I feel like the Chargers hired McDaniel knowing it was a short-term hire anyway. He turned down a couple HC interviews after taking the Chargers job. I imagine the plan was to be OC for a year and then take a better HC opening (ie, not the Browns or Raiders) next year.
They had a mess of a belated press conference in the aftermath of the McDermott firing as they were getting plenty of public heat for the lack of class in how they were handling it.
The gist of which was “the team’s issues are not our fault” and not only throwing player Keon Coleman under the bus (which is a shit thing to do as a GM or owner, much less at a press conference about firing your coach) but having the bus backup and run over him a few more times for good measure.
Yes, it’s still a good position to go for - the presence of Josh Allen alone guarantees it - but one where you go in knowing the GM and the owner have no compunctions about scapegoating you no matter how well you do your job.
The Bills are interviewing Philip Rivers for the head coach position.
Very interesting! Rivers has a high profile since he came out of retirement this year to play a few games, and he has been coaching at the high school level, so it’s not the craziest idea in the world. I don’t know if he has the experience to make it work, but it’s a cool story if it happens.
I’ll go further: I highly doubt that he has the experience to make it work, high school coach (as well as former NFL quarterback) or not. Going straight to a NFL head coaching job without any experience as a coordinator or assistant coach for an NFL team, or with a college team, would have a high likelihood of being a complete train wreck.
But it totally feels like the kind of zany, poorly-thought-out, publicity-stunt-as-hire move that the Raiders or Browns would make.
But, hey, he could also be their emergency 3rd-string quarterback, this saving a roster spot on the scout team.
Stop giving the Browns ideas! 
Also, just as an example:
Bart Starr was the Packers’ quarterback during Vince Lombardi’s time as their head coach. He won five NFL championships, the first two Super Bowls, an MVP award, etc.
After he retired as a quarterback, he served for one year as the Packers’ quarterback coach, and then spent two years away from direct involvement in football (including serving as an announcer for CBS).
The Packers brought him back as head coach in 1975, in hopes of recapturing their success during the Lombardi Era. Starr was a brilliant quarterback, and by all accounts, a very good and honorable man, but he was a mediocre coach, at best. In nine seasons as the Packers’ head coach, his teams never won more than 8 games in a season, and it’s likely that he would have been fired long before he finally was, if he wasn’t Bart Starr, the Packers legend.
It wasn’t a great idea in 1975, and given just how much more complex the game is now, and how much more complex coaching is now, I can’t see doing something like this being a good idea, at all, today.
I expect it would crash and burn hard. But I’m not a Bills fan, and it would be fun to watch.
It’s not entirely a ridiculous idea but jumping straight to HC is a bit much. Jeff Saturday was not a great idea for Indy.
We have former players coaching now but it took them several years working their way up. And several other former players who still coach but don’t have what it takes to move up beyond assistant.
Coaching, especially Head Coaching, has its own skillset, and it takes some ignorance and not a little arrogance to think even a HoF QB can just jump into that without training or development.
It seems like now that Buffalo got rid of its most successful coach in quite some time, they’re hellbent on considering all the classic coach hiring mistakes. I’d have expected it out of Cleveland or the Raiders, but Buffalo?
And, often times, the former players who become successful at coaching are not the guys who were star players (and especially not star quarterbacks).
The Browns have hired a series of bad coaches but none of them were really out of nowhere or stunts. They were all guys that were getting discussion in league circles as head coaching candidates. The Browns don’t really go for publicity stunts. They’re bad, but that’s not why. I can’t think of a single move they’ve made that’s consistent with the way you’re characterizing them. Johnny Manziel maybe? But that wasn’t a gimmick or a stunt.
Indeed. Mike Vrabel, who should be the coach of the year this season in the NFL, was a linebacker, although he was pretty damn good.
Just a total WAG on my part, but I think that being a player who is just part of a team is a great foundation for a head coach. You know how things are from a player’s perspective, and you’ve lived through it all, which informs your coaching. But you weren’t the star or focus point, you were a contributor. I think that’s the right perspective to have. If you were the star, you didn’t get the standard player experience.
He did get voted All-Pro once, but otherwise, he mostly was a very solid player.
A few other guys who are along similar lines:
- Chuck Noll (seven year career as a part-time starter for the Browns)
- Jeff Fisher (four years as a backup defensive back and punt returner for the Bears)
- Tony Dungy (three years as a backup defensive back and emergency QB for the Steelers and 49ers)
- Sean Payton (three games as a strike-replacement QB for the Bears in 1987)
In most of those cases (as well as Vrabel’s), they were playing for high-caliber teams, and that may have helped with building their understanding of the game.
Fair. I do see them as regularly making dumb choices, but maybe within traditional definitions for “dumb.”
well, if it was good enough for Falcons . . . .
Don Shula, who won more games than any other coach, was a defensive back for the Browns, Colts, and Redskins from 1951 to 1957.
He wasn’t really a marginal player, though. In 7 seasons, he played 73 games (starting 60) and lodged 21 interceptions.
(My favorite example of a marginal player turned coach was Walter Alston, who managed the Dodgers baseball team from 1954 until 1976, when Tommy Lasorda took over. Alston’s playing career consisted of a grand total of 1 at bat; it was a strikeout. He also made an error in that game).
Definitely not a marginal player, but more like Vrabel than some of my other examples: he was a starter, and had a solid career as a player – and not as a quarterback. 
Jim Harbaugh had a solid if not spectacular career as a QB. And Gary Kubiak as a player was best known for having possibly the easiest job ever - backing up John Elway.
But it may be selection bias at play as well. Coaching isn’t an easy job. And if you were a superstar QB, there are less stressful, more lucrative ways to spend your time after retirement than becoming a coach. There aren’t many non-QBs who have much name recognition to take advantage of the sorts of opportunities that a well known QB is more likely to get.