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This season's crop of NFL coaching candidates was especially green

Teams place priority on 1st-time head coaches in this year's search process

Dan Pompei | On the NFL
9:50 PM CST, February 14, 2009

Now that hiring season is over, we can examine trends in what NFL teams are looking for in head coaches.

There were at least 40 interviews for 11 vacancies, not including second interviews. At least 28 men interviewed, including for openings with the Colts and Seahawks, who had coaches in waiting, and the 49ers and Raiders, who promoted interim coaches.

The Chiefs conducted a highly secretive coaching search, and it is possible not all of their interview subjects have been revealed.

Among the findings of a Tribune survey:

Dan Pompei Dan Pompei E-mail | Recent columns

•NFL teams believe experience is overrated. Or perhaps they prefer the devil they don't yet know.

Five of the interviewees aren't 40 yet, including three who were hired — 38-year-old Eric Mangini, 32-year-old Josh McDaniels and 32-year-old Raheem Morris.

Eight of the interviewees had never been NFL coordinators, including four who were hired — Jim Caldwell, Tom Cable, Mike Singletary and Morris.

Fifteen of the 28 who interviewed had no more than 10 years of coaching experience in the NFL, including six of the 11 who got top jobs.

Only seven of the men who received interviews had been NFL head coaches previously, which is hard to fathom when considering nine of the last 12 Super Bowls have been won by head coaches who had had previous NFL head coaching jobs. And only two of the seven, Mangini and Jim Mora, ended up being recycled as head coaches.

Among those experienced, available candidates who received nary a sniff from NFL teams included Brian Billick, whose finger jewelry includes a Super Bowl ring; Mike Martz, the premier offensive mind of his era and the owner of a career .623 winning percentage; Marty Schottenheimer, who has the sixth-most victories in NFL history; Dennis Green, whose career record is 19 games above .500; Mike Mularkey, a former head coach who worked wonders this year with rookie Matt Ryan; Cam Cameron, another former head coach who worked wonders this year with rookie Joe Flacco; and Steve Mariucci, who has a .518 winning percentage despite three years as coach of the Lions.

Eight of the league's new head coaches are in their first head-coaching jobs, and 21 of 32 who will start next season will have no more than three years of experience as a head coach.

•NFL teams are not all drawing from the same pool of candidates.

Only six of the 28 — Todd Bowles, Leslie Frazier, Jason Garrett, Steve Spagnuolo, McDaniels and Morris — interviewed with more than one team.

So 23 candidates interviewed with only one team, including eight who became head coaches — Todd Haley, Rex Ryan, Jim Schwartz, Cable, Caldwell, Mangini, Mora and Singletary.

•Having a background in offense was not an advantage. Half of the coaches who received interviews were offensive specialists; the other half were defensive specialists. None of them had special-teams backgrounds despite the success of 2008 rookie head coach John Harbaugh, who spent most of his NFL career as a special teams coach.

Of the 11 hired, seven had defensive backgrounds.

•College coaches are out.

Only one college coach we know of, Stanford's Jim Harbaugh, received an interview, though it is likely Iowa's Kirk Ferentz would have gotten an interview if he had been receptive.

•The Rooney rule is having an impact. Of the candidates who interviewed, 32 percent were minorities and three were hired as head coaches — Caldwell, Morris and Singletary. Interestingly, all three were hired by teams they already worked for.

Cuts coming? A number of players were cut last week because their production was not justifying their salaries. And the list is sure to grow in the coming weeks.

Related topic galleries: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, National Football League, Jason Garrett, Super Bowl, Brian Billick, Cato Corporation, Fred Taylor

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

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