The 2025 NFL season is nearly here and rosters will soon be chopped down to 53 players around the league. But sometimes we can forget about the men and women who don't count toward that total: the coaching staff.
Coaching has a far bigger impact in the NFL than you'd think — maybe the biggest of any major American sport.
NFL head coaches make crucial in-game decisions — managing the clock, calling timeouts, challenging plays and deciding when to go for it on fourth down — and then spend all week explaining the decisions that went awry. They also hire and manage a deep team of assistants who play key roles, and they build team culture in the locker room.
Behind any good modern offense is a great offensive coordinator (OC), and an elite defensive coordinator (DC) who maximizes talent with the perfect scheme. They're multipliers rather than additive, making their unit far better (or worse!) than the sum of its parts.
Units like special teams (ST) and offensive lines (OL) have their own positional coaches, too, capable of turning average talent into great hidden edges.
That's why we're ranking entire NFL coaching staffs today — not just head coaches.
A few quick notes before we jump in:
- Offense matters more than defense. Good (and bad!) offense is stickier from one year to the next, and offense just has a bigger impact. That means offensive coaching is weighted heavier.
- Passing is more valuable than rushing in the modern NFL. In-game coaching aggression is important. Those things matter on the field, and they're weighted accordingly. Coaches set the tone.
- The OC and DC rankings are meant to encapsulate the full-staff impact on offensive and defensive playcalling, not rank one specific coach. The HC ranking focuses more on things outside of playcalling: leading a staff, managing a game, even acting as franchise CEO in many ways.
- Key assistants are also noted as major difference makers. Outstanding offensive line and special teams coaches are especially important (and oft overlooked!) and factored into the rankings.
So before we kick off the new season, let's study the coaching landscape and rank all 32 NFL coaching staffs.
This is one of the best-hidden edges for both teams and analysts alike, so it has major implications for us as NFL bettors — from live betting to spreads to futures. What can we learn by studying the folks on the sidelines?
2025 NFL Coaching Staff Rankings
| Tier Number | Category |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | The Gold Standard |
| Tier 2 | Just Check the Annual Results |
| Tier 3 | Out With The Old, In With The New |
| Tier 4 | It Could Be a Roller Coaster |
| Tier 5 | Serious Turnaround Potential |
| Tier 6 | The Old Guard |
| Tier 7 | Change Ain't Always a Bad Thing |
| Tier 8 | Dead Man Walking |
| Betting Takeaways |
Tier 1 — The Gold Standard
1. San Francisco 49ers
Head coach: 6 | Offensive coordinator: 1 | Defensive coordinator: 6 | Last year: 3
It's the exact same three coaching staffs at the top, but San Francisco jumps from third to first thanks to Robert Saleh.
Saleh was a miserable head coach with the New York Jets, but he's done an incredible job as a defensive coordinator. In fact, one of the best edges a great head coach can get is hiring a failed head coach returning to what he once did best — calling plays for an offense or defense.
Saleh already did this job for the 49ers from 2017 to 2020. He's familiar with head coach Kyle Shanahan and some of the players and should slot in nicely, and Saleh's defenses in San Francisco and New York were consistently elite, especially against the pass. He'll also get help from one of the league's premier positional coaches, Kris Kocurek, on the defensive line.
Of course, Shanahan is the biggest reason San Francisco leads my ranks.
I've started calling Shanahan the NFC's version of Patrick Mahomes, with his league-best playcalling giving the 49ers a crazy high floor. In the last nine seasons, Shanahan's offense has ranked top five in yards seven times — and he made the NFC Championship five of them.
Even last year, when literally every key player on the offense missed time with injury in a year from hell, the 49ers still finished top 10 in Offensive DVOA and top five in yards.
Shanahan's system just works, and perhaps Saleh could be this year's Vic Fangio and help get the 49ers all the way to the Super Bowl.
2. Baltimore Ravens
Head coach: 1 | Offensive coordinator: 4 | Defensive coordinator: 15 | Last year: 2
John Harbaugh remains my No. 1 head coach because he does a little of everything.
Harbaugh has an outstanding history of hiring and developing terrific coordinators (and replacing the departed ones!). He's shown a real sensibility in staying up-to-date with the times and has stayed flexible and made his teams work to fit the talent he has available. Harbaugh is an excellent — and aggressive — in-game manager, and he's also a virtual guarantee of great special teams.
Harbaugh's teams have at least one playoff win in nine of his 17 seasons as a head coach — over half!
His latest assistants look great, too.
OC Todd Monken has helped unlock a whole new level in Lamar Jackson, and Monken's offense ran circles around the rest of the league last year, ranking first in both passing and rushing DVOA.
DC Zach Orr took half a season to find the right answers but had Baltimore's defense playing as well as any once he did. Don't be surprised if he's the next Ravens coordinator buzz name.
3. Kansas City Chiefs
Head coach: 2 | Offensive coordinator: 8 | Defensive coordinator: 7 | Last year: 1
I'm not sure what else I need to say about Andy Reid at this point, especially since he comes with outstanding assistants like DC Steve Spagnuolo, OL Andy Heck, and ST Dave Toub, each among the league's best at their respective jobs.
So why the drop to No. 3?
There's no question the Chiefs offense has taken a step back the last two regular seasons, from perennial top three every year of Patrick Mahomes' career to just eighth. That's not an insignificant drop-off.
Is that residual loss from departed OC Eric Bieniemy? Is new OC Matt Nagy holding the team back, or has Reid's playcalling slipped a touch?
Whatever the reason, it might be a slight departure within this coaching staff, so it's something to monitor.
Tier 2 — Just Check the Annual Results
4. Los Angeles Rams
Head coach: 3 | Offensive coordinator: 3 | Defensive coordinator: 26 | Last year: 5
As much as any team on the list, this really is a ranking of just one man — and Sean McVay is still that good.
Like Shanahan, some of the analytics and in-game management could be better and more aggressive, but it's hard to argue with the year-in-year-out offensive production with McVay at the helm.
And for once, McVay actually kept his staff intact.
Now we need to see if DC Chris Shula can continue to unlock all the talent along the defensive line and help that young unit take the next step.
5. Buffalo Bills
Head coach: 7 | Offensive coordinator: 10 | Defensive coordinator: 8 | Last year: 8
Sean McDermott feels unkillable at this point.
Even when things take a dip, McDermott just fires another one of his assistants, rights the ship, and gets the defense back on track and into the playoffs. McDermott's defense has finished top 12 in DVOA in seven straight seasons.
He also prioritizes special teams and made a great hire this offseason in ST Chris Tabor, a subtle swap that could pay huge dividends for a unit that was bottom five last season.
It's fair to question the playoff results at 7-7, especially since McDermott's defense — not Josh Allen — has typically been the problem, with the worst defensive EPA per play of any team this century for a quarterback with at least four postseason losses.
McDermott's heavy Cover 2 scheme covers a lot of regular season sins, but maybe it's just not quite good enough against the league's best QBs.
6. Green Bay Packers
Head coach: 4 | Offensive coordinator: 5 | Defensive coordinator: 16 | Last year: 12
I fall in love a little more with Matt LaFleur every season.
LaFleur has now won 13, 13, 13, eight, nine and 11 games as a head coach, and he's done that with two very different QBs and a frequently underperforming defense.
When Jordan Love got injured on Opening Night last season, it looked like the Packers' entire season might be cooked.
Instead, LaFleur built an entirely new offense around Malik Willis and coaxed a couple impossible wins out of this team, biding time until Love was ready.
LaFleur also looks like he finally has his man for the defense in DC Jeff Hafley. The Packers defense took a huge leap forward last season and got better as the year went on, though they did benefit from a hefty dose of turnover luck.
Whatever the pieces available, LaFleur and this Green Bay coaching staff have continued to find ways to make it work.
7. Minnesota Vikings
Head coach: 11 | Offensive coordinator: 7 | Defensive coordinator: 1 | Last year: 16
In full disclosure, I'm a Vikings fan — but this staff has actually taken awhile to win me over.
Kevin O'Connell gets rave reviews for his playcalling and the way he's elevated this offense, but it's fair to wonder why KOC's great Vikings offense continue to finish around league average in DVOA year after year.
Perhaps it's because this has been the Vikings' floor, with repeated key injuries at QB and offensive line, and O'Connell has proved his mettle by keeping whatever parts remained still at league average.
He also gave DC Brian Flores a deserved second chance, and Flores has proven to be as valuable as any defensive playcaller in the NFL.
He's incredibly aggressive with heavy blitz, forcing big plays even at the cost of allowing a few along the way, and he instills in his unit a clear identity that defines the team.
The Vikings are often derided for not quite being as good as their gaudy win-loss record and so many close victories, but at some point, that pattern becomes a tell, and the tell is that O'Connell and his staff are pretty darn good at their jobs.
Tier 3 — Out With The Old, In With The New
8. Houston Texans
Head coach: 12 | Offensive coordinator: 21 | Defensive coordinator: 2 | Last year: 15
There are some long-time head coaches in this tier and a few pretty new ones, and DeMeco Ryans looks like he's here to stay.
Ryans has two seasons in charge and has won the division and a playoff game in both of them, just the eighth coach in NFL history to do so — and he did that taking over for a team that had won three, four, and four games its previous three seasons.
That's a culture setter, and it's also a brilliant defensive mind who's turned this defense overnight into oen of the league's best, with a clear identity and a serious mean streak.
Now Ryans made the difficult choice to move on from OC Bobby Slowik for new hire Nick Caley, who comes over from Sean McVay's staff by way of Bill Belichick.
Caley was personally recruited by McVay to help transition the Rams from outside zone to gap scheme in the run game, a move that remade LA's offense, and he's also helped develop tight ends like Jonnu Smith, Hunter Henry, and Rob Gronkowski over the years.
This will be Caley's first time calling plays, but there's a lot of reason for optimism — and this offense needs it.
9. Los Angeles Chargers
Head coach: 5 | Offensive coordinator: 26 | Defensive coordinator: 14 | Last year: 6
Few men on earth can turn around a football team like Jim Harbaugh.
Harbaugh did it at Stanford and Michigan, he did it with the 49ers his last time in the NFL, and now he's done it again with the Chargers, taking Los Angeles immediately to 11 wins and a playoff berth.
Harbaugh has 11-plus wins in four of five NFL seasons as head coach, and though he tends to burn out quickly at each stop, he has a serious knack for quick and sustained improvement.
He also has a knack for calling things a bit too conservatively and sticking too much with the run game, and that's the main thing holding this coaching staff back since OC Greg Roman's run-heavy offense has long been outdated.
Roman's offenses have finished top 11 in rushing attempts all 11 years he's led an NFL offense, but that also means bottom five in passing attempts in all but one of those seasons.
That's not the right formula when you have Justin Herbert, or maybe any other real QB in the modern NFL.
The Chargers did well to retain ST Ryan Ficken, one of the best young special teams coaches, and there's real optimism for DC Jesse Minter, who followed a similar path to Mike Macdonald coming through the college ranks.
Minter had mixed results and faded against top offenses but made the most of his defense despite a paucity of talent.
10. Seattle Seahawks
Head coach: 13 | Offensive coordinator: 17 | Defensive coordinator: 3 | Last year: 13
Did somebody say Mike Macdonald?
Macdonald looks like the next DeMeco Ryans, a winning culture setter and a defensive wizard.
Though in contrast to Ryans' we're-just-better-than-you defensive style, Macdonald prefers organized chaos, a violent, aggressive attack that helped these Seahawks find an identity almost immediately.
The question now is what OC Klint Kubiak can do with this offense, and in particular, what he can do to unleash Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet in the run game and make life easier on this sometimes beleaguered offensive line.
Kubiak was a hot name last September calling plays for the Saints before injuries ruined their season, and he's received rave reviews already in the preseason.
Seattle also employs DC Aden Durde, the league's first British coordinator, with experience developing international guys like Jordan Mailata, along with ST Jay Harbaugh, son of Jim, and seemingly yet another great special teams mind in the Harbaugh family.
If the Seahawks find the right talent, this could reveal itself to be a top-five staff in time.
11. Chicago Bears
Head coach: 21 | Offensive coordinator: 2 | Defensive coordinator: 12 | Last year: 23
It's more than a little aggressive ranking a first-time head coach all the way up at No. 11, but remember, we're ranking coaching staffs, not just head coaches.
We obviously don't know much yet about Ben Johnson as a head coach — though it's encouraging that he stayed an extra couple years and learned from one of the best in Dan Campbell.
But we do know quite a bit about Ben Johnson the offensive coordinator, and he's proven to be as valuable a playcaller as anyone in the league.
Johnson turned Jared Goff into a terrific QB in his system and helped the Lions offense go from laughingstock to elite almost overnight, with an immediately great passing game and an increasingly excellent rushing attack behind an offensive line Johnson's scheme helped look good.
Johnson brings with him an all-star cast, too. New OC Declan Doyle is another former tight ends guy from the Sean Payton tree in the Ben Johnson mold, and names like Eric Bieniemy (RBs), Press Taylor (passing coordinator), JT Barrett (QBs), and Antwaan Randle-El (WRs) add serious acuity to this staff.
Even more importantly, Johnson can fully turn the defense over to longtime DC Dennis Allen, whose Saints defense ranked in the top quarter of the league by DVOA eight consecutive seasons before fading with age the last two seasons.
For a first-year head coach, the ability to just focus on one side of the ball and let one of the league's great defensive playcallers handle things is a huge boon.
It's hard to find a much bigger swing here, considering the Bears ended the season ranked dead last in my coaching ranks after last season's disaster.
Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen are absolute game changers — maybe immediately.
12. Denver Broncos
Head coach: 14 | Offensive coordinator: 9 | Defensive coordinator: 13 | Last year: 21
Sean Payton has proven to be an incredible floor raiser, with at least seven wins in all 17 years as a head coach — though it's fair to point out he made the playoffs in just 10 of 17 seasons and had Drew Brees for all but three of them, including five seasons at 8-8 or worse.
Payton's floor-raising abilities are clear, but now he needs to show he can still hit a ceiling that hasn't often existed.
Payton's offensive playcalling follows a similar trend, but the other key name on this staff is DC Vance Joseph, whose unit was the real reason for Denver's surprise showing last fall.
Joseph's defense plays aggressively, blitzing heavily and leaving the man coverage exposed. It turns out that works pretty well when Patrick Surtain is covering half the field, and when Joseph's defenses look good they look great, but when it's bad, it can be really bad too.
Last season was by far the best defense Joseph has ever coached, for a unit widely expected to be bottom five in the league.
Remember what happened to the Browns defense a year ago after so much success the previous year in an aggressive Jim Schwartz scheme?
Maybe we should let Vance Joseph prove it a second consecutive year before we crown this defense.
13. Pittsburgh Steelers
Head coach: 10 | Offensive coordinator: 28 | Defensive coordinator: 5 | Last year: 9
The entire world knows the Mike Tomlin stat by now — still never below .500 in 18 seasons as a head coach — and most know just good Tomlin's defenses are year after year.
But that stat tends to gloss over some of the conservative in-game decisions Tomlin consistently makes, or the way his team often plays down to the level of its competition and blows regular season games.
It also ignores Tomlin's six consecutive playoff losses — most of them not even competitive — and the way he continues to hire the wrong coordinators and put no real emphasis into solving his ongoing QB problem.
See also Arthur Smith and Aaron Rodgers.
Smith's offense is extremely run-heavy, a Tomlin specialty, and his style of play doesn't fit at all with Rodgers or this team's young line and weak running backs.
Team culture and .500 are great, but it's only fun being stuck in the middle for so long.
Tier 4 — It Could Be a Roller Coaster
14. Las Vegas Raiders
Head coach: 8 | Offensive coordinator: 20 | Defensive coordinator: 18 | Last year: 32
NFL fans are so lucky to have Pete Carroll back in our lives.
Carroll has been just as good and consistent a floor raiser as guys like Tomlin and Payton, and I think he's done the best of the three.
His teams have consistently developed outstanding secondary and special teams play, and he has a great energy and rapport developing the younger players and navigating depth and injuries.
Carroll is a culture guy the Raiders badly need, and as time goes on we might also be seeing that he actually helped make Russell Wilson great, not the other way around.
But while Carroll is almost 74 years old, his two coordinators are young and on the rise.
DC Patrick Graham was retained despite coaching turnover a second straight season, and OC Chip Kelly returns to the pros almost a decade later after designing a national championship offense at Ohio State.
What can Kelly do with Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers? Expect less of the gimmicky up-tempo stuff you remember from Kelly back in the day and more heavy personnel backing a creative, diverse run game.
No team leaps further in the ranks from where they entered last season, from No. 32 to No. 14 — both floor and ceiling.
15. Philadelphia Eagles
Head coach: 16 | Offensive coordinator: 29 | Defensive coordinator: 4 | Last year: 4
Good luck ranking the Eagles' coaching staff.
Yes Nick Sirianni is a Super Bowl champion, but most Philadelphia fans wanted this man fired a season ago (or even just last September).
Sirianni hasn't been able to retain his coordinators and has seen his team's performance swing wildly from coach to coach, and he seems to be a constant lightning rod in the locker room and off the field — the Russell Westbrook of coaches for what he adds positively while also taking other things off the table.
I have no idea how to rate Sirianni, but OL Jeff Stoutland is one of the league's best line coaches, and DC Vic Fangio is a legend who turned this defense into the league's best practically overnight.
We also know almost nothing about new OC Kevin Patullo, retained from Sirianni's passing attack — the weakest part of this title-winning team.
Until Patullo proves himself and Sirianni shows a bit more stability, it's hard to rank this staff much higher.
16. Washington Commanders
Head coach: 18 | Offensive coordinator: 18 | Defensive coordinator: 10 | Last year: 24
I hated the Dan Quinn and Kliff Kingsbury hires a year ago and they sure made me look stupid, instilling culture and believe into a franchise that had long lacked both things and taking Washington back to the playoffs.
Color me a little skeptical.
Quinn's defense didn't perform well last season, and though Kingsbury surprised with an impressive rushing attack that elevated what was supposed to have been a terrible offensive line, that scheme's success faded as the season went along, but was hidden by injuries and an unbelievable string of fourth-down and late-game conversions from Jayden Daniels.
What happens when those big swing plays don't hit? What happens when the aggression isn't rewarded? We need to see more.
17. Miami Dolphins
Head coach: 23 | Offensive coordinator: 6 | Defensive coordinator: 30 | Last year: 10
For some reason, Mike McDaniel feels like a dead man walking — despite all his success with this Dolphins offense.
Maybe that's because McDaniel's head coaching abilities have been a bit lackluster, and perhaps it's because McDaniel hasn't shown a great ability to adjust or solve problems in-season as his offense gets found out time and again.
I haven't given up on McDaniel the innovative playcaller, but it's starting to feel like he could use a fresh start, and DC Anthony Weaver hasn't impressed much yet either.
Tier 5 — Serious Turnaround Potential
18. Indianapolis Colts
Head coach: 19 | Offensive coordinator: 11 | Defensive coordinator: 24 | Last year: 14
This Colts staff didn't do anything wrong since last year — Shane Steichen coaxed .500 ball out of a QB-less team once again and the team upgraded at DC by hiring Lou Anarumo — and I honestly like Steichen and his game and team management a good deal.
But at some point, if you're supposed to be an offensive mind, you're going to have to find some real answers on offense — and at quarterback.
19. Arizona Cardinals
Head coach: 20 | Offensive coordinator: 13 | Defensive coordinator: 20 | Last year: 16
The Cardinals are a fun staff for the nerds, but they need to start winning games. Maybe that happens again this year, after Arizona doubled its win total from four to eight under Jonathan Gannon.
OC Drew Petzing has been one of the hot coordinator names but he needs to prove his creative run game can sustain its success without departed OL coach Klayton Adams.
DC Nick Rallis does all sorts of funky stuff scheming up his fronts; he helped this defense leap from No. 32 to 14th in DVOA last season despite a serious lack of talent.
There's a lot to like, but at some point theory needs to become reality.
If it does, this team could jump 10 spots in the rankings … at least until Petzing and Rallis are hired away for bigger and better jobs.
20. Carolina Panthers
Head coach: 21 | Offensive coordinator: 15 | Defensive coordinator: 17 | Last year: 27
Credit Dave Canales for getting Carolina to fight hard to the finish line last season, and credit him for going back to Bryce Young after benching him.
Canales helped Baker Mayfield break out in Tampa Bay, and he also helped the Panthers find a real run game last season with an offense built around heavy personnel, making life easier on Young.
Canales has established floor. Now he needs to find ceiling.
DC Ejiro Evero has been a popular name in defensive circles, but he severely lacks talent to work with on this roster.
Either way, Carolina fans will be pleased to note that this staff is the first one we've seen from the NFC South!
21. Jacksonville Jaguars
Head coach: 27 | Offensive coordinator: 12 | Defensive coordinator: 27 | Last year: 18
Canales was a former Bucs offensive playcaller, and his replacement, Liam Coen, is now leading the Jaguars forward a year later.
Coen actually elevated Tampa Bay into an elite offense, not just a good one like Canales, and he's done a great job marrying the run and pass games and helped his quarterbacks play elite ball. His new challenge is finding star football in Trevor Lawrence.
I quite like the names on this staff — like DC Anthony Campanile and 29-year-old OC Grant Udinski, along with longtime ST great Heath Farwell — but Coen has made a strange choice to not bring in many veteran coaches to balance his unit out.
It can be hard work calling plays and learning to be a head coach all in one fell swoop, so we'll see if such a young coaching staff can learn on the fly quickly.
Tier 6 — The Old Guard
22. Cleveland Browns
Head coach: 17 | Offensive coordinator: 27 | Defensive coordinator: 11 | Last year: 7
Poor Cleveland takes quite a tumble in the rankings after a top-seven finish a year ago at this time.
Kevin Stefanski has made chicken salad out of chicken feathers at times, but he's also trended very old school and run-heavy. He also can't make up his mind about who's calling plays and seems to run a messy locker room.
Now it looks like he'll start the year calling plays instead of new OC Tommy Rees on an upward trajectory.
The other big fall in the ranks comes for DC Jim Schwartz, who led the league's hottest defense two years ago before getting found out in many ways last season without adjustment.
This team also still has yet to recover from the loss of longtime OL coach Bill Callahan.
23. Detroit Lions
Head coach: 9 | Offensive coordinator: 30 | Defensive coordinator: 32 | Last year: 11
This ranking will feel quite harsh on Dan Campbell, a likable leader and serious culture setter who's turned things completely around in Detroit. He's made it feel totally normal to read things like, "Detroit Lions, top-five perennial Super Bowl contender" and not have an aneurysm.
But one thing Campbell hasn't done is replace departed coordinators with new ones and prove his aggression works in a new setting so he's not just the newest "Riverboat" Ron Rivera.
If I'm going to be in on Ben Johnson in Chicago, I've got to be out on his departure in Detroit. We know precious little about OC John Morton or DC Kelvin Sheppard, so both rank bottom three among my coordinators until proven otherwise. These two have huge shoes to fill replacing Johnson and former DC Aaron Glenn, and Detroit has to rank bottom 10 until the Lions show there's not a massive fall off.
24. New England Patriots
Head coach: 15 | Offensive coordinator: 19 | Defensive coordinator: 31 | Last year: 31
We do know more about the guys on the Patriots staff — they just leave me a little cold.
Mike Vrabel has been a good culture guy with a winning mentality, and his teams tend to make great in-game decisions and win the close games. But they also skew very run-heavy in attention on both sides of the ball, and so do Vrabel's typical coordinator hires.
That provides floor but limits ceiling, and that's why I'm a bit tepid about both Vrabel and OC Josh McDaniels. Floor will feel nice after the Jerod Mayo disaster last season, but it's no Bill Belichick.
New DC Terrell Williams will call plays for the first time, but he has 25 years of experience on the defensive line and has helped develop guys like Aidan Hutchinson, Jeffery Simmons, Denico Autry and Ndamukong Suh. That could be good news for a team that just invested big into its front seven.
Tier 7 — Change Ain't Always a Bad Thing
25. Atlanta Falcons
Head coach: 28 | Offensive coordinator: 14 | Defensive coordinator: 22 | Last year: 20
Raheem Morris returned to head coaching after years away and immediately felt forgettable again — outside of the same old brutal in-game management stuff.
New DC Jeff Ulbrich was part of some great Jets defenses, but when he actually had to call the plays last year post-Robert Saleh, New York's defense cratered.
None of that excites me much, but OC Zac Robinson could be a gem. He comes with great pedigree from Sean McVay and Mike Gundy and had immediate success last season, coaxing Rams-like offense out of a team without a real QB and rejuvenating the offensive line with a return to a great rushing attack.
There's a world where Atlanta is one of the league's breakout offenses this season if Robinson can bring out the best in sophomore QB Michael Penix.
26. New Orleans Saints
Head coach: 27 | Offensive coordinator: 16 | Defensive coordinator: 21 | Last year: 29
If someone told you a team hired both Kellen Moore and Brandon Staley a few years ago, it would've sounded pretty exciting. But league opinion of those two has fallen off in recent years.
Moore's offenses have failed to balance in either direction and steer too hard into tempo at times, and Staley's seen high highs defensively but struggled to find consistency himself.
Still, both are bright minds on their side of the field and it doesn't hurt to see New Orleans give them a try in a rebuilding year.
27. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Head coach: 29 | Offensive coordinator: 23 | Defensive coordinator: 9 | Last year: 28
The Bucs keep winning a terrible division, but Todd Bowles continues to be an outdated, over-conservative coach fixated on establishing the run and making horrendous in-game decisions. I just don't think he's a good head coach, and his defensive playcalling is slowly fading back toward the middle of the pack, too.
Bowles has done an awesome job hiring offensive coordinators with Dave Canales and Liam Coen the last two years, but both were so good that they left for head coaching jobs — now Tampa Bay turns to OC Josh Grizzard.
He's got experience under Coen and Mike McDaniel, and he was the architect of the elite third-down offense that helped carry the Bucs last season while somehow never regressing to the mean.
I like Grizzard! He looks good. But it'll be tough to match Coen's offense, and Bowles and Tampa's consistent lack of prioritizing special teams will continue to limit this team's ultimate upside.
28. Cincinnati Bengals
Head coach: 25 | Offensive coordinator: 22 | Defensive coordinator: 25 | Last year: 19
Zac Taylor has a Super Bowl berth, but I get a little less impressed with him every year.
I'm into the assistants on this staff, though.
ST Darrin Simmons is one of the best at his job, and OC Dan Pitcher pushed this offense more pass-heavy while establishing a more efficient run game. Now it's new DC Al Golden's turn after building an elite defense at Notre Dame, and we've seen great success in recent years from coordinators coming through the college ranks.
Maybe Pitcher and Golden can finally do what Taylor never really has and elevate this Bengals coaching staff to a new level.
29. New York Jets
Head coach: 26 | Offensive coordinator: 24 | Defensive coordinator: 28 | Last year: 25
I don't really have anything against new Jets coach Aaron Glenn — we just don't know much yet, and someone has to rank near the bottom.
So too for new OC Tanner Engstrand, who comes with Glenn from Detroit and Ben Johnson's coaching tree as a first-time playcaller.
DC Steve Wilks was New York's attempt at a veteran mind, but he tends to bounce from team to team with one-year stops along the way. For all his experience in the NFL, he doesn't actually have a ton of it actually producing positive defensive results.
Tier 8 — Dead Man Walking
30. Tennessee Titans
Head coach: 31 | Offensive coordinator: 32 | Defensive coordinator: 19 | Last year: 30
Remember how I've never been particularly impressed with Zac Taylor? I wasn't impressed with his longtime OC Brian Callahan either, since neither seemed to introduce much motion or creativity to a loaded Bengals offense that only finished top 10 in DVOA once while Callahan was around.
We've only seen one year in Tennessee, but Callahan's guys were a historically worst 2-15 ATS, meaning no team in NFL history consistently underperformed weekly expectations worse than Callahan. Well, then.
Brian's dad Bill is great though, a legendary OL coach who gets a lot of talent to play with this year, and the Titans hired away elite ST coach John Fassel from the Cowboys, a massive swing considering Tennessee was outlier awful in special teams last season with one of the worst punting seasons in league history.
That's good news, and so too is second-year DC Dennard Wilson, who was the defensive backs coach for the Eagles' No. 1 secondary in 2022 and who did a great job coaxing a league-average defense out of this unit last fall.
If Callahan and OC Nick Holz prove me wrong, this staff could shoot up the ranks.
31. New York Giants
Head coach: 24 | Offensive coordinator: 25 | Defensive coordinator: 19 | Last year: 22
Brian Daboll was supposed to be an offensive floor raiser, but the Giants offense finished bottom five in DVOA each of the past two seasons. He tends to lean run-heavy, and he's also tied himself to DC Shane Bowen, whose defenses typically shut down the run at the expense of bleeding to death in the passing game.
Daboll and this staff feel like dead man walking unless they go to rookie QB Jaxson Dart early enough to show some demonstrable answers.
32. Dallas Cowboys
Head coach: 32 | Offensive coordinator: 31 | Defensive coordinator: 23 | Last year: 17
Brian Schottenheimer was the weird result of a flawed, strange hiring process, an old Dallas name Jerry Jones knew and kept in house.
Schotty has leaned extremely run-heavy, troubling for a team with the worst running backs in the league and a quickly fading offensive line. He's long been known for predictable, vanilla playcalling. He also brought in DC Matt Eberflus, another coaching retread.
There are a couple exciting names on the staff. New OC Klayton Adams helped maximize Arizona's offensive line and built a super creative run game in a gap-based, downhill scheme — but he doesn't get to call the plays, nor passing specialist Ken Dorsey.
There's talent on this staff. Unfortunately, it's just hiding behind Schottenheimer and Eberflus.
Betting Takeaways
1. Buyer beware on Lions futures.
Detroit saw the biggest brain drain in football as both Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn left for bigger jobs, and that duo took a bunch of Lions assistants with them. And if that wasn't bad enough, Johnson left for a division rival.
The Lions drop from one of the best, deepest coaching staffs in football to one that currently ranks in the bottom 10 with two totally unproven coordinators. And perhaps even more importantly, they do that in a division where the other three coaching staffs feature two firmly in the top seven and one potentially ready to leap into the top 10 if Johnson is really that valuable.
gulp
All in on the Bears?
2. The Chiefs better not get too comfortable.
Kansas City shouldn't exactly hit the panic button — after all, Patrick Mahomes still exists — but it hasn't been a great year and a half for the Chiefs.
The coaching staff and offensive production seem to be slipping at least a little, along with Travis Kelce and the offensive line, but that drop is also coinciding with the hiring of Sean Payton, Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll in the AFC West.
Part of Kansas City's dominance under Mahomes has been an easy division title every year, but this division now ranks top 14 in the coaching ranks and top seven in the AFC.
Kansas City better not sit on its laurels.
3. Coaching could portend serious turnaround potential for the Colts, Cardinals, Jaguars or Panthers.
Those four coaching staffs all rank just below middle of the pack, but there are creative offensive minds and plenty of upside and exciting building on each staff, plus talented young quarterbacks ready for developing.
If you're looking to believe in a sleeper this year, one of these teams could fit the bill, as coaching maximizes an occasional lack of talent and turns what's there into more than the sum of its parts.
That could be especially good news in the NFC South, where the Panthers might have the best staff in the division.
Oh, and don't forget about those Bears.
4. Be careful trusting the Bucs and Bengals too far in your futures portfolio.
The Bucs are clear NFC South favorites but don't stand out in the coaching staff rankings with Todd Bowles holding them back, and doubts about Zac Taylor leaves the Bengals ranked in the bottom five for a second consecutive rank — following the offensive lines and, spoiler alert, ahead of a third such ranking in the defenses.
If coaching and offensive lines are among the most important hidden edges in betting football, then we should be wary to invest too heavily in Cincinnati or Tampa Bay.
5. If you want to bet on a team making a huge leap, try investing in an unknown playcaller.
One of the best, fastest ways for a team to leap from seemingly out of nowhere to contention is a sudden uptick in offense — typically because of improved QB play driven by outstanding scheme and playcalling.
Look at Jayden Daniels under OC Kliff Kingsbury last season, CJ Stroud with Bobby Slowik the previous one, or Baker Mayfield's breakout under Dave Canales. In all three cases, a team badly outperformed expectations and made the playoffs when a relative unknown playcaller rose to stardom alongside a quarterback.
So who are the candidates this year?
Maybe it's Stroud a second time, this time with OC Nick Caley. Maybe it's another turn for Mayfield, this time with OC Josh Grizzard.
Perhaps it's a step forward for Trevor Lawrence with Liam Coen, or maybe OC Tanner Engstrand finds some semblance of QB play from Justin Fields in New York. Perhaps it's Chip Kelly rejuvenating a Raiders offense under Geno Smith.
Or maybe it's just Ben Johnson taking No. 1 pick Caleb Williams to the top, like he did with Jared Goff.
Pick a horse and hitch your wagon.
It's go time.
