What these 3 head coach facts say about the Seahawks head coach search

A look at the NFL's 32 head coaches from last season and what it says about the head coaches next season: Seaside Joe 1783

Can we learn anything about the next round of head coach hires—and who the best/worst potential hires could be—based on recent history of head coaches and head coaching hires?

I laid out all 32 head coaches from the 2023 season, their backgrounds, and looked for any potential patterns. There were a few that stood out to me and all roads continue to point in the same direction for what I would want for the Seahawks: Someone likely to be a first-time hire between 36-40, a history on the offensive side of the ball, and he probably coached QBs or TEs.

This isn’t exclusive or all-knowing—someone like Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald stands out just as much as Ben Johnson—but it is what the majority of teams having success have done lately. This isn’t to say that the Seahawks must do what every other team is doing in order to have success; instead, I’d say it’s more like, “If you can successfully execute the tush-push, then just do the damn tush-push.”

Also, I don’t think that successful head coaches having a background on offense is merely coincidental. Instead, I think that coaches expected to have success are specifically placed on offense—working with the two most difficult positions to coach—early in their careers and they stay there. None of this is set in stone, it’s just playing the probabilities of success.

These are the first 3 facts that stood out to be about last season’s head coaches and how it could relate to Seattle’s search.

Don’t re-tread on me?

5 of 11 “re-tread” head coaches were fired this season

The most successful head coach of the last five years is a second-time hire, as the Chiefs were happy to take Andy Reid off of the Eagles hands if they didn’t want him. However, setting aside the role that Patrick Mahomes has in Reid’s success (both on the field and in commercials), the other 10 “re-tread” hires in the NFL were either fired or could be on the hot seat at the start of next season.

Fired: Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, Ron Rivera, Josh McDaniels, Frank Reich

Hot Seat: Mike McCarthy, Doug Pederson, Dennis Allen, Todd Bowles, Sean Payton (?)

Obviously, Pete and Bill are winners and were extremely successful “re-tread” hires for the Patriots and Seahawks. And maybe of the five holdovers, Payton is the one who isn’t on the hot seat right now although I’d imagine he can’t have a terrible season next year.

But the numbers don’t lie: For better or sometimes worse, teams are showing more patience with first-time hires than coaches who already know the experience of being fired.

Almost 50% of the re-tread coaches were fired, compared to only three (Staley, Vrabel, Arthur Smith) of the 21 first-time hires.

Patience can be a good thing (Zac Taylor) or a bad thing (Robert Saleh), but I think the worst case scenario with this hire is that the coach is fired in 1-3 years and we’re looking back at his tenure knowing that the franchise didn’t move forward. Carroll and Belichick leave their teams in better shape than what they received, but Rivera, McDaniels, and Reich didn’t do anything to make their organizations better.

Dan Quinn would feel like the Seahawks saying, “Here is our attempt to hit the ceiling we already had for the last six years”.

The Cowboys went 11-0 this season when the defense had a positive EPA day and 1-6 when the defense was off its game. That one win came against the Seahawks. In fact, both Seattle and Dallas had six games this year with a defensive EPA worse than -10. If Quinn’s defense can prove to be just as bad as Clint Hurtt’s defense, why are the Seahawks going to replace Hurtt with Quinn AND replace Carroll with Quinn?

You’re telling me that Dan Quinn’s defense is going to get better when he has twice as much responsibility?

If the Seahawks want to hire a coach because he coordinated an elite defense last season, then hire Baltimore’s Mike Macdonald. It’s not that complicated. The Ravens didn’t have any horrible days on defense, whereas the Cowboys had just as many bad days as Seattle! And if 2-3 years down the line we look back and see that Macdonald is a better coordinator than a head coach and the team needs another fresh start, so be it.

It would still feel better to know that the Seahawks took a gamble on a higher ceiling than attempting to maintain status quo by hiring a coach who they were more comfortable with. Now is the time to get uncomfortable.

What’s your favorite posish?

Head coaches start at QB, TE, LB, and DB

There are exceptions to everything, but the vast majority of current NFL head coaches previously coached one of these four positions: Quarterbacks, Tight Ends, Linebackers, and Defensive Backs.

40% of 2023 head coaches previously coached, and sometimes played, the quarterback position. Of those 13, two were fired (McDaniels, Reich), but we could see at least two more added in the next hiring cycle. Examples include Jim Harbaugh, Brian Callahan, Dave Canales, Todd Monken, Mike Kafka, and Kellen Moore.

Maybe in the future we’re talking more about “pass game coordinators” (like Bobby Slowik) than “quarterbacks” but that’s the most obvious trend in head coaching hires, which does make sense: If the most important position in football is quarterback, then it is logical at the ground level to have your best player and your best position coach working at quarterback.

O/ST Coaches 2023:

Tight Ends Coaches

The only other offensive position coach that moves up the ladder is not receivers, offensive line, or running backs: There are 5 former tight ends coaches who are head coaches, if you include Andy Reid, as he coached both tight ends and quarterbacks.

I think the reason for this could be that a tight ends coach has to wear multiple hats, teaching both blocking and pass game/receiving concepts.

Dan Campbell, Sean McVay, and Brian Daboll were all tight ends coaches.

Fittingly, Campbell’s right hand man Ben Johnson was a tight ends coach and so is Dolphins offensive coordinator Frank Smith; both Johnson and Smith have an interview scheduled with the Seahawks.

All D Coaches, 2023:

QBs of Defense: LBs

If we include John Harbaugh, who is the only former special teams coordinator among 2023 head coaches but did work with DBs in the past, then there were 14 defensive head coaches in the NFL: 7 worked primarily with DBs, 7 worked primarily with LBs.

5 of the 14 were fired (Pete, Rivera, Vrabel, Staley, Belichick) and 3 of those coaches had been linebacker coaches. Now that the Patriots have hired Jerod Mayo and the Raiders have hired Antonio Pierce, that brings in two more former linebackers among the fraternity of head coaches.

The other former linebackers/LB coaches are DeMeco Ryans, Sean McDermott, Matt Eberflus, and Robert Saleh.

Ravens DC Mike Macdonald is a former linebackers coach, as is Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.

LBs of Secondary: Defensive Backs

Carroll and Belichick were both secondary/DB coaches in their past. Others include Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin, Bowles, Allen, and Gannon.

Former DB coaches in the interview cycle include Raheem Morris, Ejiro Evero, and Aaron Glenn.

The only defensive line coaches getting interviews are Quinn and Anthony Weaver.

O.G.=Offensive Guru

9 of 13 under-40 hires were on offense

There is clearly a belief in NFL circles that coaching phenoms work on the offensive side of the ball, which suggests that teams believe that the best all-around coaches work with offenses and not defenses.

Of the eight head coaches in 2023 who got their first HC opportunity before turning 39, seven were offensive coaches prior to getting the gig.

To make that more clear: Not all of these head coaches were under-39 last season, but they got their FIRST head coaching job when they were 38 or younger. So, for example, Josh McDaniels was hired by the Broncos when he was only 33.

That was a disaster and McDaniels was fired right away. When the Raiders hired him as a “re-tread” 13 years later, he was 46 and…that was also a disaster.

But all of these coaches were hired by their current teams before they were 39 and continue to have a job: McVay, Tomlin, Taylor, Kevin O’Connell, Kevin Stefanski, Shane Steichen, and Kyle Shanahan. That’s six offensive coaches and only one from defense (Tomlin).

Now, there were five coaches hired for the first time at age 39: Belichick (Defense, fired by Browns), Staley (Defense, fired by Chargers), Ryans (Defense), Mike McDaniel (Offense), Arthur Smith (Offense, fired by Falcons).

And four coaches hired at 40: Dennis Allen (Defense, fired by Raiders), Jonathan Gannon (Defense), Matt LaFleur (Offense), and Nick Sirianni (Offense).

Now, I know that talking about age can be tricky and boxed into “Is this ageist?” But I’m not talking about the competency or ability of a person to coach whether that person is 35 or 55.

What I am talking about is when a 35-year-old walks into the office of a 65-year-old billionaire owner and says, “Put me in charge of your team!”, apparently those owners are more likely to BELIEVE that person if they coach offense than if they coach defense.

That’s just what the demographics of coaching hires seems to imply.

If that coach is a re-tread, then he is most likely to be between the ages of 46 (McDaniels) and 62 (Reich). But the majority of first-time hires in recent years is between 36 (Taylor) and 45 (Campbell) with few exceptions (Eberflus was 52 when hired by the Bears).

Even Campbell is an exception, most first-time hires lately are not over 40.

The two known hires so far this year are Mayo (37, youngest current in the NFL) and Pierce (45).

The first-time coaches we hear the most about are Ben Johnson (37), Macdonald (36), Frank Smith (42), Slowik (36), Evero (43), Kafka (36), Graham (45), Callahan (39), Canales (42), with the one outlier being Monken (58).

At this point, if a team hires someone like Ben Johnson, it’s not “Oh wow, he’s young for a first-time head coach”. He’s 37, which makes him closer to the median age for a first-time head coach than being some sort of phenom. Sean McVay was a phenom, Tomlin was kind of a phenom for the time, but at this point 37 is just what’s expected.

What does this say about the Seahawks head coach search?

The only reason I don’t have Mike Macdonald second on this list is that we haven’t gotten official word that Seattle wants to interview him. Only a report by Ian Rapoport from January 13 that hasn’t manifested into reality. I’ll keep the top-10 the same as yesterday so that we can look at it through the lens of this article.

Seahawks top-10 head coach candidates:

(My opinion only, subject to DAILY changes)

1-Ben Johnson, Lions OC

2-Frank Smith, Dolphins OC

3-Mike Vrabel

4-Bobby Slowik, Texans OC

5-Ejiro Evero, Panthers DC

6-Raheem Morris, Rams DC

7-Mike Macdonald, Ravens DC

8-Mike Kafka, Giants OC

9- Todd Monken, Ravens OC

10-Patrick Graham, Raiders DC

OFF: Jim Harbaugh, Michigan (prev: OFF), Dave Canales, Bucs OC (prev: OFF), Anthony Weaver, Ravens AHC (prev: OFF), Dan Quinn, Cowboys DC (prev: OFF), Steve Wilks, 49ers DC (prev: OFF)

Two re-treads: Vrabel, Morris. It seems “offense-heavy” because three of the top-four names are offense, but in actuality four of the top-seven are defense. It’s really a fair list split down the middle, though admittedly I’m more interested in seeing the Seahawks come back next season with an improved pass/run game than a better defense; I kind of already expect the defense to get better because in all cases there’s going to be a new defensive coordinator and the front office knows where the weaknesses are in personnel.