I’ve never understood this thinking. Kliff Kingsbury is almost Trumpian in his ability to fail upward. He was able to run a college level offense that works for a little bit (thanks to Patrick Mahomes), and then loses repeatedly. Losing record at mid Texas Tech? Get a NFL HC job in Arizona. Losing record in Arizona? Get an OC job in DC? Losing record
and pedestrian offensive numbers? Get another NFL HC job?
I don’t get it at all, and even less now after failure in Arizona and mediocrity in DC. But I’m more than happy to see an NFL team (not tge Packers) give him another oppurtunity to fail.
From what I gather there is a very limited number of people who can/want be a coach of any kind in the NFL, let alone a head coach. Even one that does it badly is still among an elite and very limited field. He may be bottom of the barrel, but he’s still in the barrel.
It’s not a great year for candidates, and I’ll give him credit for being a good QB whisperer, though I agree he’s not the greatest HC candidate. It is hard to put all the losses in Washington on him - the defense was by far the worse offender.
If one of these teams has a rookie QB or intends to take one early in the draft, which tends to describe teams that have fired their HC, gives him a shot intending to develop their QB but mainly as a bridge to a better coach down the line, he wouldn’t be the worst idea.
After firing Mike McDaniel yesterday, the Dolphins indicated that they would start their coaching search after hiring a new GM, which they planned to have accomplished by today. It looks like they have settled on Jon-Eric Sullivan.
Sullivan is currently the Packers’ VP of Player Personnel, and has spent the last 22 years working his way up through the Packers scouting and player personnel organization. He will, of course, not only have to recruit a new coach for Miami, but figure out what to do about the Tua Tagovaiola contract.
I’m thinking about the talent that the Packers have added to their roster, and I can say that’s not a bad choice based on that. I remember how Green Bay was raked over the coals for drafting Jordan Love with Rodgers still on the roster…
The ESPN article on Sullivan notes a number of other current and former NFL GMs who came up through the Packers’ front office, including John Schneider, John Dorsey, and Brian Gutekunst.
A big part of the reason why the Packers have been able to be consistently good-to-great for over 30 years is the strong front office and smart personnel decisions. One of the best decisions that the Pack ever made was making Ron Wolf their GM in 1991.
Yeah, Schneider still has ties with the Packers, and sometimes you hear about Seattle and Green Bay making deals because of it. The Packers have a great front office, they are like the Anti-Cleveland.
And, he grew up in the Green Bay area. He attended the same high school that I did (though he’s enough younger than me that we weren’t in school at the same time), and his older sister is a friend of mine dating back to our high school days.
During the 2020 Draft, when everyone was working remotely, Schneider was working from his home office, and one of the football helmets on his credenza (seen in a lot of video shots from the draft) was from our old high school team. It’s the one on the right, just under the American flag, in this picture:
This carousel isn’t slowing down. It’s speeding up!!
Mike Tomlin is stepping down from the Steelers even though he’s never had a losing season. Seven straight post-season losses is surely part of it. Change of scenery for everyone involved.
AFC North should do a coach rotation. Tomlin to Cleveland, Harbaugh to Pittsburgh, Stefanski to Baltimore. Why not? Let’s see what whacky results we can get.
To me, too, but 19 years as a head coach is a very long time in a high-stress job. In addition to the playoff failures in recent years, they’ve had churn and bad play at the QB position for the past four seasons, since Roethlisberger’s retirement, and with Rodgers probably retiring, it might be that Tomlin wasn’t looking forward to yet another rebuild from scratch.
As the ESPN article notes, the Steelers have had tremendous stability at head coach, with only three guys holding the position in the last 57 seasons.
Researching this: it’s been even worse than I realized.
They’ve had six different quarterbacks start at least 4 games for them over the past four years, two of whom they had drafted, and at least one of those (Pickett) they undoubtedly had hoped would be their long-term solution:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tomlin is overrated. I’m not saying he’s not a good coach - he definitely is. But I don’t think he’s a great coach, and he inherited the team and the HOF QB that gave him his best results. If he was coaching any other team but the Steelers he would have been fired long ago for his playoff failures. Also, in my opinion, he coached his players - like Hines Ward and James Harrison - to play dirty. I know a lot of people love him, but I’ve never been a fan.
It will be interesting to see if he has success in another franchise, should he decide to keep coaching.
