Every year in both College Football and the National Football League after the seasons have concluded certain schools or organizations have discontent or are unhappy with the state that the team is in. With this they decide to move on from the current head coach. Teams also do this to bring a buzz to them so that the fans are excited about what is to come. This time comes every year and fans expect there to be giant league stirring moves. Coaching vacancies being made and filled it makes sense why people call it the coaching carousel.
This offseason 8 of the 32 NFL franchises moved on from their past coach and have hired a replacement. These teams include the Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers, New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans, Las Vegas Raiders, Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks, and Washington Commanders. Among these teams they all have one thing in common, that being none of the teams had a neutral or winning record this season.
In this years coaching cycle there was a trend between some of the teams. This trend is the movement from older and experienced coaches to giving younger guys opportunities. Most notably Bill Belichick and the Patriots parting ways. Bill was a 6 time super bowl champion in the 23 years he was the head coach. New England chose to promote inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo. Which made the 37 year old the youngest head coach. On the west coast it was the seahawks who decided to let go of their super bowl winning coach. Pete Carroll who led seattle to a championship in 2014 was a defensive minded coach who led the team from 2010 to 2023. Seattle rebounded by signing Mike Mcdonald who was the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens until they lost in the AFC Championship. This hire jumped Mayo to make Mcdonald(36) the youngest active head coach.
Next are the teams who hired guys that have past experience as a head coach. Coaches throughout the league are given chances but cannot always make the best of it their first time. They then become assistants and coordinators for other organizations before hopefully getting another opportunity. This year both the Commanders and Falcons moved in this direction. For Washington it was Dan Quinn who would take the duties from former head coach Ron Rivera. Quinn has been coaching at both the college and pro level since 1994, most notably was his stint as the Falcons head coach from 2015 to 2020. Since then he had been the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. Atlanta who did the same thing decided after finishing 7-10 they would bring back Raheem Morris, who was an assistant for the organization. Morris’ head coaching experience came in 2009 when he was given 2 years to lead the Buccaneers.
A third course of action the general manager and owners can make when hiring a coach is to appoint a coordinator from another organization. Dave Canales and Brian Callahan were examples of this for the Panthers and Titans respectively. The panthers who finished with the worst record in the league fired coach Frank Reich after only one year in charge. They looked to the offensive coordinator from Tampa Bay to take over. Canales in the last two years has revived the careers for two quarterbacks. Both Geno Smith in seattle and Baker Mayfield this past season have been candidates for Comeback Player of the Year(CPOY), with Geno winning in 2023. The Panthers are pairing Canales with Bryce Young the first overall pick from this past NFl Draft, which will hopefully spark a dominant offense. Moving over to Tennessee, Brian Callahan will be given the reigns. Callahan was also a offensive coordinator this past season, for the Cincinnati Bengals he helped backup quarterback Jake Browning fill the role of injured Joe Burrow. Callahan will have many decisions to make regarding the makeup of the Titans roster.
There were however two inconsistencies in this years carousel. One was with the Antonio Pierce becoming the Las Vegas Raiders coach. On halloween this season the Raiders believed that their season was not on the right track, and decided to terminate the contract of the current head coach Josh Mcdaniels. Antonio Pierce became the interim for the rest of the season but ultimately was hired to be the full time head coach. Pierce was a former player for the Giants and Commanders(formerly Redskins) before deciding to coach. With 4 years of coaching at Arizona State and 2 years as an assistant for the Raiders, he has the least amount of experience on this list. The second of the differences is Los Angeles hiring Jim Harbaugh. Jim is one of the most anticipated guys of this cycle. Jim is fresh off of a championship, but not in the NFL. For the past 8 years Jim was the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, one of the top college football programs in the country. On January 8th Jim and the Wolverines defeated the University of Washington to with the college football national championship. This is not going to be his first rodeo in the NFL. From 2011 to 2014 Jim was the coach for the San Francisco 49ers where he took them to the super bowl but lost to his brother, John. It does not stop there Jim was also a player for 14 years, one of those being for the Chargers. Harbaugh is one of the examples of coaching shifting between the NFL and college.