This time of year is a time of change, with now one-quarter of the league’s coaching staffs in transition, and players exiting team premises, except for two teams for the next three months. With so much transition, here are my 10 insights on the coaching moves—or nonmoves—and the 2024 NFL playoffs.
1. I never thought Bill Belichick would have much of a market to be a head coach again this year, even with seven openings besides the New England Patriots. Yes, I know about his Super Bowls and his record. But, for teams, signing head coaches is similar to signing players: They are hiring them for future performance, not past performance. As this hiring cycle shows, teams want younger coaches with the hope that the teams can have continuity and sustained success for many years (similar to what New England had). Indeed, the reason that no one is hiring Belichick and Pete Carroll is the reason their teams decided to separate from those coaches: wanting new, fresh faces leading their teams from the sideline. Is this ageism? Well, if pressed, the teams would say they wanted to go “in a different direction.” And there’s no Rooney Rule for that.
Damian Strohmeyer/Sports Illustrated
2. I didn’t watch much of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season, but when I did the image of offensive coordinator Dave Canales truly stuck out. He seemed calm and poised and had, well, “the look,” that fresh-faced, good-looking offensive coordinator image that NFL owners are attracted to. I had not heard his name among the popular candidates, but now Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper has made him the team’s seventh head coach in five years. I was happy to see he got a six-year contract; who knows how many coaches Tepper will be paying by the end of that deal.
3. The late-season and playoff implosion of the Philadelphia Eagles is one of the lingering mysteries of the season. My experience tells me that when something such as this happens, there are backstories that rarely make it to the media. Whether that means player vs. player issues, player vs. coach issues or something else, my sense is we will find out some bits of information about this in the coming weeks and months. As to keeping coach Nick Sirianni, there is no more aggressive front office with coaches and players than the Eagles, but Eagles general manager Howie Roseman knew it would have been a bad look to fire a coach eleven months after leading his team to the Super Bowl. It does seem, though, that Sirianni is strengthening his staff with the hiring of experienced and respected coordinators.
4. Life seems to have a way of working out for Jim Harbaugh. In a season when both the Big Ten and the NCAA were (and are) investigating Harbaugh and Michigan in an alleged sign-stealing scheme, his team won the College Football Playoff national championship. Now Harbaugh moves back to the NFL, where it was no secret that he wanted to return, and does so in Los Angeles with a young, star quarterback under contract for the long term. The Chargers, through different coaches and different management, have underachieved. We will see whether Harbaugh can get much more bang for the buck out of this talented and highly paid roster.
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5. While attending the Dallas Cowboys’ playoff meltdown against the Green Bay Packers, I expected the dismissal of Mike McCarthy, for whom I was part of hiring some 18 years ago. Yet McCarthy remains. But the Cowboys (as well as the Baltimore Ravens) have now become a team for us to not pay attention to until the playoffs. If they win 12, 13, 14 or 15 games next season, the refrain will always be the same: So what? The Cowboys are also in no-man’s-land with Dak Prescott. No, the Cowboys should not (and cannot) replace him and have to re-sign him for a top-of-market quarterback. But he does not appear to be an upper-echelon player at the game’s most important position. Very, very good, but not great.
6. Watching the San Francisco 49ers’ past two playoff games, it was clear that the home team should have lost both games. But alas, the 49ers actually won both games and are off to the Super Bowl. I am still shaking my head that the Packers, who controlled the divisional playoff game for virtually all but the 49ers’ final drive, actually lost. It was another heartbreaking playoff loss for the Packers—often to the 49ers—but at least this one came without expectations. And then another NFC North team, the Detroit Lions, had the game securely in control until, well, they didn’t. Dropped passes, lucky catches and some questionable decision-making by head coach Dan Campbell all led to the 49ers reversing their fortunes in a major way for consecutive weeks. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
7. As for Campbell, there will be a lot of second-guessing of his decision-making. I certainly understand and believe in analytics and going on fourth downs more often than not. But I sometimes wonder whether Campbell is doing so in the name of analytics or simply in the name of Let’s F—ing Go! Having said that, the way his assistant coaches and players speak about him is not just the standard clichéd stuff. Campbell appears to have unique leadership skills and impacts players less with what he says than the way he makes them feel.
Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports
8. I think the Chiefs were sandbagging us all year, playing a raggedy brand of football culminating with being blown out by the Las Vegas Raiders on Christmas. I joke, but there is some truth to the cliché of “playing best when it counts most.” The playoff Chiefs are a different brand than the regular-season Chiefs, and their postseason experience has shown and mattered against the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and Ravens. Against Baltimore especially, this team showed a swagger—especially on defense—against the defense with, supposedly, the most swagger of all. In a league defined by unpredictability, the Chiefs in the Super Bowl has become one of the most predictable things we have.
9. No, I do not think there is a conspiracy in place, but I do think that the NFL is reveling in the Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce romance. It is playing out every week in front of tens of millions, with a few of those millions being Swifties who had no previous investment in the NFL before Swift appeared in an NFL luxury suite in September. For two of the most popular brands in the world—Swift and the NFL—this has been jet fuel for businesses that were already booming. To wit, the interest in Swift’s ability to travel from a concert in Japan to the Super Bowl was, well, something. In looking back on the 2023 NFL season years from now, Taylor and Travis will be a defining feature.
Screengrab on Twitte/@ReinerOlivia
10. The fact that the NFL is playing the Super Bowl in Las Vegas is not getting a lot of attention, but it may represent the biggest sea change in sports business ever. The NFL fought against legalized sports betting in court for seven years—citing concerns of integrity—before ultimately losing in the Supreme Court. A few years ago, they would not even allow Tony Romo and other players to attend a Fantasy Football convention in Vegas! But, of course, the NFL lost all moral high ground when placing a team in the epicenter of gambling in this country. And now they have fully embraced it—and all the monetization angles it brings—to the point of staging its pinnacle event there. So much for those integrity concerns.
