No love for the D? Six coaching hires, six offensive backgrounds
We’re six head-coaching hires into the offseason, and with one known vacancy left to fill — now that the Detroit Lions are sticking with Jim Caldwell — all six recipients have offensive backgrounds.
Based on the interviews they’ve had so far and on reports that have surfaced, the Tennessee Titans could make it seven for seven with their new head coach — someone such as Mike Mularkey or Josh McDaniels — now that new GM Jon Robinson has been hired.
Why so much love for the offensive guys? Although each job is a different challenge, we have a few clues.
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First off, each of the teams felt — even if history as proven that this is a flawed approach — that they have immediate offensive needs to address. You can see why the San Francisco 49ers, dead last at 14.9 points per game, might want Chip Kelly to help spur the offense. It makes sense the Cleveland Browns would want to rob a division rival of a quality coach in Hue Jackson, whose job it is to bolster a two-decades-long drought at QB. Offensive coordinators Ben McAdoo (New York Giants) and Dirk Koetter (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) getting promoted have as much as to do with offensive consistency as anything else.
Second, this is almost a complete departure from what happened a year ago. Six of the seven new head coaches (Dan Quinn, Jim Tomsula, Jack Del Rio, John Fox, Rex Ryan and Todd Bowles) came from largely defensive backgrounds. The one outlier, Gary Kubiak, is still coincidentally the only coach still left standing of that group in the postseason, but his relationship with Denver Broncos vice president John Elway likely was a prevailing factor for his hiring.
Third, did you see all the quarterback madness this season? After an offseason in which quarterbacks went 1-2 in the draft and we had a rare QB-for-QB trade (Sam Bradford for Nick Foles, with picks involved), we also happened to have an incredible slew of injuries at the position.
Fifty-six different quarterbacks started for NFL teams, including such luminaries as Kellen Moore, Josh Freeman, Brandon Weeden (for two teams), Ryan Mallett (two teams) and Jimmy Clausen (two teams) among others. That bizarre confluence of events has to have had an effect. Teams that were gutted at quarterback were essentially left for dead with a few exceptions.
Right now, we have some pretty good symmetry at 16 of the 31 known head coaches with an offensive background, although the Titans hire could tilt it to a 17-15 offensive edge. Still, that’s pretty close to even in an era that’s known for its scoreboard ratting.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
