Are Seahawks the most attractive HC job?
Ranking the 7 head coach availabilities in the NFL, where do Seahawks fall? Seaside Joe 1781
The coaching cycle is always framed as “Who’s the best head coach candidate?” but it is just as important to answer the question, “What is the best coaching availability?”
Because the Seattle Seahawks don’t just want a head coach, then want THE head coach. They want the best head coach, but so do six other teams right now. How the Seahawks shape up in comparison to the Raiders, Falcons, and Moons is just as important as how Ben Johnson compares to Jim Harbaugh.
Do the Seahawks have the most attractive job in the league among those that are available?
Hiring a new head coach is not much different than looking for a new quarterback: If there are eight teams that need a quarterback, we already know that there are fewer than eight good ones available. There might only be one or two, if not zero, and so we can expect that after free agency, trades, and the draft, at least half of those teams with a need didn’t adequately fill it.
It’s the same with hiring a head coach.
There might only be three or four head coach candidates who are highly sought after (and some of them will fail) which means that half of the teams that fired someone this season are probably going to be left holding the bag when the cycle is complete. I’d argue that this is identifiable in the history of head coaching hires that were highly questionable at the time—hindsight strongly suggests these teams hired “patsies” expected to be fired in a year or two when the organization would take another chance in a different market.
Examples being the 49ers hiring Jim Tomsula in 2015 and then Chip Kelly in 2016; the Browns hiring Freddie Kitchens in 2019; the Giants promoting Ben McAdoo in 2016 or hiring Joe Judge in 2020; the Texans going through David Culley in 2021 and Lovie Smith in 2022 before Houston improved their standing in the coaching market and could woo DeMeco Ryans in 2023.
Watch: At the end of this hiring cycle, we’ll see the names we expected to see like Jim Harbaugh, Ben Johnson, Bill Belichick, and Mike Vrabel, but I’m just as confident we’ll see at least a couple of names that surprise fans and call into question the seriousness of the hire, because sometimes a franchise will intentionally choose someone who they can fire over someone who was their third choice.
“You missed out on Ben Johnson, Mike Macdonald, and Mike Vrabel?” Well, that team might decide that they really want to be back on the hiring market next year and it’s a lot easier to fire MIKE KAFKA after one season than it is Dan Quinn or Raheem Morris.
Hint Hint: If you think Pete Carroll might be available in 2010, nobody’s going to really care that you fired Jim Mora, Jr. after only one season; in fact, they’ll thank you for it
Hiring a head coach is like asking someone to prom: You might know who you want to ask, but do THEY want YOU to ask?
Now, just because you’re the most popular kid in school, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to live up to your superlative. Like if you were voted “Most Likely to Be Famous” and then turned out to be a well-known crypto scammer.
I distinctly remember Brandon Staley as the golden child of the 2021 hiring cycle and expected him to go to the L.A. Chargers because they already had Justin Herbert, a new stadium, a talented roster, and he wouldn’t have to move since he had already been working for the Rams. Staley had a ton of interviews and chose the Chargers just as much as the Chargers chose him.
Three years later, the Chargers are back on the head coaching market and again praised as one of the most attractive jobs for those same reasons.
Fittingly, Jim Harbaugh is expected to be the frontrunner in L.A., but he’s also interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons, another team considered to be closer to a Super Bowl appearance than their HC-opening counterparts. The Falcons have also interviewed Belichick.
But do the Seahawks stack up next to, above, or below the Falcons and Chargers? That could be the dividing line between whether Seattle lands a head coach atop their wish list who they expect to be around for a long time and one that maybe was only a fallback option.
Where do Seahawks rank among HC openings?
First and foremost, I consider Seaside Joe to be 100% objective and has no bias for or against Seattle as a destination. I am objective so you don’t have to be!
Don’t throw things at me if I don’t rank the Seahawks #1, because I’m going to do this as if I couldn’t care less where they rank…because I couldn’t care less. If the Seahawks went 9-8, I’m not going to write that they went 15-2, right? I can’t re-write history, present, or future. It is what it is.
I will rank them from least-attractive to most-attractive.
#7 - Raiders
Ownership: D-
Quarterback: D-
Roster: D+
Salary Cap: $34.1 million effective (10th)
Draft Capital: 13th overall
Division: D
This is a bit of a shocker for me because when I started this I assumed that the Panthers were a no-brainer as the worst job, but then I got to assessing the Las Vegas Raiders. There’s nothing worse than a meddling owner who doesn’t know what he’s doing, which also a problem with the Panthers but Carolina at least has some semblence of hope at the quarterback position and they’re not in a division with Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Sean Payton.
I have to give a slight edge to the Panthers because even if the Raiders have some historical legacy on their side and the NFL’s support to try and make football work in Las Vegas, they lack key components that I’d want if I was a coach with 3+ offers: Aidan O’Connell is not a franchise quarterback and the 13th overall pick is not high enough to think the team is in a great position to draft one. The roster could soon lose Josh Jacobs and Davante Adams, while Maxx Crosby has threatened to quit the team if they don’t hire Antonio Pierce. That’s good news if you’re Pierce, not so good if you’re anyone else.
It’s never a stretch to say that the Raiders could have the worst record in the NFL, which is why I think they do hire Pierce. If it all goes south next season, Las Vegas will fire Pierce and tell prospective coaches, “Now we do have the number one pick”, so it feels like that’s what Mark Davis will do because people can’t get as mad at him at that point. “You told me to hire Pierce, this is what happened.”
It’s a bad team, in a division that they absolutely can’t win next year, so there’s no way they’ll land a marquee head coach during this cycle. Even Pierce should turn them down, honestly.
#6 - Panthers
Ownership: F
Quarterback: C-
Roster: D+
Salary Cap: $28 million effective 2024 cap space
Draft Capital: No first round pick, first pick: #33
Division: B+
I gave Carolina a C- at quarterback even though I still really like Bryce Young and think he has to be their biggest selling point right now. However, it limits the Panthers to coaches who also think that Young is destined for greatness and nobody knows for sure if his problems are fixable OR if Carolina will be able to add players who make him better. It’s similar to the Broncos with Russell Wilson last year and we’ve seen how that relationship turned out.
If the Panthers had the #1 pick then it would be a different conversation, but if the the Panthers had the #1 pick, then they wouldn’t have Young.
There are good players on the roster like Derrick Brown and Brian Burns, but Carolina also has to figure out if they can afford to tag/keep those guys. Despite being in a division with no clear favorite, the Panthers still seem stuck at the bottom for another season unless Young takes a huge leap forward. Compared to teams that have their first round pick, like Washington, L.A., Tennessee, and Atlanta, the Panthers appear to be a more difficult project with less resources to fix it.
#5 - Titans
Ownership: C+
Quarterback: D
Roster: D+
Salary Cap: $68 million effective (1st)
Draft Capital: #7 overall
Division: B-
I’m not sure what to say about owner Amy Adams Strunk…
But if you were a prospective head coach and knew that the Titans just fired Mike Vrabel after he reached an AFC Championship game, earned a #1 seed, and had two down years because of weak play at quarterback, wouldn’t you hesitate to be his successor? Even if it turned out that Vrabel was a bad head coach and a worse person, the PERCEPTION around the league and among coaches is that he’s done a great job.
That could hurt Tennessee’s chances of getting a marquee replacement, but maybe not as much as the fact that I don’t know who the Titans even are right now.
We know that Ryan Tannehill is leaving, but Derrick Henry and DeAndre Hopkins could follow him on the way out. Is an offense with Will Levis, Tyjae Spears, and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine the worst in the NFL? I am earmarking the Titans as a potential team to pick first overall in 2025.
The Titans have the most cap space in the NFL. I question their ability to woo the best free agents with it and think they’re behind the 8-ball in a division with C.J. Stroud, Trevor Lawrence, and Anthony Richardson. In fact, I’m almost talking myself into ranking the Titans last…It’s remarkable that Strunk thought this was a good time to fire Vrabel and compete with these other teams for a head coach.
She probably can’t do better than Vrabel and among Tennessee’s interviews so far, I won’t be surprised if they’re the team that ends up hiring someone like Kafka or Thomas Brown, just to be back on the market again in 2025 or 2026.
#4 - Moons
Ownership: ?
Quarterback: D
Roster: C-
Salary Cap: $63.8 million effective (2nd)
Draft Capital: 2nd overall, 36th overall
Division: B
Maybe the one thing really holding back the Moons for me, despite the fact that they do have a lot of cap space and the second overall pick, is a) the terrible stadium/field, b) uncertainy with ownership, and c) a generally poor roster that has to start over at quarterback again.
Washington was bought by Josh Harris, which is expected to be an upgrade over Dan Snyder, but that’s exactly what they said when David Tepper bought the Panthers from Jerry Richardson. It’s perfectly plausible that multiple billionaires can be bad at this job, not just one. So we’ll see how Harris holds up. Tepper has already had four different head coaches (two interim) in the last two seasons alone, and he’s about to hire a fifth.
The Moons will soon draft a franchise quarterback but if he’s as good as Zach Wilson or Marcus Mariota, how long will the next head coach last?
I look at Washington’s roster and say, “Well, if I remove the best player on this offense, who’s left?” If I take Terry McLaurin off of the Moons, it’s not an NFL team. They don’t have great offensive linemen, they traded two of their best pass rushers, their first round pick in 2023 (Emmanuel Forbes) had a terrible rookie season.
However, with money to spend, a top draft pick, and a division where the title changes every year, the Moons do have some power to woo: This is a place that could end up with Ben Johnson or Mike Macdonald. But if Johnson and Macdonald choose a different team, like the Seahawks for example, Washington might go with Raheem Morris or Dan Quinn and roll the dice with a retread that won’t ruffle feathers if he’s gone in a couple years.
That leaves Seahawks, Falcons, and Chargers in the top-3. How do I rank them?
Join the Regular Joes members only club to continue this article and find out, plus over 150 bonus articles about the Seahawks every year.