NFL 2016

[Cutz]

He's awesome. Continue being your happy, overjoyed self.

I detect sarcasm.

Not sarcasm... but not entirely truthful.

The truth is that there were no great coaching candidates out there. Chip is probably one of the better hires this year. Gase was probably the top guy, Hue Jackson got some notoriety, but honestly, nobody to wow you. When looking for a new HC, conventional wisdom says a phenomenal college coach, a proven/established coordinator who's had lots of success and seems ready to take the next step, or at worst a retread of an old head coach. After Chip, it's less likely that Lurie would have hired a college coach. As far as I know, they didn't even interview one. So that's limiting your options from day 1.

Honestly, who wants a retread? Coughlin, Shanahan, Gruden, Mike Smith, those types of guys have too much age to expect much. They're gonna want things done their way, and by the time the program adjusts to their tempo, they die off. Or there's reasons they failed at their old positions. Hue Jackson was the Redskins OC in 2003. He was with the Bengals the next year as a position coach. He was the OC in Oakland in 2010, moved up to HC in Oakland 2011, the next year, he's an assistant and special teams coach with the Bengals. That's not an inspiring record. Very boring options in the retread department.

So you look for combinations of successful coordinators, OCs and DCs. Unfortunately, a lot of good coordinators just got HC jobs in the last year or two. Bowles, Zimmer, Jay Gruden, etc. Patricia, Pats DC, was brought up by fans, but no interview I heard about. Gase went elsewhere. A lot of other guys have very little experience. I'll make that another post.