The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - DeMeco Ryans, Shane Steichen and the next group of head coach candidates

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

The equal and opposite reaction to Black Monday is that a new group of coaches is going to get a shot to run the show. Robert Mays and Conor Orr from Sports Illustrated dive into that group, which includes the likes of 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Conor on Twitter: @ConorOrrSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeToday's show is brought to you by...Peloton: Try Peloton risk free with a 30-Day Home Trial, New Members only at onepeloton.com/home-trialPhilo: Sign up today at philo.tv and use promo code MAYS to get 50% off your first monthBetter Help: Visit BetterHelp.com/MAYS today to get 10% off your first monthPenrose Hill: Get your first 6 bottles for $39.95 plus FREE shipping. Go to TryFirstleaf.com/MAYS3:00 What teams get right and wrong when they hire head coaches6:30 The through-line of recent success stories20:48 Shane Steichen, Eagles OC30:11 Jonathan Gannon, Eagles DC35:38 Ben Johnson, Lions OC45:21 DeMeco Ryans, 49ers DC51:10 Ken Dorsey, Bills OC56:39 Ejiro Evero, Broncos DC64:14 Mike Kafka, Giants OC69:03 Raheem Morris, Rams DC74:55 Dan Quinn, Cowboys DC79:10 Lou Anarumo, Bengals DC84:06 Brian Callahan, Bengals OC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome, the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today from Sports Illustrated, a first-time guest, which I cannot believe it, has been this long. We have not had him on the show before. Connor, thank you very much for taking the time and do this today. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

So we, yesterday on the show, talk with Sando about some of the firings that have happened already, and the carousel, the coaching carousel starting to spin in the NFL. And what I wanted to do kind of as a second entry after that was talk about the candidates, the guys that are going to be in the running for some of these jobs. And you have done such a great job over the last few years, keeping tabs on this. I almost feel like you're on the coaching beat year round. You have a list that comes out before the season every year that kind of looks at who the coaching candidates could be in the upcoming cycle after the season was over.

I think right after Christmas, right before the new year, you did a reprisal. of that list with a lot of the names that we've heard over the last 24 hours or so. And I know you do a lot of kind of grinding, intentional work on this to keep tabs on who those names might be. So I thought that you were kind of the perfect guy to have this discussion with. Well, I'm honored. I like that it's a very weird subnitch of the NFL world that I somehow found myself kind of trying to make a mark mark on. So I can talk for hours about head coaching philosophy, which is a very weird thing to be able to talk about. So I do want to talk about that first. We're going to get into the individual candidates. We're going to kind of run through these guys, a lot of whom have already been requested

for some of these jobs. You guys know a lot of the names. Your Conner's written about a lot of these guys. A lot of these people, I think, just by virtue of where they were at and their careers and how long I've been around or people I've had conversations with as well, which is kind of the first time last year, this year that that's consistently happening, which I think allows us to talk about these guys with a little bit more knowledge and actual background. But I want to start. on a broader level because you wrote something about Thomas Brown, who is the Rams assistant head coach and Tideon's coach a couple weeks ago about where teams are looking for these candidates and how these lists get paired down and how these candidate pools start to emerge.

So I wanted to ask you, what do you think the league gets right about where it looks for its head coaching candidates? And what do you think the league gets wrong about where it looks for its head coaching candidates? I think they don't get a whole lot right. Right, which is why we have all this turnover and why there's enough of an interest in a yearly head coaching list that I'm able to do this, right? And I really first got interested in this. I used to cover the Jets as a beat writer for the Star Ledger. And I remember getting really immersed in the search firm world and kind of, you know, these guys are collecting $250,000 to $300,000 from owners per search to find them a head coach. And a lot of the reasoning that I would get back then was, oh, we picked this guy because he was part of.

of a winning culture. Like back, back in 2010, it was like, if you could hire a Packers assistant, great. That's all you need to do. And then infinite Super Bowls for you. Here's my half a million dollar commission. Thank you. And it was just like, this is all they're doing. This is like, you know, and yes, there is a little bit more work involved there, sure. But it's like, I feel like they're not ever identifying true feats of good coaching. And I had a really good conversation about this with a coach who. recently got out of the league a couple of years ago, and he said, you know, nobody realizes and nobody praises the fact that like, you know, and he wasn't on our final list of candidates,

but LaFleur in New York, right? This guy could design an offense that makes himself look better, or he could have run an offense that won them seven games this year, right? You know, and he could have bolstered himself as a candidate, and the Jets would have been three and 13 or three and 14, or they could have won seven games. And I feel like Mike Kafka is the same way where sometimes it's not beautiful, but these are real feats of ingenuity. And then we can get onto a much larger discourse about how you measure emotional intelligence, all these little moments, how you look for it, how you ask about it. And I think that's the stuff that they get wrong because, you know, this is still such a presentation business, right?

Where it's like, here, we got the guy from the good team. There you go. And that's what it's been for years. Looking at the last few years, I think that there are a couple archetypes that are pretty notable. Matt Nagy is kind of one from the exact cut from the cloth of what we're talking about here, where he was the chiefs offensive coordinator when the chiefs were very successful. And that's where he came from. And I think that we see a lot of that over the years.

I think we've seen a lot of those guys stumble when given head coaching jobs. But there are also guys like Joe Judge who were supposed to be the opposite of that, right? where you have this guy who was the CEO type head coach, he was a special teams coordinator. Man, shouldn't more special teams coordinators get head coaching jobs because of their oversight of the entire roster and what the bones of that job looks like? And then he fails. So even if you're plucking from different background types, I think we still have stories of success and failure on both sides.

So I wanted to ask you, what do you think is the through line of some of the recent success success stories that we've seen from those guys over the last couple years that have hit as head coaches. I think it's emotional intelligence. And one of the things that I always think about, I don't know about your athletic background, Robert, but I was a very poor high school football player, extremely mediocre undersized offensive lineman. And what I love- I was moving a similar boat. Okay. All right, good, good. So you'll understand what I'm talking about. And so I was not the kind of person that had to be paid attention to by the head coach, right? I was high school football practice was babysitting, you know, for my parents, right?

And so I always made it a point to notice like, you know, my interaction with the head coach was the most important part of my week. Like if he said something to me, that blew my mind. And so when I talk to a lot of coaches now, I ask them that question. Like, you know, if you're talking to, you know, the third or fourth cornerback on the roster, and you see him in the hallway, like, what are you saying to that guy in the middle of the week on a Wednesday? Because what you're saying to that guy is the most important thing that will happen to him in the next, you know, whatever it is, 72 hours of his life. And so it's the coaches who get that and who understand that and who don't just say they have a true open door policy,

but legitimately have a real open door policy. And, you know, there are coaches that I talked to this year. Some of the minutia that they will involve themselves in is much, mind blowing to prove that I care about you, right? And I think that that is, what's that? Give me an example. So, you know, one head coach was saying, like, we fought for, you know, two hours about a 15 minute change in the curfew, right? And like, this is in the middle of the week. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on, but this is important enough to you that you came into my office to have this conversation with me. And so I'm going to have it with you. And not in a dismissive way. It's like, okay, let me lock in because this is clearly a big deal to you. And

you know, it's just all these miniature interactions that build up over the course of a season. And then in crunch time, it's like, okay, this guy is someone that I would like to put my body and career on the line for or this guy is definitely not a person that I care to put my body and career on the line for. I think the biggest, the most drastic difference, talking about almost exactly that is what's happened in Minnesota over the last year. Mike Zimmer is a fantastic defensive coach, and he was a fantastic defensive coach for a long time and deserved his shot as a head coach. And he was successful. Those teams were successful.

But when you talk to people there, I think there's a pretty stark difference between what it's like to be in the halls of that building with Mike Zimmer there and with Kevin O'Connell there. And when people are looking to steal from what the Rams were and what the Rams were doing, that general feel of you can approach the head coach in the hallway. This is a collaborative process. the communication here goes both ways. I want your ideas. I want you to feel like you have ownership over this. That approach, I think, is becoming more and more prevalent throughout the league with some of these younger coaches. You and I have talked about this a little bit off the show.

Holistic is the word that you use. And I think it's a very good word where you're not just this X's and O's schemer. It's not just this top-down authoritarian viewpoint of how this all works. It's a holistic approach to how you're coaching the building, how you're coaching individual players, and the ownership that they have in what you're trying to accomplish. I think there are a couple of recent examples of that and what's worked. What's going on in Minnesota right now with Kevin O'Connell is one of them. What's going on in Miami with Mike McDaniel is another. Talking to Frank Smith, their offensive coordinator recently, just about their mindset there and kind of how they approach to

with players and trying to explain to them like, all right, this is the intention behind what we're doing. This is exactly what we're trying to accomplish on this play and citing their input on what that might look like. That line of communication both ways, it may seem simple and it may seem obvious, but I don't think that's always been the way that a lot of coaches in the NFL operate. Frank is a perfect example. He was the tight ends coach in Las Vegas when Darren Waller was coming back into the NFL following, you know, his issues with substance abuse. And Frank actually traveled to where Darren is from, met with his parents, and was like, hey, you know, I just need to know how, you know, what can I do to help him? Like, what was he

like growing up? What kind of person is he? What kind of human being is he? And, you know, that really struck me because I remember, gosh, this is, you know, five, six, seven years ago. I remember talking to a head coach who knew the writing was on the wall and he was on his way out. It was going to be a couple more weeks and he ended up losing his job a few weeks after he talked. And he said, you know, my one big regret, he's like, and I started it a couple weeks ago, but it's too late. He's like, I spent too much time in my area of expertise and not enough time in meetings with everybody on the roster. And, you know, now you hear, I mean, it is day one stuff. When you're talking to prospective head coaching candidates, what are you going to do? I'm going to have everybody

on the team over for dinner. I'm going to have everybody on the team over for meetings. I'm going to have everybody out at hockey, bowling, paintball, and whatever it is, you know, this isn't just, you know, this isn't just sort of made for media stuff. This is, there's something real that's happening here. And I think that this drive to understand people as human beings and not just little chess pieces that we smash together is the future of the NFL. And there's, you know, and it sounds stupid, but it's like, yeah, I mean, relating to other people is a big deal, you know. Broadening your scope away from your side of the ball, I think, is going to be a consistent theme as we're talking about some of these guys, because two of the biggest success stories over the last couple years being in Philadelphia and with the Giants, Nick Siriani and Brian Dable, both choosing not to call offensive plays for their teams and the success they've had, I think partially as a result of. that, I think coaches around the league and owners around the league and people orchestrated

in these searches would be well served to look at that as an example. 100%. And the ability, it's not just, right, it's not just delegating, but it's that recognition of that ego, right? And saying, like, I don't need to call the plays in order to be the guy. Like, my strength is in poking my head in every room, making sure that I'm seen and heard, like, I'm comfortable in that role. Because some guys are not. comfortable in that role. And that is a common thread among coaches who don't succeed, right? You hear them buried in the quarterback meetings. They emerge and they see, you know, their first defensive player on Friday. And that's really just not the way that you can deal with day-to-day life

in the NFL. Obviously, there are examples in the other direction, right? Like, Kyle Shanahan is Kyle Shanahan. Sure. But I think that holding that up as the glowing example of what every team needs is a mistake I have made in the past. And I think that as more time has passed and as we've gotten more examples of guys succeeding in different ways. I've become more open-minded about that. I think the last couple years have only served to accentuate that. You mentioning that I don't need to call the ego part of this and guys that aren't obsessed with calling plays, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Todd Monkin a few years ago,

who is now obviously thriving in Georgia. We just saw what he did last night to DCU. And he and I were talking about him going to Cleveland in 2019. And he was not the offensive play caller there. And it was after he had called plays for the last year. year in Tampa when they were very successful with Ryan Fitzpatrick. And he was just like, I don't know, it's not that important to me to call plays. I've called plays on teams that are like four and 12. That's not that fun. And guys, I think that aren't so precious about it, I think that's a healthy

attitude that ultimately leads to success in different areas down the road. You're right. And, you know, I'll start by, you know, you made a great point about Kyle Shannon, but what's really smart about Kyle Shannon is look who he pairs himself with all the time. He pairs himself with somebody who can handle the emotional day to day. He had Robert Sala, right, who was sort of the culture creation guy. He has D'Amico Ryans, who is the culture creation guy. He knows where his strengths and his weaknesses lie, and he knows how to supplement that, which I think is really smart.

So we're in this period of time where I think a lot of the money is made, and by money, I just mean kind of this happiness equity that builds up within a team. in the way that a coach, you don't have to call plays, but what you have to do is you have to accept ideas from all sides, right? And so perfect example, with the MMQB, we went down to Philly after they beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and it was Doug Peterson, and it was Mike Groh, and it was Frank Reich, and they told us how they came up with the game-winning touchdown,

where this came from, spiderwebs to the very beginning. And every single person had a hand in that idea. to the point where it wasn't just one guy that was able to meet with us. There was four guys and it was like, well, you know, Mike is in charge of Red Zone and Frank is in charge of motion concepts and Doug is in charge of this. And so we all met. We all had eight things on a list and we all put it together and nobody was a jerk about it and said we were going to change it.

And we ran this play exactly the way we wanted to run it. And there are still, I would say it's about 50-50. Half of the time you are going to a coach and you're presenting an idea in buildings and it's being accepted and half the time you're going to a coach and you're saying, hey, I found this. And then it just gets thrown behind you into the recycling bin. And so where are you on that spectrum as a head coach and what kind of what are you showing to your subordinates in those moments, right? That like, hey, even if you're not calling the plays, you're kind of calling the plays because you came up with that idea. And that's where the CEO aspects of this and being a good manager

come in because I think it's about understanding how do I make sure that I'm soliciting these ideas. making sure the stupid ones don't get in, but still incentivizing people to keep coming with those ideas, even if I'm not using every single one of them. That's why this job is hard, and that's why this job is different than being a coordinator. I mean, that's just one example of a hundred of how the gigs are different, and I think that that's why so many of these coaches fail is that they're hired on the basis, usually, of their successes in another role. And I think that's why it's lost in translations so often. So it's fascinating. I've always been really interested in it, and I know that you are as well, considering how much work you tend to do on it every single year.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's just fun. It's a, it's a blind spot that I feel like isn't covered. And I used to do the, you know, when, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I would used to do the just like, oh, here are the 10 best coordinators. They're going to be the best head coaches. And then it's the definition of insanity, right? When that list sucks every year, you're like, why, you know, why does it keep sucking? And so you try to, dig a little bit deeper, you know? The last thing I wanted to say, the Philly thing is an interesting example, because based on what I heard after Frank Reich left, is that there were too many voices in those rooms

and that they struggled to distill those into kind of one singular offensive vision. So it can go the other way, too. Sure. And that's why you need a strong personality at the top of that to make sure you're kind of calling those ideas in the right way to make sure it's not going off the rails. It is, I mean, gosh, like they say CEO, but like I imagine that whatever that that CEO's golf time project that they did before like I imagine being a CEO is actually easier than being an NFL head coach like a Fortune 500 CEO

because like you said, just everything that you do matters to someone in such a significant way. There's so many people just like screaming at you every day and mad at you and you know I I can't stand it when like one of my kids is mad at me. Like imagine having like 54 of those people in the building at once and you have to figure out how to make everybody happy and on the same page. I'm not responsible for anyone else and my life is frustrating enough. So don't even get me started. Let's start running down this list.

I want to start with someone that you wrote a big piece about a couple weeks ago. And that's Shane Steichen, who is the Eagles offensive coordinator. We're going to run through a couple of biographical details of all these guys. Stuyken is 37 years old, played college quarterback at UNLV, came into the league with the Chargers in two. 2011. He was with the Norv Turner staff originally, then worked under Frank Reich after one year in Cleveland and Ken Wissent Hunt, both as a quality control coach and a quarterbacks coach. He was then the Chargers offensive coordinator for one year during Justin Herbert's rookie year and then came over to Philly as the offensive coordinator. He worked with Siriani when they were both with the Chargers. So that's how that connection gets made. He's been requested by the Texans, the Colts and the Panthers. So three of the, I think, five teams to head head coaching opening. right now. So it is going to be a busy couple weeks for Shane Stuyken here. When you wrote about him, when you talked to people about him, what was kind of your biggest overarching takeaway from those conversations that you had? Well, I think, you know, Philip Rivers and I had a long conversation

about Shane. And what I think is unique is that, and, you know, you throw around like quarterback whisper. And, you know, that is sort of a vague term that, you know, some people apply to certain people and not all people and it gets complicated and messy. But I think when Philip, was talking about it's like yeah we're going to before i even ask you to do it you're removing plays from the play sheet that you know based on me and how i throw a football which is very weird um that there are certain throws that i'm not going to like to make in certain situations or like um even now right um Shane and philip will talk almost every Monday after eagles games and they will run through the entire thing before they've been able to see the film. And Shane has that weird ability

and, you know, I don't want to if you want to call it McVeigh, Ian, or whatever. I mean, he's not the only person in the world with a photographic memory, but just this ability to live the moments like players see them and kind of process that understanding in real time. So it's like, it's not that you don't, you can understand quicker and easier why something is not working. And I think one of the big advantages of him from a schematic standpoint is started on the defensive side of the ball. And one thing that I heard about him, which was interesting from someone who worked with him, was that he will process a lot of his game planning via defensive people. And so, hey, this is what I want to run. But how would this piss you off as a defensive coordinator?

And if it doesn't, what can I do to piss you off even more? And so everything that he does kind of gets reverse engineered through the most complicated scenario for the defense. And that's why you're seeing, I mean, you know, the Eagles starting midway through last year, I mean, they could look like Wake Forest one week. They could look like the Ravens one week. And you're just like, what is happening? And that's really terrible for a defense. And I think from purely a play caller standpoint, I don't think there's anybody that's necessarily close to him in this field for. for this year.

I think every coach, especially on offense, is going to come into these interviews and say, I'm going to build a system around the strengths of my players. We're going to tap in and tune into what they do well. I don't know if a lot of them actually mean it. And I don't know if a lot of them actually have tangible examples of how that's worked for them. And if you look at the last three years of what Shane Steichen's offenses have looked like, he has succeeded with Justin Herbert and Jalen Hertz as one version of Jalen Hertz. and Jalen Hertz is another version of Jalen Hertz.

They came into that 2021 season. That offense and what they eventually ran, those guys don't have backgrounds in that. That's not where Shane Steichen and Nick Siriani come from. They intentionally sought out things that the Ravens did and things that certain colleges did and said, all right, how can we implement this to make sure that we're putting our guys in the best positions to succeed?

And then they tweaked it midway through the season and ultimately made the playoffs. It's incredible. and then the evolution that they made from last year to this year. So there is so much actual evidence for him being able to do that. I'm really interested in the relationship between Shane and Philip Rivers because it's not surprising at all to me that they're very close and that they have a good relationship because they sound the same. When you talk to both of them, they have this incredible weird quirk where they'll be talking about something and they'll be talking at a normal pace with a normal tone like a. human being would. And as they start to get into a certain play, the volume of their voice will

just grow and grow and they'll be screaming by the end of the sentence. And they both independently do this. And it's hilarious. Philip obviously does it with his twang. But their their personalities are very similar in that way where they have a real enthusiasm and energy that comes with them. And what I've said about Shane in the past is that to me, he looks and sounds like Dax Shepherd. Like that, that he They look similar. They have like a very similar energy about them. And he has that sort of enthusiasm. And the other thing that to me is really striking about him is that he doesn't make this stuff overly complicated.

And in your piece, you had a quote from Philip that I thought was great. And they were going over what those games, one of those games looked like. And Philip says, well, yeah, you did this and this and this. And Shane said, well, yeah, because the defense did this and that. He is just so in tune with, well, if they're going to do this, I'm just going to do that. and he's not trying to overly complicate it. He's trying to take the path of least resistance, either with the way the offense is orchestrated or the way he's calling a game.

And I think that not outsmarting yourself in those ways is an underrated value as a coach. It's huge. And to not be bound by traditional rules, which I think is what Philip loves so much about him is like, and we saw this this year, right? Philly has used man-beating concepts to defeat zone coverage multiple times. to score long touchdowns. And so it just, it doesn't matter because it's not about, well, hey, this is the structure that we're, and these are the umbrella of plays that we use against this.

It's like, hey, that cornerback sucks, and I really don't care. And so we're just going to do this because it's a comfortable throw for you. And it's a play that we can run no matter what. And ready break, let's do it. And I think that that attitude, and I think it all came back to, he was so moved by his own high school experience, right, of this idea that someone could see something in a defense and call play for you that would deliver this moment in your life that you're never going to forget. And, you know, people talk about, you know, he talks about a JV touchdown pass that he threw

that he still remembers, right? And so his entire like goal in life is to pass that on to somebody else. And it's just so, it's, it's interesting to be around and to hear about somebody who's got that, that fluid connection with just that moment and that idea. And it's just like, I mean, you hear people say like he's all football air quotes, but there are real living and breathing examples of that. And I feel like he's one of those people that would just blow away an interview. Like I just, I think that's one of those candidates that I feel like that one's going to be pretty open and shut. I mean, what I heard was back in, I mean, back in the fall we're talking about there was people commissioning kind of work to be done on him as a head coach. So I know that he's high up on a lot of people's list.

And some of this is kind of higher level, like philosophical stuff. I don't think it's all like vibes with him either. No. Philly what is understated about them, I think that people remember the planting the, the tree press conference and that stuff that Nick Siriani did early on. You've written about this. And my understanding is the same is that they're incredibly regimented. I mean, they're incredibly organized.

There's a lot of intentionality behind the way they structure days. I don't know if you've heard this, but you're talking about him seeking out the opinions of defensive coaches. I don't know how prevalent this is, but I know on those cult staffs and now in Philly, they do a self-scout after the season where coaches on the other side of the ball will do a self-scout of the offense or defense. So the defensive coaches will do a scout of the offense. And they have that kind of exchange of ideas and this is what would have been hard for us. So just stuff like that that's built into the structure of how they coach, I think that's an underrated reason that the Eagles have been successful as well. It's huge. And

we mentioned ego, right? And it's being able to accept those ideas and not fall asleep during that meeting and say, I'm the shit and walk out of there and, you know, and keep your playbook. I mean, you and I have been through enough edits in our lives, Robert, to know that, like, you know, there are some days where you take them and there are some days that you don't, but the really good ones are constantly taking them, you know, and, and trying to get better. And so it's one of those things where, you know, again, I think if you love something as much as we love what we do or he loves what he does. It's like, you know, that is such an integral part of your process.

And you can see it, right? There are coaches who come up with new ideas every week and every season, and there are coaches who don't. I mean, plain and simple. His counterpart on the defensive side of the ball is also getting plenty of interviews this week, Jonathan Gannon, already been requested by, I think just the Texans, but I'm sure there will be more of them. He was a hot candidate last year.

I think the Texans wanted to pursue him as a head coach last season. 40 years old, spent three years with Mike Zimmer in Minnesota as a defensive backs coach before going to Indy with Matt Eberfluse and Frank. Right for three seasons has been the Eagles defensive coordinator over the last couple years. What have you heard about Jonathan Gannon? What's your sense of him as a head coach candidate? One of the cool things that came to mind recently was when they signed Indomac and Sue and they signed Limbo Joseph, you know, we talk about a holistic approach, right? And that signing was the direct, you know, was a direct correlation between some of the defensive linemen being like, dude, this is going to be a lot of work for us over the next few weeks.

Like, you know, we're getting old. And, you know, I really don't feel like, you know, playing whatever it is, 60, 70 snaps a game. Like, could you get someone in here to help? And, you know, you know, yeah. And just like, you know, and I'll, you know, get me fresh for the playoffs. Like we started the season 10 and oh, for God's sakes. Can you help us out? And, you know, that's one of those examples.

where it's like, okay, you guys need Limbaal Joseph, I'll go get you Linville Joseph, you know, and let's go make that happen. And I think that's one of those examples. But I mean, schematically, we've seen another, this is another example of major amounts of diversity, maximizing talent on the roster. And guys really seem to like them. I don't know if you remember the Vikings Eagles, was that a Monday night game at the beginning of the season. And if you had if you had taken even just a sip of beer every time Troy Aikman said Jonathan Gannon, you would have been dead by the end of that broadcast.

But yeah, no, he's good. And, you know, I think that was one of those things where the Texans brought him in a year early. One of the cool things that I heard about Jonathan, just rambling a minute, but the back end of that Eagle's position coaching staff is phenomenal. Like from the linebacking guys, everybody there, there's like four or five.

future defensive coordinators, a lot of people said they see on that staff, he's going to bring with him a powerhouse staff, which I think is a big deal. And identifying that talent is a huge deal. I mean, we've seen that, obviously this is a problem that, it's a champagne problem that comes to success. But having to revamp and retool your staff when people get hired away if you have success is a necessary component of maintaining a winning culture in the NFL. I mean, think about what the Rams have had to do. Think about, you mentioned D'emico Ryan's replacing Robert Salat. that Cal Shanahan's had to replace his entire offensive coaching staff. This is the kind of stuff that's going to happen.

So your ability to identify talent, how interested you are in kind of keeping your ear to the ground and being a part of the coaching community becomes really important. So how guys have assembled those staffs on a lower level, I think, can be indicative of what they're going to do when they get the big chair. No doubt. And, you know, what are people saying about you? Right. Because, I mean, and yes, there's always going to.

be spurned lovers in the coaching world, certainly. And that's something that you have to take into account. But what are your interactions like with this person? How has he helped you individually? How has he helped to make you better? And, you know, these are things with Gannon and really that Eagle's staff. I'm telling you, I mean, I think that over the next two years, that place is just going to get completely mined for talent.

Like, I think we're going to see at least two head coaches and possibly another GM come out of there in the next year or two, which I think. is going to be really, really interesting. The other thing I like about him, and this is going to be a theme when we talk about a lot of these coaches, is that they don't come from one particular place schematically. Gannon being with Zimmer for several years and running that kind of double A gap, you know, quarters heavy Mike Zimmer system, and then going to Indy where they did a bunch of different sorts of zone coverage, but it was a four three defense and they were playing those even fronts.

And when he got the chance to run his own defense, it doesn't look like what they did in Indy at all. It's a lot of the ideas that are borrowed, I guess, let's say, from the way that Brandon Staley and Vic Fangio do business. And Brandon and Jonathan are very good friends. They have been for a very long time. So not just copying and pasting. All right, this is what I did when I was a position coach at X team. Now I'm going to do that as a coordinator. Kind of coming up with the way that you want to do it based on the way that you think certain trends with throughout the league are happening, all of that kind of stuff.

That's another mark in his favor, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, we looked at blitz rates to, you know, if you looked at blitz rates two or three years ago and blitz rates this year, if you didn't see your team markedly alter the way that they run things, unless you're wink Martindale, who's just never not going to do it. And, you know, he's wink martindale forever and, you know, everyone loves him. But, you know, if you're not part of that sliding scale, like, I remember talking to Ron Rivera about this and he's like, well, you know, we're 30, 30, 30, 30, you know, we're 30 percent pressure, you know, and I was like, but it doesn't work that. way anymore, you know, you know, was the Bengals, you know, made it to a Super Bowl by blitzing nine percent of the time. Was that always what, um, their defensive coordinator did in his life? No, uh, you know, but it's the good ones that are able to alter that approach and see football economically that I think is, is massive. All right. Next one here. Kind of a surprise in that maybe six months ago, no one knew his name. And now he's been requested for, I believe,

almost every single opening that there is. Colts, Panthers, Texans, Ben Johnson, the offensive coordinator for the Lions, 36 years old, mathematics and computer science major at UNC, where he was a walk-on quarterback. He's been the Lions offensive coordinator. I don't know, how would you frame it, a year and a half? Yeah. Yeah. I believe could have or would have gone to MIT, had a family member, I think, that went to MIT, like just comes from a brilliant group of people and I was talking to someone who works with him and they just said you just wouldn't believe like the the central processing unit in this guy. It's like we're just going to throw a bunch of ideas at you and then it's just going to come out the other end in a big nice clean sheet

of paper. It says, yeah, this is what we're going to do and we're going to score 40 points. And I just feel like, you know, yes, the lines did upgrade from a talent perspective. They have a very good offensive line. But again, diversity. in scheme is something that we saw a ton of this year. And just the way to, and this is another part of coaching that I think is super underrated, is the way that we have seen Jared Goff be handed larger and larger and larger pieces of responsibility over a managed period of time. And that was something that you heard about Brian Daibel and Josh Allen going back

to Josh Allen's second year, where someone in Buffalo at the time had told me, watch the way that Josh is just going to kind of mature on pace, on schedule. He's going to take little chunks of the offense into his own time over time. And that's what we saw from golf this year to the point where we entered this season thinking, how in God's name are they going to get the number one pick next year so they can get someone in there to being like, yeah, Jared Goff, baby, you know? And that's coaching. Another guy who it's hard to pin down where he comes from.

he was in Miami for a number of years under different staffs. His first year there, Joe Philbin was the head coach. And then he worked under Adam Gase. Joe Philbin, West Coast guy, worked in Green Bay. Adam Gase brought what Ben Johnson when I talked to him this summer described as the Peyton off, Peyton Manning offense with him to Miami, which is what it was. So he has different backgrounds in those.

He has a little bit of fluency in the Don Correale kind of digit system. So you talk about diversity in the offense. There isn't one place that he comes from. It's kind of a smattering of ideas. is based on what is the best solution to this problem with the personnel that I have. And again, I think that's going to be a common theme with some of these offensive coaches. And in my opinion, kind of a heartening trend with some of these guys who are going to get these opportunities, the fact that they have a little bit more diversity of background on the

offensive side of the ball. It isn't just a copy and paste thing. I think that's where we should be looking for some of these guys. And I think that he's a very good example of that. Again, so that's what scares me a little bit about the math. massive outside zone trend that we had running the last few years where, okay, it's a great system. It's a phenomenal system. It has largely worked for better or worse since 1995.

But if half the league is running it, then the entire league is working on a way to stop it. And so, you know, you look at someone like Ben and this goes back to something that coaches have been talking about since the, you know, I don't know, maybe like 2010, 2011, 2012. The prevalence in, you know, PFF, the film overlays that they're able to do and collect data faster than they ever have before and to see examples of plays that have succeeded during the week to digest information that other, and I forget one coach was saying, there's even something that's like better and bigger and faster that they're using now, some sort of computer program that's catching on. But the way that they're able to download information in two and a half minutes, they can watch every explosive play from the last six months. of football. And so there is no more system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you, I was explaining to one coach what game pass is like. And he's just like, oh, God, you poor thing. And I was like, no, it's really, it's worse than you think. Let me pull up my laptop and show you. Yeah. There's a lot of that. They're just like, God, you poor soul. But yeah, so this is the playing field now. And so if you don't have this background of diversity and skills, you know, that's. That's why Marvin Luce used to say it all the time. I want guys who, like me, I want guys who were at Idaho State. I want guys who had to do weird stuff.

You know, I did a story about a lot of the guys from West Point, the coaching staff, right? And the amount of stuff that you have to be able to figure out in order to make that offense work, and they're transitioning to a spread offense this year, which would be really cool. But the amount of background knowledge that you have to have in every different conceivable possible, scheme is it's not just a bonus now it's the necessity and so if i'm an owner this goes back to what we're talking about way at the top of the show you can't just survive on hiring the hot coordinator anymore because you know and you hate to say it right but outside zone might be dead in the water in two years in a year and a half i don't know and a lot of these guys are smart enough to be able to

counterpunch it kyle certainly is but some aren't you know and and that's going to be a big problem The one question I have, and I haven't talked to enough people about this, I don't know if you have, just kind of the bigger picture leadership aspects of the job, commanding an entire room, commanding the building. Obviously, the processing we know is there and the success as a coordinator is already there. But those kind of bigger questions, what sense do you have about that? I mean, just from a, with Ben in particular, what I heard is just the the energy, the enthusiasm and the approachability, right? Like a lot of times, you know, if you, MIT is a, a scary word to me, right? I barely got into college. So, you know, and sometimes you're afraid- shitty head coaches who were rocket scientists. True. That's true. Yeah. But I think there's that approachability, that malubility and just the fact that like, yeah, I love hanging out with this dude. I think that's what I hear coming from that coaching staff, which I think is another part to this, right? It's not just some phantom of the opera type character that's in this, in this dark room trying to figure out

how Jared Gough can complete passes. This is, I think this is a guy that can make this work. And, I mean, the word I got at the beginning of the season, and I'm very careful to put the M word in any coaching, coaching list was McVeigh, Ian, not only schematically, but just attitudinally, right? And so I think that's a big thing. All right. Another defensive coach, who obviously has garnered a lot of interest, D'Amico Riance

has gotten requests from the Texans, from the Broncos already. We know his bona fides. He's 38 years old. He was defensive coordinator for the Niners for the past two years. Started his coaching career in 2017 with the Niners. Kyle Shanahan was the Texans offensive coordinator for two years. So there's that through line and that connection. What he has done as a defensive coordinator in San Francisco over the last two seasons is unimpeachable.

They are absolutely ridiculous. But outside of that on his resume, what about him, his personality, the way he approaches things is making him an attractive candidate for people? So I think the former player aspect of it is interesting to me because we're seeing people try to capture the best of that and possibly in shortcut form, right? And so I think that Jim Mersey obviously had his own idea about how he wanted to go about that. And we saw it fail epically. But I feel like now more than ever, if you're going to create a CEO position, I feel like a player with recent. NFL experience, it's a huge checkmark because the game now, the information that the players have about the world that they're living in, the sociopolitical environments in the NFL,

cynicism can build up so quickly in a locker room. And so to be able to have a guy who has made it through some fairly lean years of NFL football himself, and then to make it through the other side to have found success in coaching to climb that ladder. I think that that level of understanding is super important. And, you know, you hate to throw around the word players coach because that is something that implies that you're not brilliant schematically. I think D'Amico is both, right? And I think that's something that goes a long way.

And you just don't see defenses. You don't see teams that are just screaming off the ball like San Francisco does on offense and defense. And yeah, some of that is confidence in what you're calling, but a lot of that is relationships. And I feel like D'Amico is one of those guys that fosters those relationships and gets guys really fired up. Even beyond being a former player, a former player who was lauded for the ways he interacted with younger teammates and the example that he said. I remember talking to Jordan Hicks last year in Arizona about mentoring the younger linebackers on Arizona's roster. He said when I got to the league, D'Meco Ryans was in his 10th season.

I got to watch every single day and have a resource every single day for the exact way to approach my job in the NFL. So beyond being a former player was kind of the platonic ideal of what a linebacker in the NFL looks like and played for about a decade. So so many boxes that I think that he checks. And it's hard to explain to an audience sometimes. Like, you know, people roll their eyes when they hear this stuff. but like I can't tell you enough that there are coaches that guys have played for in the last six years who have never made eye contact with some of their players. Like there were players who had played on a team for three years and never made eye contact with their head coach. That's a thing.

And so I, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, you need to have that as a basis of understanding when you go into this. And, you know, I think that's just something that's important to mention. Where would you like to see him ideally? Where do you think you'd be the best fit? With some of the offensive guys, I think it depends on who the quarterback is and what the plan is. You know, where I'm going to put Stike in, it depends, I think, of where the Panthers go at quarterback in an ideal world. But with a guy like D'Amico, with these jobs open, where do you think he makes the most sense? I like him in Houston and I like him in Arizona.

I think either one of those places because this is, I like him for a more global rebuild. right like this thing that's going to take time but as long as you are assured and time is a you know a precious entity in the NFL but if you are assured that you are going to have some time i like that idea because i think both of those places are places that need to be resuscitated a little bit on the emotional front and i feel like that's a place those are places where he could go and and make a difference right away you know especially Arizona right you know i think you can find someone to work with Kyler. Kyler's great. You know, you're going to be able to figure that out. But you are going to need far more of a global thing. I mean, Cliff depended so much on his

assistant head coach on Vance to do most of the big picture stuff in that building. And so D'emiko could come in and shift that right away and be like, hey, I'm the CEO, you're coming to me. This is how things work now. And I feel like that's the kind of thing. That's a breath of fresh air that that you would need. It's interesting. I think Albert Brewer mentioned this in something he wrote today, but it's a great point. Very few of these candidates made $48 million playing professional football. So I think that he is going to be afforded some patience and some choosiness with these jobs that some of these other guys who are looking at life-changing money as head coaches might not be able to enjoy. So I think that's something to keep in mind as we go through this process.

Yeah. And don't be, yeah, like you said, don't be surprised if, I mean, some of these big names that we're talking about, right? I mean, whether it's Stuyken or Gannon or Domech, I mean, they could easily be coaching in the Super Bowl. And that, given the timelines of processes, often disqualify you for better or worse from an immediate shot at becoming a head coach. Like, I think we're going to see one or two of these guys that we're raving about come back as a coordinator next year just because, you know, their team was too good, you know, and other teams didn't want to wait. Next guy here at Ken Dorsey, been requested by the Panthers where he used to work. It was his first job in the NFL. He was their quarterback's coach for about five years.

It was the Bill's quarterback's coach for two years after that. He's in his first season as Buffalo's offensive coordinator. What have you heard about Ken Dorsey? What puts him on these lists? What do you got for me? You know, not to judge a book by his cover and, you know, say, oh, that's the guy that slammed all the papers during the game when he was mad. And, you know, I would say that my counterpoint to that was, wouldn't you want someone who cared so much about their job that they got that upset and it's not like you heard anybody. The best part of that is that when you talk to him, he's like a very calm, like very kind of mild-mannered guy.

So the fact that he has that side of him, I actually am a little bit encouraged by that, if anything else. That's like, I don't know if you saw, someone leaked the audio of Kirby Smart's pre-game speech on Twitter this morning. I don't know who was brave enough to record that on their cell phone and then tweet about it. But good luck to them. But they got to win got chicken wings during the game yesterday. So I'm pretty sure that Georgia team is feeling itself right now.

Yeah, fair. But Kirby Smart is another guy that looks like, he looks like a starter at like a caddy shack. You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden you close the door and you're just like, oh, my God. And that's a good thing. That's something that you want from somebody. And again, I mean, I think Ken has a cachet not only from where he came from collegiately. I mean, remember how legendary and how I.

iconic those Miami teams where I think that's a big deal for certain people. But I remember meeting with him and talking to him going back to the Super Bowl in 2015 when he was Cam Newton's quarterback's coach and thinking like, okay, this is someone who just, you know, they're doing so many similar things with a quarterback. And I think that there would need to be more specific things in place for him to succeed from a play calling standpoint. From an emotional standpoint, I think he's Got it. I mean, like you and I said, this is a guy that I think has the cachet, has the passion, has the burn. And, you know, that's what you need.

And to that point, one thing that I heard was kind of interesting was, again, made this point earlier in the show where you throw out people who say, like, I have to hire a guy from X because this is the way we want to do things. I think Buffalo is one of the very few exceptions where I feel like what is happening in that building is. a commodity. And when you're able to take that somewhere and work it into your own culture, I think that's a big deal. And I do think that that has its own sort of advantages built into. I'm 100% with you on that in both the front office and the coaching staff, especially on the offensive side of the ball, because there isn't a homogeneity what they do offensively. What they did in 2019 looks a lot different than what they've done over the last couple of years. And Ken has been a part of that transformation. And how intentionally they built that.

offense through what Josh does well. I mean, the way that they do things there is wild. I mean, it's a lot of like no rules, just vibes with how they operate on that side of the ball. And I think that leads to a certain curiosity that's really interesting to me or the way that they seek out ideas, they can kind of pluck them from anywhere because they don't really come from any one place. I think the problem solving and how many different areas they can seek out answers is really interesting. You know, last year when they went to a lot of the 21 and 12 stuff late in the season after being super spread out, if you look at the way that they've approached things this year, you know, they've used a lot more jumbo and heavier personnel in certain situations,

the way that they've diversified the run game. So how they've tried to seek out answers in a lot of different ways on that side of the ball, I think is conducive to success as an offensive coach. All of that being couched in the fact that when you have Josh Allen, he solves a lot of problems for you. So I think that that is worth mentioning. But The background and kind of their process there offensively over the last few years, I've found really, really interesting in talking to them about it. I don't know what your take is on this. And I'm certainly open to the inverse of that.

But I still think Josh Allen is a massive coaching success story. I do. I mean, I really do. And this isn't to take away from what he's turned in, what he's done independently. But Josh's rookie year going back and watching the film from that to now. you know, that's that's not just all player growth, right? You know what I mean? And so I do think that there is, there's something to be said about that and stepping into,

because what Daibel was so good at was individual matchup scenarios where he's going to call play that he knows for certain you're going to run this route and it's going to trip this guy and it's going to open up this space and we're going to do that. And, you know, I was super worried about Buffalo with Daible leaving. and to be able to see how they've continued their success, how they still dial up these incredible matchup plays. It just shows that mental acuity. And maybe if he's one of these guys that's like,

hey, I'm not calling plays. You think about that if you're an owner. But, you know, Ken is certainly another name out there that I think is valuable and should get interviews. Next guy who's been requested by three different teams at openings, I believe, the Broncos, the Texans and the Colts is a Gero Evereaux, who was the Broncos defensive coordinator last year, 42 years old. I believe of all the guys we're going to talk about,

the oldest guy who would be a first time head coach that's been requested for an interview so far. All the guys that are older than him have already been head coaches in the league. Really interesting background started in Tampa with John Gruden as a quality control coach. That's, I believe, where he met Sean McVeigh and how we eventually ended up on the Rams staff, was under Vic Fangio in San Francisco for five years during Vic's tenure there, was the safeties coach with the Rams for four seasons, was promoted to passing game coordinator in 2021 after Brandon Staley left.

And then in one year as the Broncos DC was throwing absolute fireballs for the first 12 games of the year before that team kind of fell apart. The Titans game where they came out in like a five two front was one of those moments where you start hearing from people around the league like, whoa baby. Like this guy knows what like this guy doesn't care. He's not afraid. he's not you know and that is just so cool to see i mean i remember talking to him when he was a safety's coach and just seeing the growth in the maturation to the point where i mean you try you try not to be um you try not to abuse language and throw around words like brilliant and genius but he is someone that like from that point you know when you started asking about him

when he was they had that first super bowl against new england right that was the word that you hurt. This guy is an absolute football genius. And so there's a lot of guys trying to run Fangio right now. There are probably two or three guys who understand on a deep level how to make Fangio work. There's guys who kind of, there's guys who can read the sheet music, but there's only a few guys who can play the notes. And I feel like Agero is one of those guys who can play the notes. Watching him put his spin out at this year was so fun because you have the kind of of the bones of it where they're playing with a lot of light boxes and you have a lot of two high coverages, all of that. But the pressure packages and the ways that those kind of express

themselves, that was different. And the ways that they brought pressure, what I think was his own little stamp on it. And talking to Justin Simmons in the summer about how their version of this defensive system would be different than the one they ran last year literally under Vic Fangio, he was just telling me that there was kind of more flexibility within certain calls where the umbrellas and the buckets of the defense weren't necessarily as so siloed. It were based on personnel, formation, whatever, a certain call could go from being like a pure zone call to like a match call. And just the ways that it was a little bit more flexible within those families.

I thought that was really interesting, where again, you're taking the general ideas from what the previous staff did that were successful, but kind of putting your own little stamp on what those are going to look like around your players. Yeah, I just went back and looked at, because I asked someone kind of what they're thoughts were that I'd work with them for a while. And this goes to, it's, it's this way of, of, of giving people some leeway within the scheme and creating that sort of accountability, um, system where, you know, I think Vic is, you know, he's one of these guys that is one of the godfather's of NFL defense, but I think not allowing as much flexibility creates that dividing line,

whereas I think, Aziro did such a good job of breaking that down. giving pro bowl players, giving developing cornerbacks, some ownership over the system. And that was the word. It was just creates this accountability within the defense where guys want to play for him because he's going to give them a piece of that. And I was thinking about this the other day. Like, we were back in 2010 when I was covering the Jets and they had that stunning win over the New England Patriots.

And their defense that day was Jim Leonard was on injured reserve. and he came up with it. He was like, hey, this is what we need to run. And Jim Leonard is now, like, one of the better defensive coordinators in all the football world. But this ability to give some of it back, but then to hold players accountable for those decisions and to have the you know what to be able to put your own, put your name on that at the end of the day, I think is huge. But, you know, soft spoken, but in the best possible way. You know, I think that's not one of those guys that, right, in the football world, I'm sure you've seen it, right? I have a boss that used to say there are risers and climbers, right?

There are people who come to the top naturally through hard work, and there are people who kind of kick and claw themselves there. Jiro is never one of these guys that's going to, you know, be like, ah, look at how important I am. You know, he's one of these guys that you start from the film and you work your way back to the person. And I think that this, and this goes to what we were saying before, listen, the Rams hired Sean McVeigh off a nine and seven mediocre Washington football season. And so, and that's what you get from that. I think, Igero is on a defensive scale is that kind of guy where like, okay, yes, you're probably afraid to hire someone from that Bronco staff right now. I get it. But the energy that was in that building before it was complicated by certain dynamics, I think.

was next level. And I remember talking to coaches on that staff at the beginning of the year and them saying, we've never seen anything like it. We've never been happier. We've never been, you know, more excited to come to work. And that's a big deal. I also think that if I were an owner, I wouldn't be looking at him as the Broncos defensive coordinator. I would be looking at him as somebody who was on the RAM staff for four years and helped build that defense. I mean, why, Why not? And I do think that there are missteps in trying to say, we're going to poach a team from this organization because they've been successful. I do think the commodity thing with the bills is similar to how it feels with the Rams, where you're not just taking coaches from that because you're trying to replicate a certain defensive system.

The ways that that building operated under McVeigh and how players felt all of that kind of stuff, that is worth trying to steal from. and somebody who is fluent in those ideas and has been around that sort of culture, I do think that is worth trying to tap into at least to have a conversation with the guy. And, I mean, listen, this is a hill that I'm willing to die on, which is fine. I've already died on it several times on Twitter. But, I mean, the way kind of covering Nathaniel Hackett's run to that job, I think the way that staff was set up, I think the way the ideals behind that staff were something. that, you know, 10 years from now, I think will be commonplace in the NFL. I think they will be

stolen. I think it's like, you know, we have coaches that are there to help people coach. We have people who are there to ensure that you are learning through this process. And Asgero and Nathaniel were college roommates, best friends. I think he shares some of those ideas. And that shouldn't poison the well. This is a good thing, you know, just because Russell's your quarterback doesn't mean you're a bad head coach. All right. Last one here, the guys who have been sought out for interviews, Mike Kafka, the Giants offensive coordinator, 35 years old, four years with Andy Reid in Kansas City

before going to the Giants as their OC. This is another one where the details of it are so fascinating to me because he's one of those guys that Andy Reid guy solely, was a Chiefs guy solely, him going to do this job with the Giants and how different the Giants' offense looks and how different they've been successful compared to what the chiefs are, that to me is the most interesting part about him as a candidate. I find it the alarm bells are going off for why that is attractive to me. That's what, you know, I talked to a former head coach the other day that said, if I'm looking at one guy and, you know, he said, you know, I don't know him personally, but if I'm an owner and I'm throwing a dart

at the board, that's the first place I'm going, because what does that move say about you anyway, right? And yes, you know, you could have very comfortably, I bet he would have gotten legit. legitimate head coaching interest just as Patrick Mahomes' quarterbacks coach. Probably. I don't think you would have needed to leave. But what you did was you went to a team that, listen, I mean, yes, there is a Daniel Jones hive in the NFL. There are coaches who love Daniel Jones, but I don't know if he was one of those guys. You had this sort of broken pieces of this Dave Gettleman fever dream that you have to work with and mold together.

And, I mean, the variance in personnel usage, the way that you can trust players to learn all of that stuff, digest all that stuff and be able to run all that stuff. I mean, listen, I'm going to be honest. When I heard that he was leaving to go to the Giants, I was like, oh, man, I don't know about this. Like, and that was a guy that was on our list for a couple of years. And I was like, you know, is this really the stepping stone move that you want to make? And I think it ended up paying huge dividends.

I mean, you know, he can, boy, what he's done with that offense, I think has been phenomenal. It really has. What's so cool to me is that he had to learn the offense. A lot of times offensive coordinators are teaching players the system. He had to learn the bones of the system because they brought a lot of those ideas from Buffalo. So Brian Daibold brought two assistants with him from the Bill's staff. One was Bobby Johnson, the offensive line coach.

There was Shay Tierney, who was the assistant quarterback coach and is not the quarterback coach with the Giants. They essentially taught Mike Kafka the Bill's offense early on after he got the job. And so he had to learn it. And then they went back and he taught them a lot of the ideas about the Chiefs offense. And then they kind of came to a middle ground. But he had to learn how to call the Bill's version of the offense because that's not the system that he comes from, which I think is incredibly impressive and speaks to some mental gymnastics that you can do and the flexibility there. And in talking to him, I think one of the reasons he felt so comfortable doing that, he was a player for seven years in the NFL or six years in the NFL. He played for seven teams in six years.

So he had to learn all of these different offensive systems and all of the different verbiage. And that requires a lot of processing. And a lot of these guys, even if he only coached in one place, the fact that he's had to go through so many different offenses, I think is one of the reasons he was ready for a challenge like that. And another, I think, important piece of background information, you know, if you're not accustomed to talking about or, you know, kind of if you don't know the lifestyle of an NFL head. coach, right? One coach told me, I can't let my position coaches go anywhere because it takes two years to fully understand what I'm trying to teach from a whole body standpoint, right? So a lot of these coaches say that.

Like, my offense takes two years to learn. And so if you're a coordinator coming in and you have to learn a new offense to call a new offense, to design a new offense, I mean, the fact that you're able to cram all that in your headspace, and then you don't know what you're getting. out of Saquan Barkley this year. You don't know what you're, you know, you're breaking in rookie tight ends, you know, the receiving core on that team was beyond anonymous. It's a mile with a misfit toys. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. And so if I were anybody out there, I just think it's one thing that I wanted to write this year that I regret not writing

about as much was just this, it doesn't have to be pretty, right? Like, who is looking back at the Giants and being like, yeah, like, you know, they didn't have enough awesome plays this year. They're in the playoffs. And I think a lot of us legitimately had them pegged for a top three or four pick this year. Right. Based on their roster talent. Absolutely. And that is coaching. That is 100% coaching. So speaking of guy learning his system that's not his that had to come in and do that. Rahim Morris had to do that with the Rams. And I want to talk about a couple guys who have been head coaches, but it's been a while since they've been head coaches. Rahim is the first one. He's 46 years old now, which is crazy because I remember him as a very young head coach.

It's been 14 years since he was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He's had a long and winding road since then. I think that his background and his experiences since then have been really valuable for him. He's coached in different defensive systems, whether it's Jim Hazlett and that Pittsburgh system when he was with Washington, whether it's the three system that he ran with Dan Quinn in Atlanta and then coaching offense while he was in Atlanta. And then he goes to the Rams last year and adopts their defensive system and calls it as their defensive coordinator because in his words, why would I make everyone else learn something different or I'm one guy learning something different? And they were again very good on defense last year and won a championship.

This is somebody that I think rightfully is on a bunch of these lists. the Colts have requested him. Both the Colts and Broncos have put in requests for him to interview him. I just think of all the candidates, he is one that you line up his entire resume, his background, what you're looking for in a head coach. He would be at the top of a lot of my list or close to it. Yeah. And so a couple interesting things about Rahim, but I think one thing that we didn't

talk about throughout this podcast and is, you know, it's unfortunately still like the first thing that you're going to be asked in head coaching interviews, right, is who are you bringing with you? Who's coming? And Rahim Morris is one of those guys that's like, he can hold up the Rams org chart and be like, take a pick, whoever you want.

You know, you know, that is a guy who's going to be able to bring two or three different people who in two or three years are going to be offensive head coaches somewhere else. And I don't think that that's a bad thing. Everyone says, I hate the whole we can't hire, we have to hire the offensive guy because then the playbook goes out the window.

So it's such garbage. But, you know, I think Rahim has the relationships. It's value to that in some way. I think there's some legitimacy of that in certain situations. I think as a general rule, it's less important. And again, it's something that I backed off of because I used to be a big proponent of that. I think that having a system and an organization and a plan in place for multiple years before that happens, that's what's really necessary. That's true.

Like, Dable getting those three years with the bills and Josh Allen becoming Josh Allen, having that guy hired away after the fact, I think that's important. But I do tend to agree with you that I think it's less important than it used to be or that I used to say it was. He is one of these guys that I feel like has that Rams offensive room, right, is going to have, whether it's Jake Peets or Zach Robinson or Thomas Brown, you know, they're going to have three or four head coaches over the next half decade, whatever you want to say. And I feel like a lot of those guys would go with him. I feel like a lot of those guys would take that offense and run with it. And so I think he has the access. He knows what it's supposed to look like.

As an offensive play caller and a defensive coordinator, that's just not, you know, that isn't on anybody else's resume out here. I mean, that's, you know, and, you know, I heard a couple years ago last year that, you know, he is the ultimate litmus test, right? why he is not a head coach right now is sort of mind-boggling to me. And I think we're on that dangerous tipping point where, and again, I think if Sean McVe leaves, he's obviously the guy that's going to succeed him in L.A., and I think that's important to take into account too. And I think that they'll still be successful and they'll still work. But yeah, it blows my mind.

And one of the cool things that I'd learned about him really over the past couple of years was how analytically minded he is, how open he is to that stuff. And it used to be such a buzzword, right? But sometimes you don't associate coordinators, coaches, who are in that age bracket to being, you know, really aligned with or informed by defensive analytics. And Rahim is one of those guys where some of the information, some of the stuff that he gets and how that informs some of his calls is pretty next level. his background and experience combined with the level of humility that he brings to his job, I think is really impressive. I'm talking to him this summer, just how adamant he was. We are post, this is my system, these are my plays football coaching.

And I think that that's a really important way to approach it. He seems to do it that way. And then again, you combine that with all the different things he's had his hands in on both sides of the ball. and the personality aspects of it, like the charisma aspects of it, the commanding room aspects of it. I just think that he has a really, really strong case to get one of these jobs. And I think one of the reasons he didn't get one earlier than this is that it's so driven by team success. The Falcons weren't good when he was there. They didn't have like, oh, that's the guy who's responsible for this.

So we're going to go hire him. And even this year with the Rams, it wasn't necessarily great. They didn't have a lot of success. But I don't think that should deter people because he's not a different candidate now. than he was a year ago after they won the Super Bowl. I mean, and this goes back to McVeigh, but there are, there are so many people, it's almost like, you know, I don't know what the real world analogy would be, but there are so many people out there that were like, yeah, I was waiting to hire McVey, like I saw him, and, you know, I thought he was

brilliant, but just waiting to hire him. Waiting for what? I knew he was brilliant, so just hire. And so it's just one of those things where, you know, it's still my biggest pet peeve. What are you waiting for? You know the guy's brilliant, just hire. All right. One other one here who, again, was a former head coach, been a couple years. Dan Quinn has been requested by the Broncos.

I think he's going to be another guy who is in demand this coaching cycle. Not a ton that we have to talk about. Dan Quinn has been a head coach recently. The most notable thing to me is what would be different this time around. And I think that in talking to him about this, he did a really intentional job about looking back at what went wrong in Atlanta schematically, almost as much as anything else. He told me that he went through like eight years of cutups and like thousands of plays trying to figure out what the weak points of those defenses were and where he had to evolve.

And if you look at what they've done in Dallas over the last couple years, I think it shows a ton of growth from him as an X's and O's schematic coach. And we already know that people like playing for him, the cultural aspects of everything, people play really hard for him. You watch the way those Dallas teams played and you hear about the teams that he coached in Atlanta, So I think there are a lot of reasons to think that this time around would be a different story for him compared to the end in Atlanta. Yeah. So a couple of things about, I mean, Dan, I mean, the fact that like, you know, the Cowboys are not, you know, it's cover one, you know, or whatever that, you know, some of the stuff they're doing.

It's like, okay. Cover one and two. Cover one and two. Tiger can change the stripes. And I think that is, that goes back to being able to break yourself down and say like, hey, you know, my defense doesn't work anymore. This isn't the NFL anymore. I think, and I've heard, you know, there are two sides to this coin, certainly, with Dan Quinn. I'm on the side that I think it's great.

I mean, when you walked into that building in Atlanta, and if you were there for an interview, you and, you know, possibly this is intentional, right? And maybe I got taken for the roller coaster ride, but you feel like you're playing for the Falcons. Like, it's just like, you know, you walk through the hallway and there's, you know, certain stuff that you're supposed to slap or are you holding onto the ball? You're doing this. You're doing that. And, you know, you go into his office and you're talking to him. And 10 seconds later, he has the PR guy stand up.

And he's like, well, come over here and tackle me because I'm going to show you how I want to do this. And, you know, for some people, they're like, okay, that's Pete Carroll Light. And, you know, I don't need that. And I don't want that in my building. But I think with Dan, it's just so genuine. And I think some of the stuff that he had to go through in Atlanta, you know, there was some complicated, whether it was the post-super Bowl years, whether it was some of the contractual. stuff with Matt Ryan and Julio Jones. This was a guy who was, you know, ideally from a management perspective, supposed to be

aligned with management and say, yeah, I want all these people in at this price and X and Y. But this was a guy that was on the phone with his players being like, what can I do for you? How can I help you? And I feel like Dan is one of those guys that is never going to be a bad hire, right? And, you know, it's almost like you looked at Jacksonville last year when they were making a hire. And it's like, this guy doesn't have to be good, but he just can't. be it can't be what we had before right we can't have an absolute meltdown and dan is one of those guys that i i think you come in and the next day of work is going to be better than the

day before it and i think that is a huge thing for a head coach to be able to walk in there and to say yep like i got this i know how this is going to work um but again it's it's a taste thing right um do some players maybe not respond to that i don't know i mean do they is the pete carroll thing has it run its course, possibly. But Dan Quinn is one of those guys that can transcend that. If he gets a sense that it's running its course, I feel like he does something else, just like he did with his defense.

Yeah, again, I've, for a while with a lot of the success these play calling head coaches had, whether it was Shanahan, Sean McVeigh, Andy Reed, Sean Peyton, those guys. Like, that's what I want. I just think that's the model I would chase. But over the last few years, the success we've seen from guys like Sean McDermott,

like Mike Frebel, guys that really can instill, program and still a way it feels to come to work every single day, he seems like one of those guys. And I agree. If I needed an organization that just kind of needed to get things back on track and be a correction point, I think that he would be a guy that I'd want to talk to. Very quickly, two guys who have not been requested yet, but I think probably will be by the end of this. Their team is very good, and I think they're both worthwhile candidates. Luana Rumo and Brian Callahan, both of the coordinators for the Bengals.

Lou is an outlier here. We talked about all these young guys and all these young Guns getting these interviews and getting these shots. If he does get requested for a couple of these jobs, he's 56 years old. He was a college DB's coach for eight years before coming to the NFL in 2012. And he was with the Dolphins for six seasons. He's been the Bengals defensive coordinator since 2019. Anybody who's listening to this show, no, this is a pro-Lu Anirumo podcast. I think that the way that he schemes up defense, the way that he creates game plans is some

of the smartest defensive coaching we've seen in the league over the last couple of years. Personality wise, he, a lot of these guys like these older gruff defensive coaches, and he is kind of soft spoken and in that way where you might think he's like that. But I think he has a little more softness to him than some of those other guys do, which I appreciate. He's a really interesting candidate when you compare him to this group overall. In doing research on him, I got the best one-liner from anybody on him, which was that he's

Staten Island, but in a good way. Yeah. So I was like, okay, but you know exactly, I mean, I live in the Northeast, but you know exactly what you're talking about. It's like, okay, yes, I get that picture. There's the toughness. There's the from the neighborhood mentality, but there is that heart underneath it that guys just absolutely love playing for him. And listen, I think there is, you talk about intrinsic value in coming from other places. during the Super Bowl last year, I think we all got a look at what it was like to be a Bengals head coach

and to be reminded of what it's like to be a Bengals head coach because you don't stop when the season's over. You are part of the scouting staff as soon as the season's over. You are teaching stuff and you're teaching the scouts how to find the guys that you want. You're teaching the pro personnel guys how to get the guys in that you want. And I feel like a lot of what's lost in the hiring cycle is, you know, I do think that the Bengals, since it is sort of set up more like a, and I mean this in the best possible way, but like a like a Division 2 or Division 3 college where you're wearing multiple hats is immensely valuable in terms of projecting guys to a CEO role. I think it's huge because you have a hand in every part of the operation there. And he's shown, based on his input on free agents and on draft picks, that he has a really good eye for identifying and developing talent.

They don't have superstar level defensive players on that team for the most part. They have a lot of good players that have been sought out for very specific reasons. Trey Flowers comes to mind. They were the only team that claimed Trey Flowers last year before he landed on the Bengals. And the reason that they did that is that he does this one thing very well. He is a tight end stopper and we're going to use him specifically like that. And they've got a lot of that kind of stuff where they're like, he has a ton of input on why they want these players and he's able to articulate what roles they're going to be able to play in that defense. And I think you've seen them succeed as a result of it.

Brian Callahan is the last one. Brian Calh had 38 years old. It's been the Bengals OC for the last since Zach Taylor got there. So the last four seasons, his quarterback's coach for three years before that, both with the Lions and the Raiders. I think that what the Bengals have done on offense this year and the flexibility that they've shown, the growth that they've shown, and his role in that has been incredibly impressive. I think what Joe Burroughs said really stood out, which is that it's showing a human concern that never borders on micromanagement, right? It's showing a human side that never borders on micromanagement, which is what you tend to do if you have a rookie quarterback that's going to make or break your career. And I think Brian Calhahn is one of those guys where, I mean, the players absolutely love him.

He reminds me of, you know, the new wave of coaches, the big deal are the meetings, right? How are you approaching meetings? And are players coming out of it? There's a whole science behind, you know, how you break it up with different things, whether it's video clips or comedy bits or whatever you're going to do in order to streamline the knowledge. but he is one of those guys that's on the forefront of that, I feel like. What was it? I think Trenton Irwin, their wide receiver, was in a Campbell Soup commercial when he was a child.

And Brian Callahan somehow found that Campbell's Soup commercial and had that in a meeting. And, you know, it's just one of those things where I remember talking to a couple of their receivers during the Super Bowl last year. And especially younger guys like Jamar Chase, you know, first year in the league. And it's like, yeah, these meetings kick ass. Like, I love going to work. And I think that's a big part of it. And just from a very, like, mad scientist perspective, I'm very curious if he would have his dad work with him because, and again, this has nothing to do. Brian Callan is a good coach independent of that.

But Bill is the most sought after year after year assistant coach in the NFL. And I think that would be a massive domino if he were able to lock that up too. And a massive loss for the Browns. And again, I mean, this is. They have a lot of eggs in the Deshaun basket, and if you lose the best offensive line coach in the NFL, what happens there? It's just an interesting thought.

All right. That's all we got. We already went longer than I was planning to, but I'm just going to try to download your brain when we have this conversation. So very much appreciate the time, sir. You do fantastic work on this subject and all subjects. If you guys are not reading the stuff that Connor is doing over at the MMQB, it is must read every single day.

And it is out every single day, the work that he is doing. So please go check. that out if you have not. Really, really appreciate the time, man. It was great to chat with you. Yeah, thanks, Robert. All right, guys, that's all we got for today. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we have two all pro shows coming your way, offense and defense

with me and Nate. So please be on the lookout for those. Prospects to Prospects will be out in the afternoon. We will have also two wildcard previews coming your way. We're going to do an AFC preview and an NFC preview. It's going to be a lot of podcasting. Please be on the lookout for all of that. In the meantime, really appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.