The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The jam-packed 2026 coaching carousel: It goes up and down, and around

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

When we last checked in on the coaching carousel on Black Monday, it seemed like it could actually be a relatively quiet year for coaching moves. Since then, John Harbaugh was fired and Mike Tomlin stepped down. Just like that, the two longest tenured NFL coaches were back out on the market, and two potentially premium jobs opened up. Conor Orr from Sports Illustrated and The MMQB joins Robert Mays to take a ride on the coaching carousel on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)4:21 Steelers19:20 Ravens34:44 John Harbaugh and the Giants job42:33 Falcons45:44 Titans56:24 Cardinals1:01:54 Browns1:09:12 Raiders1:12:00 Dolphins1:18:46 CoordinatorsHost: Robert MaysWith: Conor OrrExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mayes. It's time for a coaching carousel update. Our friend Connor Oar from the MMQB at SI is back. I just love talking to him about this stuff. We were thinking about who I wanted to have on and what the discussion would look like. I was like, let's just have Connor on to do this again

because this is what he's doing all day, every day. Excellent conversation. We started things off with the Maitaamo News, where the Steelers might be seeking out their next head coach, pivoted from there to their neighbors in the age. AFC North, chatted a little bit about the Ravens current coaching search and where John Harbaugh might end up. Then just kind of ran through all of the different openings. Titans, Falcons, Cardinals, Browns, Raiders.

I'm sure I'm forgetting one. Talked about the three or four best candidates for those jobs, the ones that might make the most sense, and where these teams might land at the end of it. And then we rounded things out with a quick kind of rapid fire run through some of the coordinator searches that are currently happening. It's a fun time in this world. We had a good time today. Let's dig into it with Connor right now. Back today to help us comb through an avalanche of coaching news and nuggets and everything to deal with.

He's back for another round. It is our friend Connor or from Sports Illustrated in the MMQB. How you doing, man? I'm great, man. This is like, so I'm obviously obsessed with the coaching industry. This is my draft season, but it's almost like if you were Mel Kuiper and then you were like surprised like every pick in the draft is a trade and like the 10 best teams in the NFL have the first 10 picks you'd be like wow this is amazing I mean this is turned from

the worst coaching cycle in like five years to by far the best one this is amazing I think there was the 2016 draft where the Eagles and Rams made massive trades in like the two weeks before the draft to get to one and two and to take jerry golf and Carson went it kind of feels like that where we know that there's going to be some interesting stuff and then it's just thrown into complete chaos over the course of it. I mean, when we had this conversation a couple weeks ago, it was kind of like,

it's a weird cycle and maybe some of these things will happen, but probably not. And then even when the Ravens beat the Steelers, there was a thought of, okay, well, Harbaugh's gone, but Tomlin's going to stay because they won. The fact that both of them are now out, every single crazy thing that could have happened

to make this as compelling as possible seemed to happen over the last two weeks. Except for like Zach Taylor being literally the only head coach in the AFC North right now. I'm spinning it the other way, though. That is crazy. And so the fact that it did happen that way is in line with how wild the rest of this has been. Just the fact that we get, I mean, I don't think people will truly appreciate this, fully appreciate it. But the fact that we have, the Steelers and Ravens possibly going head to head for similar candidates is like,

I don't even know the comp. I guess it's like Alabama and Georgia fighting over like a five star in the transfer portal. Like this is such a cool opportunity to see how these guys work. Except like times 10 when it comes to the stakes. Like if you amped up the stakes by 5X, that's what this feels like. And that's why it's awesome. Let's start with the Steelers. I just want to get your initial thoughts about this happening, how surprised you were.

Like when you saw the news come down, what was your initial reaction yesterday? So I think a little bit surprised about half an hour before it happened. Me and my colleague, Albert Breer, kind of started getting some tips and we started working on it. And I guess what frustrates me is not realizing that a lot of the assistants had contracts that were ending this year. Not all of them, but many of them. And so it was not normal, right? Usually you get a plus one with a lot of coaching contracts. And so that's out of the norm.

Right. And so you had a situation where I think it was probably a logic. pivot point if they were to make it. And the roster obviously provided that clue too, right? You had Aaron Rogers leaving, you know, Cam Hayward's, what, 38 at this point, you know, a lot, I think 15 players not counting the kicker 30 or above on this roster. And so it was time. And I think that once we started hearing the stuff about the TV deal in his back pocket and you started hearing stuff about his coaching preferences elsewhere, it's like, okay, you know, this could go from maybe not happening to probably happening. And then you get blown out.

which if you're Tomlin and you saw everything that Sean Payton was able to do to back out of that saint situation and get himself into a good spot, it's a no-brainer. And I think from there, that's when I went from not surprised to like, how didn't I see this coming? When we were talking about the game after it ended on Monday night, I just felt like we had reached the end of the road for both sides. And I honestly, for Tomlin, I think it makes total sense.

I think it benefits him if he wants to continue coaching to take a year off to do exactly what Sean Payton did. on the Steelers side of it, to hear Arroney say it today, and maybe the messaging publicly is different than what actually happened by and closed doors, but it didn't seem like he thought this was going to happen and they would have had Mike back for another year. And I think if that is actually the case,

this potentially is a blessing in disguise. Because as good of a coach as Mike Tomlin is, it was time. And on so many different fronts, it was time to give up whatever this model was and turn the page to something else. And so I am steadfast in my belief that I think both parties benefit from them. I totally agree. I think so too. And if you, if Dan was still running this search for the Steelers,

Art's dad, I mean, he would have fainted if he saw the candidate pool because there are so many people that match the exact qualifiers that he has used to hire these coaches, like three coaches and whatever it was, 70 years and every single one of them won a Super Bowl. It's the perfect Steelers cycle. I don't know if they're going to stick to that rubric. A bunch of people that I talked to already are like, well, I don't know. They might kind of move on from the traditional archetype here. But I mean, this is a great Steelers cycle to jump in. This seems like a lot of candidates that would fit their profile.

Let's talk about those candidates. If you had to zero in on like four or five that either based on your own hunch or based on the people that you've talked to so far, what does that short list immediately look like to you? It looks like Marcus Freeman from Notre Dame. It looks like Chris Schula and Jesse Minter. it looks like Brian Flores and then possibly, you know, if someone were to surprise out of nowhere, like a Kubiak. But I, and I will say this too, it's funny.

I tried to rack my brain for the one defensive coach. I'm curious if you can guess who I'm talking about here that reminds me the most of Mike Tomlin circa 2006. Mike Tomlin was a defensive coordinator of a pretty bad team, six and ten Vikings team. And then he just goes in there, blows the Steelers away in the interview process. he's brilliant and he ends up getting the job. I was trying to think, who's the closest thing to Mike Tomlin, candidate this cycle that no one's talking about,

coaches on a bad to okay team, and that was Ezra Evereaux for me. I was one of you go out, or Anthony Weaver. Those would be the two that I would throw out that kind of fit that mold potentially. So that would be kind of my short list right now. Am I wrong in thinking that Flores just makes a ton of sense?

He makes so much sense. When I talked to Tomlin for the coaching, list last year, he said that Brian Flores is the best coach in the NFL that doesn't have a head coaching job, and it's not particularly close. He was a linebackers coach in Pittsburgh for that year between Miami and Minnesota. And what Tomlin said, I think, struck with me the most is that, like, he impressed everybody by how he acted in there. It was not, okay, I'm coming from being this defensive genius, New England, and I'm going to help fix your defense because it needs fixing. It was like, where do I fit in in all this?

How can I just help? How can I be of service to the coaching staff? And he said it was such a mind-altering year for him and his perception of Brian Flores because he didn't know him that well. And he said, I think that rubbed off on a lot of people. He just fits. He fits everything.

He's still relatively youngish. He's probably the best defensive. When we look at like history of football coaches, that's incredibly young. It's just not young anymore. Right. And it's 10 years older than Tomlin and Bill Cowher were when the Steelers hired them. And again, it's a different search committee now.

It's an entirely different world we're living in. But man, he could come in there. He could be, what was the word that they always used to use? Battleship Commander. I mean, this is Flores. It's Flores to a T. And if the Marcus Freeman thing is very delicate, I think if they couldn't land him, I think that's maybe where they point their search.

Again, I mean, this is a team that you literally have a rule named after you describing how patient and open you are during the interview process. So if they go into this with a preconceived notion that there's a candidate that's better than everybody else, they are bastardizing the very rule that their family is named after. So that's something to consider too. On the Flores front, I mean, you have dug into his candidacy and just what he is as a head coach candidate right now a lot more than I have. but the couple conversations I've had with Brian over the last couple of summers,

a couple of things just jumped out to me about the time in Pittsburgh and just from the way I understand it and the way that it was communicated to me is just that it was kind of like a schematic awakening. That's probably a strong word, but they did things differently in Pittsburgh, right? Like a lot of the certainly cover two variations

and some of the things that they would do were different than he did in Miami. And so I think that that experience with Pittsburgh was a way for him to kind of say defensive football from a different perspective for one of the first times because he had spent his entire career in New England and then in Miami where he was running the show.

And so I think from just seeing how things were done a different way, it benefited him from a football perspective. But now in the last two stops, he's been with Mike Tomlin and with Kevin O'Connell, both of whom are very different personalities and have very different leadership styles than Bill Belichick probably did when he was in New England. And so I wonder, does the last two stops that he had as an assistant,

does that inform what might make this a little bit different and his second go-around as a head coach compared to what it looked like in Miami. I think so. And if you talk to people close to Brian, too, we have to also remember, like, you know, a lot of people, the line of questioning is like, well, how would you change as a person?

But I think a lot of people who are sympathetic to Brian's situation are like, that situation that he was in in Miami was bad f*** nuts. Like, we wanted you to tank when you didn't, you know, we were offering, allegedly offering cash payments. Tom Brady and Sean Payton are getting airlifted in in a helicopter like what's happening here and I think that he was in a uniquely bizarre situation and I think he was ultimately right on Tua it just took a next level offensive coach to come in after max him out and still throw up his hands and be like there's literally nothing I can do with this

guy and so I think in time it kind of proved him correct but I think all you have to do is you have to look at Minnesota's scheme which cannot be operated without a deep level of trust and communication. It is probably the most player-friendly defensive scheme in the NFL. It's player run. It's player called. And the only way that you can do that is if you're hanging out with your guys outside of the facility, if you trust them, if you know what they're going to do in these situations, and you aren't worried about them calling something that's absolutely bizarre or you know, off your level. He added a lot of wrinkles into this defense, but I think the best part of it is the trust. It's the interpersonal nature of it.

offensive coordinator candidates if Brian Flores would be a head coach where do we think we should look because that's the first place my mind goes whenever we're talking about defensive minded head coaches

who's coming with you to run the offense would be my first question if I was Bart Rudy. Yeah and I don't think like Daible is such a simple solution here like and that's another one where I just feel like it's so easy

and I think that's one that you could sell to a lot of people pretty quickly and you know when I checked in on it because initially it was when the Raiders job opened, it was, oh, Brady, Dable, Flores, it's done. And I got a lot of pushback from that where it was like, I don't think that's going to happen.

I don't think that's the way that's going to work. But I can say this. I mean, Flores spent so much time, I think, trying to come up with who that next offensive coordinator was going to be because it was such a corral in Miami. It was like one year after another, just in and out, in and out, in and out. And I think he knows he has to land this. But I'll say this, it's so up in the air right now. And I know coaches who are, you know, they're coming down to the wire.

and they have three or four different options because it's building dependent, it's quarterback dependent, it's owner dependent. And so if you're Flores, though, I think that leading with Dable is one that an owner can be like, okay, I totally get that. It makes sense and let's pull the trigger. If it's not Flores,

among those other three or four guys that you mentioned, who are the ones that you think make the most sense? Like who's the one if you had to get to your option number two, I was like this is the one I feel best about. Yeah. I mean, outside of Freeman, who again, I would say, like if you were to build the Steelers coach in a lab,

it would probably be Marcus Freeman. Let's sit with that for a second because as a, I'm not even going to call myself a casual college football fan. As a bystander to the college football world, what is the appeal of Marcus Freeman when we have seen so many of these college coaches not work out when they've been tapped? Recent playing experience, even though it was very short,

I mean, he was drafted and I think he got like one spring into, practice squad, the top 10 defense every single year after his first year. And the belief that Notre Dame in the NIL era has turned into basically the closest thing that you could get to an NFL team. And even though you could say like Alabama and some of these other programs are different, the way that you would have to act to run Notre Dame, I think, is probably closest in nature to the NFL. And so your behaviors have to be very similar. The way that you're thinking has to be similar big picture. And players love him. Like they're going to run through a brick wall for him. My guess is Kyle Hamilton is probably jumping up and down in that Ravens facility being like,

can we get him in here? I mean, he's constantly, you know, studying NFL stuff. I know he visits a lot with NFL teams. And so there's connective tissue there. And I just think that is the outside the box higher that everyone's like, man, if I got a crack at this, I think it's interesting. Now, again, you'd have to run a very unstealers-like search where you would almost have to go through through your process, decide that you still like Marcus better than all of your other candidates. And then at the very last minute under cover of darkness, you know, fly into South Bend, be like, here's $18 million a year and then parachute out with him and be like, sorry, everybody, we're going to take him now.

So I don't know if that's going to happen. But that's one of those things where a lot of NFL teams like him. The Titans and Giants called on him pretty quickly when they had their openings and kind of got rebuffed on it. I know that he was a high on their candidate list. So we'll see what happens. And if it's not Marcus Freeman, who's the next NFL guy that you would mention? So I think Minter makes a lot of sense. I heard that Halfley is crushing it on his interviews,

which I think we all knew he would. And so you have those two guys, defensive backgrounds, youngish, and again probably fits that archetypal Steelers mold. And Chris Shula, I think, would be the other one where, and Shulah, I think, is my colleague, Robert Breer mentioned that was the name that was put in his year a couple of weeks ago, if the Steelers were to move on from Tomlin. And I think that makes a lot of sense, too.

Chris comes from a Blue Blood NFL family. There's no secret about that. But I think that what's most impressive about him is, I mean, his defense is not markedly, but pretty, like, obviously better than the Rahim Morris defense that he took over. And you could make the case that these players aren't nearly as good. There's no Aaron Donald. There's no Jalen Ramsey. and they improved in almost every meaningful metric over that time.

This isn't like a case of my best friends, Sean McVeigh, and my grandpa's Don Chula. It's like I did a pretty good job, you know, earning this thing on my own, you know? And we'll see how much the personnel will change. It's one of the biggest questions I have about the Steelers is which direction they choose to take this thing because I don't think it takes a huge nudge

for you to just completely reset with a young roster. And that doesn't require tearing it down. It's a very small movement to, that sort of path. But even with that, you look at the guys who are mainstays on this team, it's still built through the front

and the same way the Rams are. And Chris Shu is a front-first defensive coach. And so even if there's a world where you move on from T.J. Watt, maybe Cam Hayward in the next year or two, you still have Derek Harmon, Keanu Benton, I think, last year of his contract is next year,

but you still have Derek Harmon, you still have Alex Highsmith, you still have Nate Herbig, you still have real front talent on that team. And I think that's where he really shines through. And so schematically, I actually think that one does make some sense considering the way the Steelers are built and considering the pieces that are going to be there, even if they do hit a little bit of a soft reset with the roster. Yeah. That's why I think it's going to be, I mean, especially if you are committed to

building through that side of the ball and that being your identity, it's hard to imagine them striking out if it's Shula, if it's Minter, or if it's Halfley, right? I mean, these guys are as good and as accomplished and as interesting defensive coaches as we've seen come through the cycle over the last couple years. And I think they all kind of fit what you could see them all fitting in Pittsburgh, I guess is what I'm trying to say, right? It's Nick Herbig, by the way. I have a 0% batting average with that.

I get it wrong every single time when I have to say one of their names in real time. Let's stick in the AFC North. John Harbaugh, obviously out as the Ravens coach last week. I thought the Boshadi press conference yesterday was kind of fascinating. Amazing. And not in a way that I found he was very blunt. He was very direct.

He was very transparent. And it was refreshing. Like I guess that's what I would say. It was refreshing to hear an owner. And he doesn't do much media, right? And I think as an organization, they are fairly close to the vest with a lot of how they play this stuff. But when you fire a coach after 18 years, the owner has to get in front of everybody and

talk about why that happened and what comes next. And I thought that how, again, just how direct and matter of fact, to the point it was about this is why we made this decision, this is the next set of decisions we're going to make, even to the granularity of like Lamar's contract and how we're going to handle that and why we're going to handle it that way. I just thought it was a guy who clearly, I think it had been thinking about this,

had a clear reason for why he did it and understands where he wants to go from here. If I were a Ravens fan and I saw that presentation of the organization after moving on from a two-decade long head coach, I would walk away from that feeling kind of confident and what the next step of this is going to look like, fair or unfair? Because you're showcasing what makes the Ravens job attractive in the first place, which is that you have a plan,

which is that you know what you're doing. I mean, John Harbaugh, and it'll be interesting to see him in another place, how many more third and fourth round picks, for example, did he have than any other coach in the NFL over his lifespan? Like 120 or whatever, you know, I don't know if it was that many, but that's part of their plan. They always had a plan. And I remember talking to some people there where it was like, okay, one year we saw that all the NFL scouts were over here.

So we started hammering small schools and we got this guy and this guy and this guy. Well, then all the schools, we started hammering small schools. So we started hammering just Alabama. And then we went over here and we got to go. They always have a plan. And so if you walk into that building on day one, you're surrounded by a bunch of rocket scientists. And they're like, hey, we got this. You just worry about what you got to do on the field and we're going to get you the players that we need.

It's like, oh, sick. Like I didn't know it worked that way. this is great. And, you know, if you're another coach where you watch these owners come in and they're defensive and they're sarcastic and they're just clearly about to walk off that podium and just pass it off to a search firm, it provides a different vibe, right? There's a different feel to it. And I think Bashati right down to the fact that it was like, yeah, I just called him, you know, on my way home and I was like, I fired him. It's like, oh my God, like we can say that stuff, you know? Like, we can go into the locker room and say F the Packers. Like, it's not, the Belichie,

check days over. This isn't all state secrets anymore. And I love that. It's everything about it's great. In my opinion, it's the best head coaching job to come open since I started covering the sport for a lot of those reasons. I mean, I started covering the league in 2012. Is there a better head coaching job over the last 13 years than this current Ravens coaching job? I don't think so. We could make the argument for, because I thought a lot about this too, the two that come to mind that are close or at least in the same tier or maybe the next tier be the 2019 Packers job that Matt LaFleur got

and the 2020 Cowboys job I think that McCarthy got where you walk into Dak Prescott that office stability isn't there though in the same way the Cowboys, yes I think that hurts you but That's why for me in this cycle specifically the gap between one and two is massive because with the Ravens not only do you have an MVP caliber quarterback

you have everything that you just said about the front office and player acquisition process that is proven out. The Steelers want to be that sort of team. But a lot of the stuff that the Steelers have had to do over the last few years, they've been scrambling in ways that the Steelers do not want to scramble. In the kind of the veteran trades they've had to make, going outside and free agency. The DK Meccaf trade is not a trade that the Steelers as an organization want to make. And it is a trade that the Ravens as an organization don't need to make and have it needed to. So I just think the stability plus the question,

quarterback, it puts it in an entirely different stratosphere. So, with that in mind, who in your opinion is on the short list of the people who are in contention to get that job? I think that the Ravens one will be really interesting. What I've heard is that, you know, when they have guys like Davis Webb and they're asking a lot of questions. Like they're interested and they're doing a lot of work. And so you have guys like that, like Davis Webb, Nate Shieldhouse,

Will they get the job? I don't know. Will they be an offensive coordinator for whoever gets the job? I don't know. But I do know that they're very curious about some of these young, cut the line candidates

because the truth is, we can wait forever for these guys to get ready or we can realize that probably as the past game coordinator on Sean McVeigh's staff, you're closer to the heart of it all than maybe even some

play calling offensive coordinators in the NFL, you know? Is there, is a part of you? though, he's been in the league for two years. Right. It's not even just what role are you coming from. I think how long have you actually been a part of an NFL staff and see how an NFL staff works?

Nathan Shieldhouse is undeniably impressive. He is going to go places in the next few years. But that's the one thing when I was thinking about it today where I get skipping the line if you have that McVeigh-Holy water on you and you are an impressive candidate. But to go from two years in the NFL to the head coach of the ball. Baltimore Ravens. Sean, we characterized Sean as this like out-of-the-box hire, and it was like this huge risk.

He had been a multi-year offensive coordinator with Kirk Cousins and had a top seven offense with Kirk Cousins, and another one that was like in the top 12. And he had been on the staff in Washington for seven years before he got that job. Like there's fast-tracking and they're skipping multiple steps in the process, and I just wonder where we should land between those two things. You're right.

And I would say that my only kind of counter to that was I talked to the athletic director at Iowa State the other day where Nate was before he went to the Rams. And that Matt Campbell program, I mean, people don't forget, or people forget that Matt was interviewed for the Jets job and the Lions job. And I think that he probably would have been the Lions head coach instead of Dan Campbell, which is wild to think about that. And when Nate Shieldhouse walks into that building and starts, you know, doing running backs, I think was his first. position. He recruited Brees Hall. Jalen Knoll helped with Brock Purdy. He's like the forest gump that's attached to the rise of that program. But when he gets in there and he starts doing position coach stuff, Matt Campbell goes to the AD and goes, I want you to meet with him once a month and just pick his brain. And I ask the AD as like, oh, in the back of your mind,

is it like, oh, if just in case Matt leaves, it's the backup plan. And he goes, no, that was the reason. He was the backup plan. Like, we planned on hiring Nate regardless of whenever Matt left to be our head coach. And he's like, in some of these coaching things, Robert is so hard to describe. Like you, if you're Steve Bishotti and you're in that room and Nate walks in and puts that same impression on you that he did an athletic director, that's something that you can't describe at a press conference. It's like, I don't know what it is. Like he's not swarmy. He's not, there's nothing Machiavellian about him. He's just so earnest or like the way that he looks at me when he answers this question. I don't know what it is, but I feel it. And that motivates me

do it. And so I think he's one of those guys that just has that gift, which is why he's had kind of a surprising bump in this cycle. But if we're looking at realistic, like I would say final five Ravens candidates, I think I would put one of those young guys in the mix for the end of it. But I think you're looking at Kubiak, who has a connection through Gary was an offensive core. His dad, Gary was an offensive coordinator there, a very well-liked offensive coordinator there. And then you're looking at Minter because he was on that staff with Mike McDonald. The reasoning could be, hey, we looked over in Seattle. We probably should have kept him.

And we want something similar to that, you know, and let's run it back. Flores, I think, would be perfect there as well. And so I think you're looking at probably some guys like that. Minter just, I think, maybe it's just being having seen him in the colors. It's the easiest connection. But even if it wasn't the easiest connection, I feel like he'd be the guy I would probably go to. among even those three, maybe Flores. Like, Flores obviously has a really good case,

but maybe I'm making too much of the McDonald thing, but can't you just see it? Yeah. Like, can't you just see Jesse Mentor Ravens Head Coach? Like, it's just not hard for me to picture. Like, for all the reasons that would make sense in this cycle, I could see him getting the job. And my next question is, same as Flores.

Do we have a sense of what the staff would look like? Is that something that you've talked to people about? That's the one thing. Yeah, that's the one thing that's been hard to nail down. And the only thing I can kind of ascertain is that it has to be good because someone put it to me this way. I think he's the only one that had an automatic clean sweep of interview requests the day that he was eligible. Like every team with a vacancy automatically interviewed him. Which is hilarious that no one wanted to last year?

Nobody. What has changed? Not one person. Well, the agent. But maybe that's it. And that's a very simple explanation. And that helps, certainly. But I think that it's obviously not just agent driven.

You have another year of success. Now you've gone from zero to 100 percent. There's more going on there than your performance. Right. And I think teams look at it now and they say, okay. And I don't know if this is part of it. And this is just me kind of talking off the cuff. But, you know, you come from Michigan where,

you are so dominant. You were the number one defense in the country. You suffocate literally every opponent that you played. But there is this public asterisk that comes with that particular season and that particular performance. So then you go to the NFL where there is a law to all of this. And it's not the Wild West and you can't get away with certain stuff. And he dominates in the NFL that first year.

Probably does even better the second year given kind of all the circumstances. and that probably flipped the switch to. I mean, yes, getting a better agent, getting a better situation, all that helps. But I do think distancing yourself from what happened in college, regardless of what his role was in it or if he had a role in it, and just saying, I can dominate at the NFL level. I'm one of these bright young defensive coordinators. That probably left everybody going, okay, press the gas on this.

I'm not worried about that. I think you can make an argument that he's as purely from a defensive coordinator perspective. And Mike McDonald was a phenomenal football coach. he's clearly shown an ability to really knock this thing out of the park. But if we're just lighting them up as like defensive coordinators and they're the quality of that job

and what makes them attractive as head coaches, I think Jesse is right there with what Mike McDonald did in 2023. Like Mike, that was the best defense in the league. He did an incredible job. The Chargers this year were 31st in defensive spending. They don't have that many really good players and they were like a top seven defense

in every conceivable metric. And so I think he did a first. phenomenal job this season. And I do think that he is well suited to this job and whatever are the other ones people want to offer him. Yeah, because I look at it too. And if you're a team, what's happening right now anyway? It's January, but even the last few weeks of the regular season, your secondary is, regardless of whether you plan for it or not, a bunch of fifth round and six round picks from this past year's draft, because everybody's hurt. We're going to an 18 game season at some point Yeah.

He would be the guy that he would take a job with an organization where the guy was working in the front office and now was a starter for you in the playoffs two years later. That's what we're talking about. And so, and then you have your guys who you drafted in the back end of, especially that first draft when they were there, becoming linchpin pieces of your team and of your unit. And it's like, if I'm a GM, I'm looking at that and saying like, boy, that's going to help out a lot. isn't it? Like, just to have, like, you know, this guy's not going to come in here and start whining about talent, and we might be able to just get good right away. And I think that that's a big part of it.

We're going to take a quick break and then come back and talk about the guy who no longer has the Baltimore Ravens head coaching job. Let's chat about the John Harbaugh sweepstakes here. It seems like, I think Albert, I think Bert reported this today, that he's down to in-person interviews or has zeroed in-in-in-in-person interviews John Harbaugh has with the Giants, the Titans, and the Falcons. My first question about that, does that tell you that the Giants, the Falcons, and the Titans and the three best jobs?

When I ranked them, I had the Ravens obviously as a clear number one, I had the Falcons at number two, I had the Giants at number three, and I had the Titans at five, with the Steelers leapfrogging them. I think I initially had them before. I guess that makes sense.

I think he's probably not a candidate for the Steelers job. And so the ones that he is a candidate for, I think those are probably the three best jobs. And I'll say this, there are a lot of coaches, and obviously, I mean, it's one of 32, but there are a lot of coaches who want that Titans job. That is a job that a lot of coaches are like, dude, I think that quarterback's ready to roll.

Like, I think that there's some talent here. I think that's a quick turn. And I think a lot of coaches are looking at it that way. So I don't think Harbaugh is naive enough to not see that, especially when you do a study of the roster. But this is, it's awesome here. So I live in New Jersey. I'm about 25 minutes from the Giants facility.

We are tracking jet tail numbers right now. It's that season, baby. It's that season. I know that John Harbaugh was on a tarmac at BWI for 45 minutes this morning before landing up here in New Jersey and getting ferried over to the Giants facility. And because it's like a very heavily Italian place to live, all the memes about like basically getting John Harbaugh into the building and then locking it behind him

and then having two people just stand there and being like now you're not able to leave until you sign the contract. It's been very funny. And just from an aesthetic perspective, I love this. But yes, I think those are probably your three best jobs. And the Giants job holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts.

If you talk to coaches of a certain age, that's a special job, it's a special place. And Chris Mara, the brother of John, the owner who is very unfortunately ailing right now, he has kind of been trying to be the white knight in this entire thing. Like he had the first person-to-person contact with Harbaugh. He went down and had breakfast with Harbaugh and his wife just by himself. Like he is, he's doing everything he can.

They're going to spend the money. They're going to do whatever it takes. Can they land the plane proverbially and literally, I guess, in the next five hours? I don't know. We'll see. Do you think they do? If it's not in the next five hours, do you think that John Harbaugh be the next head coach of the Giants.

If I had to handicap it right now, I would say that they have a slight edge over the Titans. That's what I would say. And then the Falcons are kind of like my third, but not a distant third, just a third. And we have to also remember this. So much of this comes down to, like, John didn't have a choice his first time.

Okay, so you raise your family in a place that you didn't pick. And then this time around, you get to bring your wife with you. She gets to have a say in this. This is where you're spending the golden years of your life, where many of your friends are already retired and done working. Where does she want to go? You know what I mean?

Like Nashville's beautiful. Have you ever been to a country club there? It's like, oh, my God, you know? Being a rich person in Nashville would be nice. It would rule. I can understand that. And if you're a rich person in New Jersey, I'm sorry. But like, you know, as a head coach of the Giants,

you're probably the 30th richest person in your neighborhood. You know, it's just kind of like, you know. There's also just less real estate. A lot less real estate. Yeah. So I'm just saying like sometimes it does come down to this. It's like the last scene in Friday night lights, you're holding your wife's hand and you're looking out at this landscape.

And it's like, okay, I can't imagine being anywhere else but here with you. And then okay, like all of a sudden it turns on a dime. I will say this. So the giants are going all out, all out in ways that, like they are changing the way that they behave as an organization all out. And so I hope they land them because if they don't, You're leaving yourself a little bit exposed. I can understand why they're so hell-bent on making this happen.

Because after the way the last two rounds went, finding somebody that is established, has had success, will come in and give you immediate credibility. I totally get why that is at front of mind for them. Somebody mentioned this, and I think this is a fair question. And I have my responses to it, but I think it's worth digging into. We talked, and I think they're different candidates for a lot of different reasons, one, they're like 10-year gap in age.

we painted Pete Carroll with a brush yesterday last year where it was like the Raiders wanted a level of competency when they went out and got Pete Carroll and then they completely bottomed out. Why are we acting like John Harbaugh gives you a floor as an organization when we just saw this happen with Pete Carroll?

That's been a criticism that I've seen. I have several different counters to that. One, I think that the biggest question for me with CEO type of head coaches beyond what they're going to bring day to day, what does your staff look like? Yeah. What does your coaching staff look like?

Pete struggled in his final years in Seattle to get that right. They cycle between defensive coordinators. They couldn't figure out what the offense wanted to look like. John Harbaugh, that has been one of his strengths from that chair for years, is understanding what his assistants needed to look like for the team that he had and why they needed to look like that. He has been extremely tapped in. He has picked the right people over and over again.

So if John Harbaugh is walking into that room with Todd Monkin being his offensive coordinator for Jackson Dart, that's pretty easy for me to get behind. I think I could believe in that immediately from day one. Yeah. And whoever he picks is your defensive coordinator, you're probably like just celebrating immediately. And yeah, you nailed it, right? I mean, Pete Carroll came into a situation where he wanted to coach and had no other options. And that job came with caveats where it was first Tom Brady being like or whoever in

the organization being like, hey, we're going to get Robert Salas, your DC, we're going to pay him a bunch of money, and then he's going to take over when you're done. And also, we're going to pay Chip Kelly a bunch of money, and he's going to run his offense, and then you're just going to kind of be Pete Carroll. You get to go just walk around and be Pete Carroll. That doesn't work. It just doesn't work, you know? And I think that he was put in an impossible to succeed situation, whereas Harbaugh is the complete opposite. Everybody wants Harbaugh, and so he gets to dictate the terms where it's like, I walk in here. if we're stuck on a guy for 53, it's my call.

If we're stuck on this, it's my call. I'm bringing in my coaches. You guys have nothing to do with this. And it's good for the Giants. This is a good thing because what did they always do at the last minute when they hire guys? They get nervous. Like when Joe Judge came, it's like, oh, we'll also take Jason Garrett. And it's like, no, man.

Like, you know, we didn't need to do that, you know? Like, we could have gone anywhere else and probably hit it out of the park. like let these guys pick these people, you know? And so I think that there is that element to it where just having this guy come in with all this institutional knowledge and ability and being like, no, no, no, this is how it's going to work. And then just being like, yeah, just throw up your hands

and be like, okay, that's fine. I think I'm with you. And obviously the Steelers and the Ravens are kind of a different consideration. And when I've handicapped these and stack them up, the Steelers weren't part of the ranking. And so when I was looking at them, I do think if I was picking,

the Giants job, I don't know if I would clearly make it the number one job. I think that them putting on the full court press for Harbaugh and him getting it would be a win for them. But if I was doing the other two outside of the Giants job that I would want the most as a head coach, I think I would go with the Falcons and the Titans next. Yes. So let's talk about the Falcons job next. And with all of these, I think that there's less news around them. With Falcons, we could talk about the front office structure. But with the rest of these, I kind of just want to talk through who has jumped out to you that is interviewed with them? And right now, if you had to pick a winner or in your mind the best

option what those would be. So let's do that for the Falcons. So the Falcons are doing a lot of work on Kubiak, I think. At least that's what has been kind of said in the industry. And that makes sense because Matt Ryan had so much success in that system. And now that he's running things, you know, he's going to say like, yeah, I mean, this just provides a quarterback with the answers and a solution. And now I'm going to help you pick the quarterback that's going to run this system. Or I can identify if Panics as that guy, you know. And I, I think that having Matt around would be a help because Kubiak's maybe Achilles heel is that he's an acquired taste personality-wise at the podium.

But we've talked about how dumb that is, right? Like as long as he can get a – and I heard on Game Day, he's an animal, right? So as long as you can get guys to run through a brick wall for you, who cares how you do it, right? But the one that I just can't keep getting rid of in my mind, and I've had someone mention this to me, too, is like, couldn't you just see Matt Ryan and Kevin Stefansky just hitting it off the two of them? I mean, they're both from the same area. East Coast Boys. East Coast Boys.

I think Stafansky was at Penn when Matt Ryan was finishing up at William Penn Charter. And so, I mean, I'm not saying they hung out at that point in their life. You know, there's a little bit of an age difference there. But you know a lot of the same people. You're familiar with the same colloquialisms. And Stafansky is that smack it down the middle of the fairway higher, that if you're Arthur Blank, you can just be like, you know, how do I not win the division next year with this guy? Right?

I mean, so I think that that one makes a lot of sense. And I guess McDaniel, you could say is your wild card in that scenario. But I think that it's a Kubiak-Stofansky race for me, if Harbaugh is not in play. I think that makes the most sense. That's the job I kept circle on for Stifansky. I think that one makes the most sense. And if I were Stafansky, one of the appeals of that job to me is you walk in there. You keep Jeff Ulbrick.

You keep Jeff Olbrick. and the other guy on that staff I would keep is Dwayne Letford. I'd keep Dwayne Lefford and Jeff Elbrick. Dwayne Lefford wants to live in the same world schematically that Kevin Stefansky wants to live in. So you have the two most important assistants on your staff are already in place and you're coming in to kind of take over and shepherd the ship in a way that is,

there's level of competency to it. This is somebody who has done this job and done it well. So right now, if I'm the Falcons, I think that to me makes the most sense of all of the different permutations of how this could go. Yeah, and Kevin has had a lot of different experience with a lot of different people. And, you know, anyone who's ever talked to Jeff Ulbrick knows

that he's a great guy. A lot of people love Jeff. And so it's not like that, it's not like you're coming in with someone who's like notoriously prickly or this like work genius. He's works with Jim Schwartz for two years. Yeah, I was going to say that. But yes, yes, that's exactly what I mean.

So precisely. Yeah, you nailed it. I think that makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about the next one, if we're getting first stacking them up, the Titans job. As we've looked at the Titans interviews, the candidates for that, who do you think are the three or four names worth keeping in mind for that? And who do you think is the person that you would like to see to get the job or you think is the best option? So I think the Nagy interest is authentic.

I don't think, you know, I think it started as a connection that all of us made in our minds that Mike Borgonzi would like Matt Nagy and away we go. I think that they're probably, and this is just me saying this, I think that they're probably aware of the perception at that point. And I think you have to keep in mind that this is a situation where you're going into a new stadium. I think what, attendance was down like 10% last year at Titans games. This guy's got to come in and blow people out of the water.

So for me, you have the naggy thing that probably makes sense for Cam Ward. He plays the game similarly to and sees the game. similarly to Patrick Mahomes. I think that it's a nice hand-in-hand marriage there that you're going to do. And I think Nagy learned a lot from this time in Chicago. I realize I'm touching on some sore spots for you here, Robert. It's a tough one for me. It's just a tough one for me.

I think that when we're looking at retreads, I need to check a lot of boxes. And when we're looking at offensive coaches specifically and the appeal of an offensive coach, right? And what Matt Nagy call it plays with Tennessee, or would he be like a CEO-type head coach who would cede the offense to someone else? That's a question I would want answered.

I just don't have that much tangible evidence that Matt Nagy is a consistent difference maker as an offensive coach for me to chase that type of archetype with him as the answer. And that's a fair criticism, which is why I think the other possibility here is that I think like a dark horse would be someone like Robert Sala,

who if, and I think, that Robert, more than a lot of other defensive coaches, has the chance to absolutely demolish the offensive coordinator hire, too. Like, let's say Mike McDaniel isn't the Dolphins, or the, I'm sorry, the Lions offensive coordinator, right? You know, could you walk into that building and the Titans interviewed Mike McDaniel too? And if they don't hire Mike McDaniel, if you're solid, can you walk into that building and say, hey, I can make this top 10 defense, you know, and here's Mike McDaniel, boom. I mean, that's pretty much an open and check case for me, right? Like he's going to get an easy one for me.

Yeah, that's an easy one for me. He's going to get everybody fired up. He's going to get everybody ready to go. But even if it's like Clay Kubiak, who called that phenomenal touchdown in the Eagles game the other day, that double reverse pass, you know, he's another one where it's like, let's say Robert brings him from San Francisco. And then that's another moment where it's like, yeah, dude, totally. Yeah, I get it. That makes sense for me. So I think he's a name to watch there too. And then obviously if Stefansky doesn't get the Falcons job, Like if I had to put it down to a three for me, it would be like Nagy, Stefansky, and Sala. That would be kind of my grouping right there. What do you make of Mike McDaniels candidacy as a head coach?

I would hire him, and I know that I think that the Browns are interested in doing that. But if you're Mike, like you have... I don't take that job if I'm Mike. Not the Brown's job. No. No. No, no, no.

I sit there with one year as Cam Ward and I get my pick of jobs next year. Yes. One year with Cam Ward, one year with Jamir Gibbs, and freak and Jared cough and a monroe on St. Brad. Like, yeah, that's all right, you know. But Cam specifically where it's like, yeah, let me take this guy from the ground

and show you what I can do and build a system around him. I think Cam and Mike would get along so well. I really do. Like, I think that they would be like, I think they would be fast friends. And so if I'm him, I'm sitting out this cycle, I think that makes the most sense.

Now, if the Titans turn around and say, hey, you can have the head coaching job, you know, other stuff fell through or whatever. We arrived at this position where you're the head coach. Great. But I think McDaniel is best served just doing the one-year springboard thing. I agree with that. I think that a lot of guys would be well-suited to sit out a year.

I think you can learn a lot from doing it. I think taking a little bit of a breather is good for people. You take a second. Change your perspective. Have some conversations with people outside of your circle. Spend some time thinking about the league. What's working? What's not?

I think there's benefit to that. I think in Mike's case specifically, I said this last week and I kind of said it tongue in cheek, but it's something I think there's some validity too. If you're the first call for every team that needs an offensive coordinator, you shouldn't just be an offensive coordinator. Right. Not in this current cycle.

And I think the refrain to that, I don't think that's true across everyone. And I will say, some of the people have responded to that and we're like, well, that's what happens with all head coaches. Not true. Not all offensive head coaches that are fired are immediately. the best candidate for every offensive coordinator job that comes open. And I think that's what Mike is, and I think we should listen to that.

And I think the other response and criticism of that thought where, well, if he's this good of an offensive coach, shouldn't he just be a head coach? Well, some guys are coordinators and some guys are head coaches. Yes. In a case like Josh McDaniels, I believe that is true. Josh McDaniels was like 20 and 33 as a head coach. Mike McDaniel is 35 and 33 as a head coach. With Tua, when Tua was healthy, they ranked third an EPA per play over the last five years.

It is really, really, really difficult to find positive offensive ecosystems that consistently put your team in a really good position on that side of the ball. And I think one of the reasons they struggle when Tua wasn't healthy is they built this hyper-specific system around what he was as a quarterback and what he wasn't playing. They struggle to pivot away from it. The roster is a disaster. It's a disaster. And so I just think on so many different fronts, this idea that, well, he's a play caller, he's not a head coach, that team played hard as shit for stretches this season when things were falling apart over there.

So what evidence do we have other than the fact that, oh, he's kind of a little weird, that he's an offensive coordinator and not a head coach. I just don't think there's that much evidence to that point. So it was, I guess two years ago, I went down to Miami for SI, and we did a couple of cover story on everybody who worked for Mike McDaniel that wasn't on the coaching staff. So we're talking about trainers, equipment people, IT people. I've never heard people talk about a person like they talked about Mike. It was like they were defensive of him.

They were willing to defend him up front, like without even knowing the line of questioning. It was just like, hey, nice to meet you. Like, don't talk shit about my friend Mike, you know. And everybody loved Mike. He is one of the most humble people that you'll meet in the NFL. and just his approach, I think, is the answer. I mean, it's kindness. It's like seeing other people for who they are.

It's great. And it will work. He will be a great head coach. And I think that's like a full stop for me. But the, and this is funny, there are like analytics in the coaching world now. There are people who will advise their clients to not take jobs immediately after they get fired

because the success rate is so low. I think it's a great practice. I mean, it is one I would absolutely support. even with Stefansky, if I refer up to me, and I was advising him on that, I would tell him, just take the year. There are enough good jobs in this cycle, and I think he'll get one of them that it might be worth jumping at this because of how defense heavy the pool is. But I think in a vacuum, I am fully in support of that approach if you are one of these

coaches looking for a second job. This may cause me to lose all credibility with your audience in the next five seconds. So I'm aware of that as I'm saying it. but I think if Adam Gaste did that, he'd still be a head coach in the NFL right now because he avoids the Jets job, and then maybe next year it's what, like you're interviewing for the Packers job,

you're interviewing for the Cowboys job after that, you're interviewing for a lot of really good jobs with really good quarterbacks, and you're not, you know, you're not being like, oh, God, we just sign Levy on bail to like a $57 million contract. Why am I here, you know? I'm going to let you have this one.

I'm just, you know, I let you head the naggy thing to an extent, and I'm going to let you have this one. This is me being a good host. This is me like making this a warm and welcoming environment for my guests. Get out of my house. Let's take one more quick break, and then I want to come back and just run through the rest of these fairly quickly.

All right, let's go to the Cardinals. You had to stack up the three or four candidates that in your mind have been notable for the Cardinals head coaching job and who in your mind feels like the best option, where would you land right now? This is the one that everyone looks at it and they're like, oh boy. And the reason, outside of Cleveland,

but I think the reason is, if you just look at it from our perspective, you made this move, and you were on the fence about it, probably, and you made this move thinking, okay, there's only like four or five other openings, we're going to get a great guy, you know, and we're going to get one of the five best candidates. And then all hell breaks,

loose and you're probably eight on the power rankings right now of jobs that teams would want. I don't think that's controversial to say. I think between them and the Browns, it's probably it might be a toss-up. Right. It is. It's a coin flip, right? And I think, and I've heard legitimate arguments on both sides as to why the two of them are the worst jobs in this cycle.

I'll say this. For people who are not tapped into this, nobody thinks about the Cardinals, right? The Cardinals are an afterthought for most even die-hard NFL fans from a perception standpoint. I think Michael Bidwell has the worst Q score of almost any owner that people do not think about. Like, we know the owners that are considered bad owners. I think that in the league, there is a pretty negative perception of him as an owner. Could you, if you were taking that job, and this is just like a random aside, like, could you interview with that guy and then watch the video of him hugging Jonathan Gannon

like he was his son and then firing him like six hours later and not just be entirely suspicious about every interaction that you've ever had. I know people who have turned down opportunities to interview with them and turn down the jobs. And so I think that this one has a stink on it that people don't really think about. Like the Browns are a fun punchline. This one definitely, there's a toxicity around it that I don't think a lot of people totally appreciate. So here's what I would say with this job. I think that they will, if I were them, I would.

would go hard after the Rams coordinators and specifically you look at like Mike LaFleur who might not be necessarily as high on some other teams list but why do you think that is? Do you think it's just a personality thing?

I think it's an age thing. But again I know I'm talking about both sides of my mouth where I'm like Davis Webb is exciting and Nate Shieldhouse is exciting and maybe Mike who I think is 3839 if I'm not mistaken. I think it could be that. I think it could be the fact that, you know, maybe he just kind of got stuck in that world for some reason, where it's like you kind of start to get passed over already or whatever it is.

But I think Mike's a really good coach. I think that if you go back to that Jets offense with Zach Wilson and everybody kind of seeing that that kid couldn't operate anything, the fact that they won as many games as they did. And then he was a scapegoat was pretty phenomenal. I mean, I think that he's a legitimate candidate, though. and under any other circumstances, he's probably already gotten a job, you know? And so I think if you're the Cardinals,

maybe you look at that and you say, okay, he knows the division obviously really well. And maybe he's a little less concerned about spending six games a year against Sean McVeigh, Kyle Shannon, and Mike McDonald, which sucks, you know? So I think both of those Rams coordinators, and it depends on how bad they want to go, right?

You know, that's a great nest to be in. And it's the best nest to be in. So if you don't want to go, then you know, you stay. But I think those guys, I think, make some sense. I think Vance Joseph is interesting there because... That was the one I kept coming back to. Yeah. So

Vance is, Vance was essentially, and this isn't a knock on Cliff Kingsbury, but like was essentially the head coach of this team already. Because when Cliff came out of college, it was just like, hey, we have to do a lot of things different. And so I'll kind of help you. And Jeff Rogers was there too, and he was big in that process.

too. It's like, I'll kind of help you along. And, you know, I can get these guys, you can get those guys, whatever it is. And Vance, I looked this up. This is pretty wild. And if this isn't something that the Cardinals have looked up, shame on them. Out of his last 12 games that Vance was the defensive coordinator in the Cardinals building, last 12 games against Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVeigh, eight of them, he held them to 20 points or less. That's wild. And if you ask people on McVeigh's staff,

who was the worst person to play, pretty consistently it was Vance. He's like, the guys don't do dumb stuff. They don't give us a chance to get into our bag because they're so sound. And then Vance goes to Denver and just kicks ass. I think Vance is a good candidate. I think he had an awful run in Denver

because the situation was bad, you know? It was Brock Osweiler and Trevor Simeon and Case Keenham and John Elway and Paxton Lynch. Like, that's a bad situation for any coach. and I think that maybe he's the right emotional temperature for this place after Jonathan Gannon. And the only other name I would say there is Halfley, if Halfley gets boxed out everywhere else and he feels like he's got to go, then maybe you take that job too. Yeah, but then Joseph is the one I kept coming back to there.

So if I'm just like first glance, first thought, that was the marriage I had in mind. So I'm glad to hear you think that that is potentially on their radar. Brown's, what a weird one. Just even the candidate pool is, and even the interviewer, us. It's not surprising. The fact that this was the first team to want to interview, Grand Udinsky is the least surprising thing of all time. But it still is just, when you see it actually happen,

it's like, oh yeah, this place is a little different. Yeah. I think the tenor shifted, at least when I was asking around the league about this, where at first, and even I'm kicking myself yesterday because I did like a rankings and a prediction for each team. And I stuck with Jim Schwartz after the first one because it's kind of like, like in my head I'm like who else would take that job but someone's going to take that job right I mean it gets to this point in the season or you know in the cycle where someone's like I can fix

shidor Sanders and jerry judy and like all this stuff and the blind confidence and you take it and I think what I've at least what I understand about it from the outside is like they want schwartz to handle that defense and he's going to be Vic Fangio over there and then they want a young interesting upwardly mobile offensive coach. So that's why we saw Shield House come in for an interview. Grant Udinsky come in for an interview. Maybe they keep

dipping into that pool and McDaniel's obviously high on their list. But again, it's like if you were McDaniel, would you take that job? I don't know if I would. I think it's a bad job for 2026. I think that moving forward, if there's an understanding

that I'm walking into this, the quarterback plan is going to be Shadur and some low-cost veteran. We're going to see if we can just survive the 2026 season, and you walk into 2027, the cap is healthy again. You've had a lot of draft capital over the last couple years.

By 2027, you just become a normal young team again. And so while it's a really bad job now, and I think ownership is absolutely worth being afraid of there and just how bad they've been for a really long time, the football elements of the building, I don't think, are quite as bad as the perception of them might be in this moment because of how bad the cap situation still is for next year.

The roster's bad, right? They have no offensive linemen. It is a bad roster. But I also think by 2027, it becomes a blank slate of a roster that's not all that different from a lot of these jobs when people take them. If you're Andrew Barry, like, do you meet the candidates out front and you just put a little note in their pocket that's like the owner made me trade for Deshaun Watson? I'm not that bad, you know?

Like, I don't know. Or maybe that was his idea. I don't know. But yeah, I agree with you. I just always viewed Cleveland. and this is like probably too harsh of a criticism because you can say this about a lot of jobs, but like their timing never matches up

where it's like we have this Super Bowl caliber defense and then we have this god awful situation at quarterback so we have no offense. And then it's like we have this offense, but then our offensive line's going to fall off a cliff in a year where we're basically going to have to replace all of these guys and they were stalwarts and they helped us play this style of defense that really helped us, right?

And so they just kind of keep going in these weird little passages where none of the good ever lines up for them at the right moment in time. But at some point, you're going to have so much draft capital that it's not going to matter. And you're going to end up being able to manufacture that. My question is, what can I do? Like, three games into the season is like Deshaun Watson going to be like, you know, on the field before games, like rifling 70-yard passes in front of the media? And then I got to be like, well, I got to answer questions about that at the podium every day.

You know, where is he going to be in all this? this, where's the court, like, if I like Dylan Gabriel, is Shadur Sanders giving a press conference every week? Like, what's the strategy here? I don't know. I think that there's a lot of those things that as a coach, like, I mean, we saw Hugh Jackson come in and that job just turned him into like the character and the shining. Like it drove him nuts, right? Because I think that place maybe isn't uniquely dysfunctional and it probably gets a bad rap as opposed to a lot of other places. But it's a hard place to win. It's a cynical market. It's a tough place. Like the only thing that's really great about being the Brown's head coach is like those fans will put up with anything. I feel like if Schwartz

gets the job, he'd be willing to endure that stuff or would be able to do that stuff. I don't think he'd care. I don't think he'd care. And so, but I think the question is if you get to a place in a couple years, and maybe this is way too far down the road to think this way, but this is the first place my mind goes, you get to a place in a couple years where you do think you can be competitive again. is he the head coach you want when you're trying to be competitive, or is he the defensive coordinator you want when you're trying to be competitive? And if you made him the head coach and you have to fire him in order to get somebody else, what happens to the defense?

And maybe that's not that serious of a problem. You deal with that when you get there. But that's just the first thing I thought of when it came to like the two or three year lifespan of this thing. And that's why I always thought of Sala there too. I mean, he interviewed well the last time when they hired Kevin Stifansky. And Sala is, you know, like he could come in there. and the Browns could go full Browns bat shit on day one,

and he could be like, still not the worst thing I've ever seen, you know, honestly. I mean, the Jets thing was way crazier. And I think that that's a guy who could be relatively unfazed by that situation. And I think that that's just what you're going to need. I mean, Grant is awesome and he's so smart. But is that a guy who you'd want to put into the blender day one and hope that he comes out the other side. And that like a quarterback, right, a young quarterback,

he starts developing bad habits, you know? And that would be my thing. Whereas if you're Cleveland, it's like, just get a guy in there who's used to the shit, who knows the crazy. You know, I've lived through this winter before. It almost feels like they're in a position similar to the Texans a couple years ago

when they did that two-year stretch with Lovie and with David Cully. And David Cully. it kind of feels like this is that year for the Browns. It's the year before the year. It's the coach before the coach. It might be. It really might be.

And if you can't, like, to some degree, like the David Cully thing felt uniquely gross. Because I think that was like a two-year contract. You know what I mean? It wasn't even like a, you know, it was like a here's one year plus retirement pay, basically, to come in here and to lose. And David Cully, by the way, won like four games with that team. He actually did a. really good job that year.

A shockingly good job. But it's almost come to the point where that has made it palatable for other teams to do it. And the line for tanking in the NFL is so, it's a bar that's almost impossible to clear. Like, you'd almost have to fail to put a team out on the field to even get in trouble for it. So if you're Cleveland and let's say you whiff on McDaniel and Grant Yudinsky's like, hey, I just need another year.

Give me another year as an OC. then you're looking around and like, you're like, okay, you know, Salah gets the Titans job. And then you're like, okay, why don't we just, you know, why don't we just go low budget here for a season and then get the number one pick next year? Yeah, if I'm great, I'm taking another year, Jacksonville, whichever Lawrence. For sure. I'm getting more than one interview in the next cycle. Yeah.

Las Vegas Raiders, the names on the Raiders radar that are interesting to you and where do you think they land? So I think one of the lineups that makes sense. is some combination of like Davis Webb and Cliff Kingsbury or Cliff Kingsbury and Davis Webb or Vance Joseph and Davis Webb or in Davis, and it couldn't be the other way around, right? Because he couldn't leave to just take a lateral DC move. But like, I think that makes some sense.

I think Sala, again, has to be a candidate there because they wanted him so badly last year that they wanted him to be an heir parent. And I think that, again, he could come in there with the right offensive coordinator and make this, you know, a really interesting job. But I think where Webb and Cliff specifically make this interesting is like, okay, you're going to have Fernando Mendoza very likely as your number one pick. I can design something that's pretty familiar and pretty accurate and pretty authentic to what you've been running in college.

And I can, as Davis Webb, put my arm around you and be like, listen, I was you like literally four years ago, you know, just not to this degree. It was a third round pick instead of a first round pick. But I think then if you nail the defensive coordinator hire, which is so much easier to do in this situation, and a guy that can gel with them, you're often running in that. And then I do think that Web has generated some interest this cycle. I really do.

I think if there's an upset hire, it's either Sheal House from the Rams or it's Davis Webb. Be curious what happens. Patrick Graham is going to be an interesting name in this cycle for teams that need a defensive coordinator. He obviously survived the last staff turnover there. I know that there are coaches in this game. candidate pool, offensive coaches that he's on their shortlist for their defensive coordinator

job. And so you're looking at offensive coaches and potentially getting these jobs, I think he's somebody I'd keep in mind. And if I was Davis Webb and maybe let's say I don't know his relationship with Jim Leonard, but that's one that like potentially would make sense. Yeah. But if that doesn't work out, I'd consider just keeping them. You just want the job again?

Like you just stay, keep your office. Yeah. Don't move. Yeah. And I think to Rob Leonard, who's on that staff. and was down to one of the final candidates for that job when they hired Patrick Graham. If you listen to Max Crosby talk about Rob,

it's like, and maybe that's like an olive branch higher where you're like, okay, we need our best defensive player back and we royally pissed you off last year. Like, let's try to come up with a situation where we can get a guy in here that you would like to play for. But again, I mean, the defensive coordinator market is so much more robust, and it's probably a little bit harder to strike out,

if that makes some sense. And so I think that Davis Webb or Cliff Kingsbury or Cliff Kingsbury and Davis Webb, however you want to kind of slice it, I think that that's one that you could probably get away with. Miami Dolphins, they're not as far down the road seemingly as a lot of these other teams are

because they just had to go through the GM hire, but your initial read on the Dolphins head coaching search. It taught me to be a lot less cynical, Robert. I'll tell you that. Like they hired, they fired Mike McDaniel, and then you're like, oh, this is a Harbaugh thing. And anyone there would tell you like, like, hey, it's really not.

And then you're like, yeah, right. Like, you know, you're lying. And it really doesn't seem like it's a Harbaugh thing. I mean, I would put the dolphins at like fourth right now on probably his power rankings, if at least that's how it looks from the outside going in. A lot of people like John Eric Sullivan, I think he's a really popular hire.

I think he did a good, they did a good job at landing on him in the search. And so what does that leave you with? Your obvious connections are Campanale, who I think they just requested before we hopped on here. And boy, do I think he'd be good there. I like that a lot, actually. I do too. You have Jeff Halfley, which again, makes a lot of sense in the fact that, like,

Halfley could come in and keep everybody on his side. It's not like you're going from, in the same as Campanale, too, right? Where it's not like you were going from the ping pong guy to the not ping pong guy. It's kind of like, you know, it's like the ping pong guy's, like, slightly older cousin who is still cool and likes to play ping pong, right? So you have those guys. And then, I don't know, like, I always described Mike McCarthy as kind of the, all right, we got way too far down the road and now we're getting nervous and we could just pull the trigger on this.

And I'm getting a guy that like career comp wise is like just as successful as Sean Payton, but we never talk about them in the same sentence, which is crazy to me. Like, the fact that everybody is always like, ah, we wound up with Mike McCarthy. Like his career winning percentage and number of. Super Bowls and all that stuff is like the same as Sean Payton and but everyone's like that guy's terrible and Sean Payton's a genius. It's like how do we land there? I don't know.

It's very interesting. I think Sean Payton I mean I obviously he had Drew Breeze but I think that the consistent offensive production with Sean Payton even in years even like the Teddy Bridgewater stretch. Mike McCarthy was winning games with Cooper Rush you know? I don't know. I just I don't know.

It's hard to see them in the same tier but I think that they're closer than people give them credit for. I think that probably that might be right, but you just can't mentally get there. To me, it was the experience of watching the Dallas Cowboys offense and not even just the experience of watching the Dallas Cowboys offense, how different the experience felt this year compared to watching those McCarthy-Dalass Cowboys offenses.

That's part of why I land there. Very quickly, we can run the disc very fast. I just wanted to, because some news has come out about them, the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator situations, Petullo gone, just and not the coordinator anymore. Dayball? I need to get to the bottom of this hurt situation, though. Like, I really do.

And I'm not saying that I think that Kevin was probably not the right guy for that job at that time. But I need to find out, like, because this is not just been a coach-driven thing. I don't think, right? Like, there are some series of Eagles offense where you look at it and you're like, oh, wow, that's cool. And then they just stopped doing it. And my assumption would be that to suit the comfort level. of the quarterback who likes things a little bit vanilla and likes to know what he sees when he's

snapping the ball and and likes to take things a certain way and so that limits you creatively and if you're dable for example is that your last offensive coordinator job then you know and and you know because that you have to be the right person for that job you really do i mean you're going to come in there and if they don't trade a j brown like i mean look at what they're doing to kevin now there's like a top golf where you can smash golf balls into his face for like 25 bucks a bucket. Philadelphia, baby. It's what you want. And, you know, I just don't think we've ever truly examined the other side of it,

which is what is the quarterback saying he wants? What are his preferences and what is he calling? What is he checking to? I don't know the answer to that question, right? And how much better does that make Kellan Moore look in retrospect? I mean, there's a lot of big questions that you can ask about that. That job is attractive and also terrifying to me because if I don't have the offensive line,

we see how that thing can turn off like a light switch, you know. Cowboys defensive coordinator, I will say this. I think that they're hunting in their right places. Yep. Their list of who they've talked to, Christian Parker, I think George Schultz said today that they're interviewing Christian Parker. I've said for two years, I thought that Christian Parker is the defensive coordinator candidate. I find the most appealing.

Totally great. I think he is, I totally understand that. Jim Leonard is somebody they've interviewed, and they interviewed Durante Jones, who is the passing game coordinator for the Vikings defense. And so along with Jonathan Gannon, that collection of people, correct. That is the, if you're building like a four

of how you're picking your defensive coordinator, I think you were hunting in the exact right place. Yeah. To the point where like, God, and I was thinking to myself at this time last year, what would it take for me to fall in love with the Cowboys? or at least not just consider them an unsurious organization. And I can't believe that, like, in June, I'm going to be, like, on podcast being like,

you know what, the Talos Cowboys are interested. I already know I'm doing it. I already know I'm there and I already hate myself for it. Especially if it's Christian Parker. Like, I really, I mean, he is sharp, man. He is sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp. I consistently have been impressed by him and I do think he should get one of these jobs. In Detroit, Kafka, my, uh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

McDaniel and Jake Peetz are three of the names of that interview with so far. Again, I think that makes a lot of sense. Different schematic flavors in those three places. And so I think, and Pete's obviously, you know, comes from L.A., goes to Seattle. So there is some crossover there between him and McDaniel potentially. But three different sort of approaches. I'm not surprised that they're seeking out. It was always going to be an outside hire after the way that last time went.

And so them kind of seeking out about that makes sense. And then in Tampa, the fact that Monkin was like the first call. not surprising whatsoever. So I think all of the paths for those jobs right now, I think track when it comes to who those teams should be seeking out, and I don't think any of that is surprising. And Munkin, too, right, wouldn't he make sense as sort of if you're Cleveland, all else fails, head coaching hire?

Correct. Yes. That was the other one I was going to come back to when it comes to. You know what? Let's just see how this goes. Yeah. And because, listen, last year, this is a completely different story, right? And I think that Monk has a better emotional intelligence than he's given credit for. Right. He's a salty dog, but like that's one of those things where that can work for you too, you know. As a coach, absolutely.

I'm just curious when it comes to you mentioned. Tim and Schindor Sanders in the same room. Well, you mentioned the market, right? And you mentioned the temperature of the market. Yeah. Kevin Safesky is the most unbothered man. that could be that you could imagine as a head coach in the NFL. Right.

I really like Todd Munkin, not the same. The makeup is not the same. So I'd be very curious how he would handle that stuff. He'd probably be fine. I just find the gap between them personality-wise very funny in that specific situation. Right. You're right. And man, it's like, I think Munkin's going to come out of the other side of this in a good place.

Like, think about it, right? you're either going to be a head coach again you're going to get Baker Mayfield or you're going to get Jackson Dart I mean that's a pretty good that's a pretty good place to start you know and Baker Mayfield and Chris Godwin and Amika Abuka

and you know I mean you know Bucky Irvin like that's a good you know that's a great place to start you know I love that and the last time he was there that was some of my favorite offensive football to watch in the last decade that just bombs away Buck's team

and so I'd be very excited if Todd Mocken was my offensive coordinator coming out of this cycle. Totally agree. We're going to let you go because you've got a million things to do and we just hit everything we possibly could. Conoror, sincerely appreciate it, sir. Tell the people where they can read, listen to all of your other work on this coaching cycle and everything else.

We got sci.com, the MMQB podcast, and as we always talked about the gorgeous print product, which you can subscribe to in many different ways. And yeah, you should do that. It's a good idea. that's all we got for today. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We will talk to you very soon.