The Coaching Carousel

There will be 11 teams next year with new head coaches. At least. That will be the most in NFL History. Two Super Bowl Winning Coaches were Fired. Two Coaches with Rings Retired and seven other coaching positions were vacated.

 Mike Nolan was fired on October 20th by the 49ers. He had a little over 3 seasons as the Head Coach there and won less than 1/3 of his games. DC and Hall-of-Fame Linebacker Mike Singletary was given the interim job. Singletary led the 49ers to a winning record in the second half of the season. Singletary was given a four year contract after the season.

Nolan has already gotten a new job, as the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos. I think there is actually a decent chance that he gets another shot at being the top guy for somebody if he does a good job there. He was respected for the effort he put in in the bay and he has a high-profile position now.

I think Singletary gets one year to turn the 49ers all the way around. That may not be fair, but with several Hall-of-Fame caliber coaches with ties to the 49ers being available next year Singletary might have to do something special to keep his job.

St. Louis was another team that made a change mid-season. Scott Linehan took over a team that was really not that bad and turned them into something much worse, winning just 11 games in over two years. He was replaced by Jim Haslett who went just 2-10 as interim coach, but did have the support of the team. St. Louis decided, however, to go with former Giants DC Steve Spagnuolo who had been a hot candidate for a job all season long.

Linehan has signed on to be the new Offensive Coordinator in Detroit. He acquires some talent, though he certainly had that in St. Louis, and a Pro Bowl QB.

Spagnuolo takes over a team with a lot of question marks. The defensive ones are obvious and they are the ones that he will focus on first. Spagnuolo is great at creating schemes to pressure the QB and was brought in to make Chris Long worthy of his top 5 draft pick. On offense, Bulger is aging, Holt is leaving and Jackson is unhealthy. I look for Spags to push for a QB with their first pick.

The least surprising coaching dismissal of the off-season was certainly Rod Marinelli. After leading the Lions to the first 0-16 season in NFL History there was little hope of keeping his job. Marinelli was replaced by Jim Schwartz, who spent the last seven years with Tennessee and was the Defensive Coordinator of the second best defense in the league this year.

Marinelli actually gained respect throughout the league for the way he kept the Lions fighting no matter how bad things got. And they got bad. Immediately after his dismissal he became a candidate for a number of jobs in the league and settled in as the defensive line coach in Chicago.

Schwartz has perhaps the easiest job in the league this year. Win a game and you’ve improved, win 4 or 5 and you’re up for Coach of the Year. People in Detroit are hoping that Schwartz has the stroke to bring Albert Haynesworth with him. While that is unlikely his time in Tennessee suggests he should make Detroit a much more stable place to play and perhaps along with OC Scott Linehan turn around the eternally struggling Lions.

Romeo Crennell won 24 games in four seasons in Cleveland. This year was the toughest for Romeo because there were actually expectations for the Browns this year. He was replaced by another Belichek disciple in former Jets coach Eric Mangini.

Crennel is unlikely to receive another opportunity as a Head Coach. Things never really got turned around in Clevleland and this season certainly made last year’s 10-6 record look like a fluke. There was some possibility he could end up the DC in Cleveland, though the more likely scenarios are that he ends up back in New England or takes a year off and gets a DC position next year.

A somewhat surprising hiring, given that most considered his stint in New York to be a disappointment and he is viewed as a younger, whiter Romeo Crennel my many. The real question is what did the Browns see to convince them he was the right man for their job? Another question is who does Mangini make the starting QB? The office will certainly want Quinn, who will likely get the job, but the comparisons of Quinn to Pennington are undeniable and Mangini did not like Chad.

Mangini, of course, leaves the Jets. I’m not sure if he left them better or worse than when he got there. The firing seemed premature and was a little bit of a knee jerk reaction to the New York media. The new big guy in New York is a Big Guy. Rex Ryan, the former Ravens DC and son of Buddy Ryan.

Two years after being dubbed the Mangenius, Eric was Man-Gone. Obviously Mangini was tied to the Brett Favre experiment and dubbed at least partially responsible for it’s failure. Mangini landed on his feet much quicker than most.

Ryan has been a hot prospect for a Head Coach job for a couple of years after working his way up through the Ravens Defensive Coaching System. He finally gets his shot in the Big Apple. He is a cordial and likable interview which will go a long way in New York. He will have to make a decision on Brett Favre sooner than later whether he wants to admit it or not. This team was not far off, though they are aging in some key areas. He inherits a very good offensive line, a good young defense and Thomas Jones at HB, which are all positives.

After five years in New York and two years in Kansas City, Herman Edwards finally ran out of excuses. His quarterback was always hurt, his team was always young and they never signed the right Free Agents. All of that may be true, but so is his 54-74 record as a head coach. And yet, it took seven years for somebody to fire him. It may take just as long to replace him as the Chiefs can not seem to get over the fact that Mike Shanahan has no interest in coaching there right now. They have now began targeting Bill Cowher, apparently confused as to their current standing within the league. More likely options are Cardinals OC Todd Haley, Dolphins DC Paul Pasquireli and Chan Gailey.

Big Herm may well get another chance at a head coaching gig. He is a respectable guy with a lot of experience so his name is bound to come up. Personally, I’d like to see him get Gene Upshaw’s job. I think he would be a great guy to work with young players and help them understand their responsibilities to the game.

I’d go with Todd Haley. The Chiefs have some pieces in place on both sides of the ball and a good young coach is the perfect fit for them right now.

The Oakland Raiders will hire another head coach this offseason. Their sixth in a decade.  Lane Kiffin was unsurprisingly fired after going 5-15 in twenty games and replaced by Tom Cable who won 4 of 12 the rest of the way. Al Davis is now trying to find somebody to take the job. The usual suspects don’t apply here because none of them will work for Davis. It will also be hard to get a hot coordinator to take on this as their first coaching job.

Kiffin looks to go the Pete Carroll route. Though not entirely successful in the NFL he was able to use that experience to shoot himself into a high profile and highly sought after college job, as the new Head Coach of the University of Tennessee.

My pick to be the new Raider coach is Jim Fassel. He wants a job just bad enough to take this one. Al Saunders is another guy who could take this job.

Future Hall of Famer Mike Holmgren announced his intentions to step down from the position before this season and have Special Teams Coordinator Jim Mora Jr. take his post. He could not have imagined his final season would go the way it did, and it was a shame. In ten seasons Holmgren won five division titles and an NFC Title with Seattle. Mora Jr. is the former head Coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

Holmgren led two teams, Seattle and Green Bay, to the Super Bowl, winning Super Bowl XXXI with the Packers. He already has a street named after him in Green Bay and could well get the same treatment in Seattle if they ever run out of dead rock stars. Holmgren will likely take a year or two off, depending on how long it takes for the job in San Francisco to open up.

Mora Jr. gets another chance at Head Coach after spending three years in Atlanta and accumulating a winning record. If Mora has matured any and can keep from saying stupid things in interviews he could be a good head coach. He takes over a team with a closing window and aging players. The draft will be very important for Seattle this year.

On January 12th Tony Dungy retired after more than three decades in the NFL as a player, assistant and head coach. He spent 13 seasons as a Head Coach, seven in Indianapolis. Dungy won more than 75% of his games coached in Indianapolis and led the Colts to a victory in Super Bowl XLI. He will be replaced by Colts QB Coach Jim Caldwell.

Tony Dungy may just be the guy who can actually walk away from the game. He is already an ordained minister and would like to focus time on pastoral activities. After the suicide of his son a couple of years ago, he has put a renewed emphasis on his family life as well. I could easily see Dungy being able to stay out of the limelight, but hope that he eventually finds a way to work with the league. The NFL can always use a guy like Tony Dungy.

Jim Caldwell has no NFL Coaching or Coordinating experience. He spent eight years as the Head Coach of Wake Forest, but went just 26-63. You have to wonder if he got this job more because of his relationships with Dungy and Manning and less because of actual credentials. That said, he inherits a team managed by Peyton Manning so that side of the ball should be fine. Losing DC Ron Meeks is a big deal. Indianapolis has all of it’s cap tied up in four or five players so the defense is made up largely of guys that nobody else wants. While they’re never a top 5 defense, Meeks always made them good enough.

Jon Gruden was the most successful coach in Tampa history, winning 57 games in seven years and Super Bowl XXXVII. A collapse in which Tampa Bay lost it’s last four games and missed the playoffs cost him his job however. Tampa Bay promoted Raheem Morris to the head coaching job. Some think this was a reactionary move to keep Morris from taking a job elsewhere.

Gruden will likely get a head coaching job somewhere soon. The question is whether that will be in the NFL or College. He won’t take the Oakland job this season and does not appear to be a candidate in KC. Next year will bring more possibilities, but he will be in contention with other Super Bowl winning coaches for all of those jobs. My prediction is that in 2010, Jon Gruden is the Head Coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Morris was a candidate for several jobs in the off-season before being promoted by the Bucs. He was their secondary coach this year and helped them to the number one pass-defense ranking. The Bucs see him as being in the Mike Tomlin vain, and he is already popular amongst the team.

Certainly, the most surprising coaching change comes from the Mile High City, where Mike Shanahan was let go after 14 years, 146 wins and two Super Bowl rings with the Broncos. While this change came much more amicably than the one he had in Oakland it was still jarring none the less. Josh McDaniels will look to fill his very big shoes. McDaniels had been a defensive and offensive assistant for the Patriots, including being their offensive coordinator this year.

Shanahan was the greatest coach in franchise history. If he had stayed just that he may well still be there today. Mike Shanahan was not a great GM. He was downright bad at picking defensive players. D.J. Williams and Elvis Dumervil are the only ones he’s drafted in the last five years that have made any real impact. Still, the X’s and O’s of the Mastermind will be dearly missed and hard to replace. I look for Shanahan to be the Head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2010, if not sooner.

He’s very similar to Shanahan in some ways. He’s an offensive guy who comes to Denver from a dynasty-like team. He’s got a lot of offensive parts already in place, though who will be the running back is up for debate. He runs a much different offense than Shanny, with less bells and whistles and more straight-forward approach. On defense he and Nolan will run a 3-4, a drastic change for Denver, but one that would seem to benefit their current personnel. He will be expected to win very soon.