division rival. That’s a big deal. Johnson leaves the Lions knowing he’s set to play them twice a year and do battle with the Packers (who he irrationally threw shade at during his intro press conference!) and Vikings another four times a year. It’s not an easy job, but the Bears convinced him he should fly slightly south anyway. Process-wise, this was a pretty sound, efficient search and hire. The Bears definitely go out of the box on the reg when it comes to hiring coaches and didn’t do that here. They get bonus points for damaging a division opponent’s offense in the process not to mention beating out the Jags for Johnson.
Maybe I’m on an island here, but I love the Pete Carroll hire for Las Vegas. The Raiders’ expectations are probably just too high when the floor has been so, so, SO low. This team has been terrible for 20+ years and needs a serious coach to bring some gum-chewing enthusiasm to the sideline. Carroll had a year off, got to think about how he’ll approach things, has a smart, young GM in tow and if they hit on some picks early and trawl correctly for a quarterback, they could be a real pain in 2025. Carroll’s job here is to win a Super Bowl, of course, but more importantly he’s here to raise the Raiders’ floor quickly. This team either pops up for a random 10-win season or stinks for 10-plus years. In a division with Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Bo Nix, they’re going to need more consistency to be taken seriously. I’m pretty confident Carroll’s “compete” mantra will do raise the floor immediately and if they can find a quarterback, give them some legitimate upside in the toughest division in football.
New England Patriots, Mike Vrabel: B+
Again, process matters. If you tell me a team hires Mike Vrabel, I’m giving them an “A.” Vrabel’s offenses have been hit or miss, but he’s had multiple offensive coordinators go on to become head coaches and obviously Derrick Henry/A.J. Brown were incredible pieces of the puzzle. The Patriots need some guys like that! He’s also an elite in-game coach who grinds on the rulebook to find edges and will have the defense playing at an elite level pretty quick. But the Patriots post-Belichick process has been nothing short of a disaster. They panic-pulled on Jerod Mayo because he got other interviews — something Robert Kraft admitted in the process of firing him — and then panicked when the Jets interviewed Vrabel and forced some pretty embarrassing, Rooney Rule-satisfying interviews with Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich in order to get Vrabel. I think he’s a great coach, I think he’s a perfect coach for this situation and I would bet the Patriots are better this year than last. But when you evaluate a coaching hire you have to incorporate how the franchise went about it and the Pats’ process right now feels like a teenage girl aggressively refreshing an Instagram feed. It was obvious Vrabel wanted to coach the Pats and the Pats fell for his bluff. Ultimately it will probably benefit them because he cleaned up the front office but there are at least issues to worry about moving forward if the newest New England rocket ship doesn’t take off right away.
New York Jets, Aaron Glenn: B
Again … process. The Jets interviewed every human being on the planet for all their jobs. They probably landed on a good candidate in Aaron Glenn, who by all accounts connects with his players in an incredible fashion. Glenn’s press conference was high energy and it matches up with everything you hear about how he operates as a coach. Bringing back a Jets “alumnus” is a big plus in that he cares about how this franchise is perceived. Glenn also apparently is interested in connecting with Aaron Rodgers early on, which would give the Jets a little leeway when it comes to the quarterback position, in theory. The issue here is whether or not the Jets management team will finally step away or not and I wouldn’t bet they will. Woody Johnson is, at best, a bottom-five NFL owner. Why should we expect things to go better for the Jets just because they hired a potentially great coach? I love the idea of Glenn going back to the team who drafted him and winning, but I’m also realistic about how this is going to work. The Jets just hired a first-time head coach with a defensive background. Same as it ever was, even if I’m rooting for it to work.
This was probably going to be higher until I heard Liam Coen drop the most painful and awkward “DUVAAAAAAAAL” I’ve ever heard during his introductory press conference. I also think you’ve got to ding the Jaguars for the process here as well. They fired Doug Pederson and kept Trent Baalke around for a while after, costing them a legitimate opportunity at getting Ben Johnson … and almost Coen as well. Coen’s coaching search was one of the craziest you’ll ever read or hear about. Coen interviewed with the Jags and was scared off by Baalke being there, so he went back to the Bucs who offered to make him the highest-paid coordinator in NFL history as long as he didn’t take a second interview with Jacksonville. Then Coen ghosted the Bucs for basically a full day as the Jags dumped Baalke and interviewed him in secret, before landing him as the head coach. The actual hire itself might look pretty good once all is said and done: Coen did great work with Baker Mayfield, comes from the Sean McVay tree and now gets to work with Trevor Lawrence, who still has a ton of untapped potential. The Bucs stuff is a little worrisome just from a coaching staff perspective/managing relationships, but I don’t begrudge Coen for getting the gig the way he did. There are only 32 of these jobs and Bobby Slowik is a prime example of why you don’t want to pass up a head coaching opportunity when you’re a hot name. If Coen’s work in his single year as an OC translates to being a head coach, this could end up being a home run.
Oy vey. Maybe I’m dead wrong and Brian Schottenheimer, who I like a lot as a person, ends up being a great head coach. His dad, Marty, was an outstanding head coach who got a bad rap. But the Cowboys’ process was a disaster here. They waffled on Mike McCarthy in the same way they waffled on contracts for Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb and he simply walked away from coaching altogether, with rumors he spoke to confidants about what a sideshow circus the Cowboys are percolating in the wake of his departure. The Cowboys promptly got involved with Deion Sanders as a possible candidate, while also allowing Bill Belichick rumors to run rampant to the point UNC had to get Belichick to actually sign his contract in the middle of the coaching search. Ultimately, Jerry Jones just decided to promote his in-house offensive coordinator, a guy with no head coaching experience, and someone who will likely do what the owner/GM wants him to do from an offensive standpoint. Schottenheimer obviously has the bloodlines to succeed, but it’s very fair to question the process here and whether Jerry is capable of running a “normal” search and putting together a serious football team at this point.
It’s obviously impossible to grade the Saints until we see who they actually hire, hence the incomplete. And while it’s going to be easy to dog them when the process finishes because this took forever, let’s not forget the Arians situation referenced above: the Cardinals took forever to land Bruce and he ended up being a home run. The difference, of course, is the Cardinals were able to bring in Carson Palmer and match him perfectly with Arians’ system. The Saints still have Derek Carr and Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, which is great, but they’re not exactly stacked with talent across the roster and the salary cap situation is a hot mess, as it has been for a while now in New Orleans. When I started writing this story, Mike McCarthy was the favorite to land this job and it looks like now he’s going to take a year off from coaching. Which leaves Eagles OC Kellen Moore as the likely candidate to land this job, although he obviously can’t be hired until after the Super Bowl.
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