by The regular season is over and we are ready to roll into the playoffs and the hiring cycle…
• The BroncosThe process, led by new chief executive Greg Penner (the front man for the Walton ownership group) is well under way and, as expected, it focuses on coaches who have previous experience in the role. Four of the six candidates they plan to interview — Sean Payton, Jim Harbaugh, Dan Quinn and Raheem Morris — have been head coaches before, with Niners defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and internal candidate Ejiro Evero, the team’s current DC, standing as two outliers.
While the pursuit of Payton or Harbaugh may end up looking more like a recruiting process than an interview process, I understand that Penner, who was not there to hire Nathaniel Hackett, is excited to conduct a thorough process, and it sounds as he wants to keep an open mind about it.
• The matter of 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans is an interesting one. Both the Broncos and Texans have fielded requests to interview him, and I think he’s a particularly strong candidate in Houston, where he was a cornerstone player for six years. The question from there will be where he is willing to go.
Ryans earned about $50 million as a player. He’s also in a position, as a coordinator working with the likes of Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, to continue to acquire top-of-the-league units, which should protect his stock as a head coaching candidate. And so with the financial security and stability of his reputation and of the team he works for, Ryans can afford to be choosy, and many in the industry expect him to be.
Last year Ryans withdrew from Vikings Search. I don’t think he would be afraid to do the same with the Broncos or Texans if he didn’t feel things were right with those franchises.
49ers defensive coordinator Demeco Ryans oversaw the NFL’s best run defense by opponents’ yards per carry (3.4).
Stan Szeto/USA TODAY Sports
• Speaking of the Texans, with the 38-year-old Ryans, and both Eagles coordinators, Jonathan Gannon (40) and Shane Steichen (37), said it’s pretty clear Houston is breaking in a different direction with this head coaching hire after hiring 60-year-olds in back-to-back years (both showed their age on the job in their own ways).
As we’ve been saying for a couple of weeks now, Gannon is very much to watch. He interviewed well in Houston last year and may have gotten the job if not for some factors beyond his control, and has strong ties to fellow Northeast Ohio native Nick Caserio through mutual friend Josh McDaniels. Internally, there is a strong belief that Gannon would be a much better philosophical pairing for Caserio than David Culley or Lovie Smith were.
With that established, I’ll add that I’ve heard owner Cal McNair would be leery of going Patriot/Patriot with his next coach/GM pairing. So while I know Caserio likes and respects Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo and Steelers senior defensive assistant Brian Flores, the timing might not be right for some of these guys in Houston.
• Interesting to see the first three names that Kevin Stefanski used for interviews with defensive coordinators – Mayo, Flores and Titans senior defensive assistant Jim Schwartz – in Cleveland were all Bill Belichick-raised coaches. Schwartz crossed over with Brown GM Andrew Berry in Philadelphia, too, and has been the name that has been the most relative. But I wouldn’t rule out the other two. Flores might even be the clubhouse favorite.
As for Mayo, I understand he is very open to taking a coordinator job elsewhere after four years as a defensive assistant in New England. Mayo handles a fair amount of coordinator duties for the Patriots, helping with game planning and running defensive meetings, but the chance to be a primary signal-caller and stand-alone coordinator elsewhere would help him stand out among the ever-growing list of solid defensive – first head coaching candidates in the coming years.
One thing that would help a team make Mayo a DC would be geography – I think he’ll stay within commuting distance of New England so he doesn’t have to move his family twice to become a head coach. And he has the flexibility that Ryans does to be picky, as strong as his reputation is throughout the NFL.
• The Titans’ offensive coordinator change has been in the works for a while, and it’s probably fair to say Todd Downing didn’t help his chances of survival by being charged with a DUI after Tennessee’s last win, a week before Thanksgiving in Green Bay .
The team’s next OC will be Mike Vrabel’s fourth, and the two times he’s had to replace a departing coach in that role, he’s looked in-house — from Matt LaFleur to Arthur Smith in 2019, and Smith to Downing in 2021. It would shock no one if it happened again, with renowned pass-game coordinator Tim Kelly as a top candidate for the role.
If Vrabel looks outside the building, both Alabama OC Bill O’Brien (his old boss in Houston) and ex-Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury (an ex-New England teammate) have strong ties to the Titans coach.
• O’Brien’s name is very much on the radar in New England, too. Owner Robert Kraft has voiced his displeasure with the state of the offensive staff to people in the building over the past couple of months, and he referred to doing “critical evaluations of all elements of our football operation” in a letter to season ticket holders on Monday. Kraft also has a relationship with O’Brien, who was once considered a potential successor to Belichick.
The question there would be how aggressive the Patriots are willing to be to get him. Belichick has never really been in a position to bid on a coordinator candidate, with almost all of his hires in those jobs being promotions (Josh McDaniels being the only exception in 2012, and that was after McDaniels was fired from the Rams staff). So if Tennessee, Vegas or Tampa come after O’Brien, will Belichick compete for him? Will Kraft press the case? It will be interesting to see.
If it’s not O’Brien, Kingsbury would be another name to watch. I can tell the Patriots have done their homework on him. The question would be if Kingsbury wants to jump back to being an assistant, with Cardinals pay out the remaining four years on the contract extension he signed last February.
• The Panthers have been dragging their feet a bit in sending out requests, but I expect them to look hard at keeping Steve Wilks (potentially with Eagles QBs coach Brian Johnson as their OC), and at least look around for young offensive-minded assistants, area where owner David Tepper did much of his research over the last couple of months.
Any names to see there? Lions OC Ben Johnson, Bengali OC Brian Callahan, Eagles OC Shane Steichen and Bills OC Ken Dorsey.
• Michigan RB Blake Corum broke the news to my buddy Rich Eisen that he’s staying in Ann Arbor for his senior year instead of going pro. And there is a bit more to the story than just that. The knee surgery Corum underwent in December was actually a full meniscus repair, an operation that requires a six-month rehabilitation process. That rehab process would have shelved Corum for the entire draft process, and in this case, that would be a big deal.
Why? Corum is in a cluster of backs that were placed behind Texas’ Bijan Robinson and Alabama’s Jahmyr Gibbs, and among that group there could be a lot of jockeying — a potential third-round pick could become a sixth-rounder, and vice versa. Going into that kind of situation with a knee injury, and the kind where long-term viability is a question, would have been a problem, as would have been the fact that he wouldn’t have been able to run a 40 when the biggest The question he faces as a prospect is how fast he is.
So really this was more of a practical decision for Corum than a romantic one. It made sense for him to go back, prove he was healthy and be ready to scout in 2024.
• Similar situation with Ohio State TE Cade Stover, who was with Corum in that middle round. Stover, who has spent most of his time as a college player on defense, is a raw athlete, physical and tough enough to earn the nickname Farmer Gronk (he’s from the cornfields of Ohio). But in the national semifinals, Stover suffered a disc injury that would have cost him a good portion, if not all, of the pre-draft run.
Bottom line, if you’re an NFL team and you look at a raw athlete like Stover and project his development at a position he’s still learning, you’re likely to see him lift, jump and run. And instead of not being able to do that this spring, Stover decided it’s best to go back to school, make another run at a national title, develop further at his position and then be able to coach for scouts in 2024.
• And we’ll end with this – in the cases of both Corum and Stover, I’d say the NIL is more than just a nice perk the guys get for staying. Each guy can make more this year as college stars than they would as draft picks in the NFL.
And frankly, there’s a benefit to the league there too, in that the NIL keeps guys in school, giving them more time to develop before they get to the pros. And these kids get to have that conversation, which is always tough, without it automatically being a bad business decision to stay on campus.
