good dolphin wrote:
are teams really going to be falling all over themselves for a coach from a below .500 team with a middling offense who got rejected by so many other teams the previous year?
Say it was the Bears looking for a new head coach, wouldn't we be underwhelmed with that hire?
Well there's seemingly 10 yearly NFL HC vacancies, plus the NCAA blue bloods throwing fat stacks around.
Jim Caldwell
Mike McCoy
Mike McCarthy
Bill O’Brien
Andy Reid
Gus Bradley
Mike Pettine
Chuck Pagano
Jay Gruden
Sean Payton
Plus Mike Mularkey and Dan Campbell are both only interim coaches, even though Dan Campbell is pretty awesome. Add those two names onto the list. That's 12 possible vacancies, let's be charitable and pretend Campbell, Mike McCarthy, Bill O'Brien and Sean Payton live to fight another day. Still 8 spots open. Then there's Gus Malzahn, Charlie Strong, Mark Richt, Les Miles, and Mike Riley are all pretty unlikely to keep their jobs. Maybe Strong saved himself by beating Oklahoma and the Nebraska job isn't what it used to be, but LSU (definitely), Georgia (definitely) and Auburn (mayyyybe) are big time jobs.
Plus, who are the big names this year? Matt Patricia is a great candidate, I've thought so for a while now. He was second to Harbaugh on my wish list. Then you'll have the Gruden and Cowher speculation but those guys aren't going anywhere. There's a handshake agreement in NY that McAdoo takes over for Coughlin in the next couple seasons, so I doubt he leaves. Then its pretty underwhelming from the coordinator ranks. Maybe McDermott, the DC for Carolina.
Art Briles, Kevin Sumlin, Gary Patterson and David Shaw will get phone calls but the only college coach I see as likely to make the NFL jump is Jim Mora.
So yea, lots of vacancies and not many guys to fill them. Gase will get phone calls, he's the CUTLER WHISPERER.