Ranking the New NFL Head Coach Hires and Fits

The coaching carousel continues to turn, and six NFL teams have already hired new head coaches for next season.

One in four franchises will have a new head coach next season, making this a huge offseason of change around the league, and that's not to mention the guys no longer in positions they long held, names like Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, and Mike Vrabel.

We're still waiting to hear if Belichick, Vrabel, or hot young coordinators like Ben Johnson and Mike Macdonald will get the call. For now, only Seattle and Washington still have openings.

But with six head coaching hires already in the books, let's rank the new NFL head coach hires and fits from worst to first.

Ranking the New NFL Head Coach Hires and Fits

6. Las Vegas Raiders: Antonio Pierce

History has not been kind to interim NFL head coaches who have been hired full-time.

Here's a list of interim coaches hired full-time this century: Doug Marrone (Jacksonville), Mike Mularkey (Tennessee), Romeo Crennel (Kansas City), Leslie Frazier (Minnesota), Jason Garrett (Dallas), Tom Cable (Oakland), Mike Singletary (San Francisco), Mike Tice (Minnesota), Dick LeBeau (Cincinnati), and Dave McGinnis (Arizona).

Does that look like a memorable pool of coaches you'd like to hire from? No, of course not. Jason Garrett is probably the most successful name on the list — which, yikes.

Interim coaches often look successful after replacing a fired head coach because of the rubber-band effect. What goes up most come down and vice versa. Teams are never quite as bad as they look, and changes motivate players in the short-term — players who mostly aren't good enough to be around long-term for the franchise anyway.

The Raiders started 3-5 and fired their head coach. They won their first two under Pierce against both New York teams, then finished 3-4 after that with three wins against the division. The win in Kansas City probably got Pierce the full-time gig.

The players clearly love Pierce and his locker room cigars, but again, how many of those players will even be on the next successful Raiders team? Most of the Raiders' late improvement came from Patrick Graham's defense. He would've been an intriguing hire.

Pierce had only one year coaching in the NFL before this. Now he'll lead a roster lacking talent in a division where he'll coach six games per year against Andy Reid, Sean Payton, and Jim Harbaugh. This will probably end badly — and sooner, rather than later.

5. Tennessee Titans: Brian Callahan

It was a surprise to see the Titans move on from Vrabel, and it was an even bigger surprise to see them settle on Brian Callahan.

Callahan has led Cincinnati's offense for five seasons. What exactly has he done that's impressed during that span? His offense was miserable, near last in the league for the first two seasons. Then the Bengals added Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and sophomore Joe Burrow and then magically had a good (not great) offense for two years before stumbling to average this season with all the injuries.

Think of the great offenses around the league led by elite offensive coordinators. Consider what Mike McDaniel does with pre-snap motion and speed in Miami, or how Kyle Shanahan turns Mr. Irrelevant QBs into 1-seed leaders in San Francisco, or how Ben Johnson redeemed Jared Goff's career and consistently schemes guys wide open in Detroit.

What's Callahan's trademark? The Bengals rank top-five at both QB and WR. They've always had solid blocking and a good RB during his tenure. On paper, that should be as elite an offense as any. But Cincinnati rarely used pre-snap motion to disguise or solve defenses, rarely got out of shotgun successfully, and frequently leaned way too hard into its anemic rushing offense.

If anything, Callahan's offenses have disappointed considering the level of talent he's worked with, not impressed. The most impressive thing he did came late this season with Jake Browning and all the injuries, just keeping the offense competitive — and that was only after failing to adjust early to make things work with a limited Burrow playing through injury.

Callahan has frequently seen his name in the mix for openings, so maybe there's more than meets the eye. For me, this was a very uninspired hire, up against it in a division with three teams that have great young coaches and QBs. The best part might be if Callahan gets his father Bill to come over and coach the offensive line. Now that's a great coach.

4. New England Patriots: Jerod Mayo

The truth is that we really don't know a ton about Jerod Mayo.

Mayo has spent five seasons coaching in New England, officially as the "inside linebackers coach." He's never led the defense or called plays, that we know of. And now he's the head coach, the youngest in the NFL.

Everyone seems to like Mayo, and it's clear he was the succession plan from Belichick all along.

My question is whether or not that makes sense.

To me, Jerod Mayo is a bet on continuity in New England, and I don't like that bet.

What exactly have we seen from the Patriots in four years since Tom Brady left that looks worth continuing? The defense has been great, but how much of that was Mayo and how much was Belichick? The offenses have been bad. The decision making and game management have been outdated and poor.

How much of any of that was Mayo? We have no idea. But until proven otherwise, given a near complete paucity of knowledge about what Mayo has done and why he deserved this role, I'll remain skeptical.

3. Carolina Panthers: Dave Canales

Canales is exactly the sort of coach I expected the Panthers to hire — a younger, mostly unknown candidate seeking a breakthrough opportunity. That's because Carolina's franchise is in a dire state and the ownership is terrible, so that made this a job many other candidates never even seriously considered.

The Panthers needed to take a gamble — and Dave Canales is a big gamble.

Canales had just one year calling plays with the Bucs this year. He did a solid job. Nothing earth shattering, but solid. The Bucs finished 20th in Offensive DVOA. That's fine. The run game remained as awful as ever. The offensive line gelled more quickly than expected. Mike Evans had another awesome year.

The biggest reason for Tampa Bay's relative success this season was a leap in play from Baker Mayfield. By many advanced metrics, Mayfield was a borderline top-10 QB for most of the season. He took way fewer sacks and got the ball out much, much faster. He played confidently.

Canales gets a lot of credit for that, in part because he just came over from Seattle where he had a direct role helping Geno Smith improve in the same ways. No position in sports is more important than quarterback. If you help take two career journeymen and turn them into league-average-or-better quarterbacks, you might be a great coach.

The question now is whether Canales can do that with last year's No. 1 pick Bryce Young. It's fair to question whether Canales can even have that level of impact as a head coach, pretty far removed from his young QB.

But Young is this franchise's immediate future, for better or for worse, and Canales has proven he can maximize a flawed quarterback and get the most out of him. Would I have given him the keys to my franchise and offered a relative unknown a six-year deal? No, probably not, but Carolina needed to take a gamble and Canales appears to be worth gambling on.

2. Atlanta Falcons: Raheem Morris

I must admit I was initially underwhelmed by the Morris hire. The Falcons were a top-three available job, and I was expecting Atlanta to get a top offensive mind to come in and overhaul an offense loaded with talent and in need of a quarterback.

Morris is a totally different type of hire, but the more I consider him, the more I like the fit. I’m not typically a big fan of hiring retread coaches that failed in their first stop, but folks deserve a second chance — especially coaches of color — and Morris certainly looks worth another shot.

The last time Raheem Morris was a head coach was back in 2011. That’s an eternity ago, but in NFL years and for a man who was just 35 then. Morris had a rough first year with multiple quarterback injuries, then went 10–6 and barely missed the playoffs, then had a bad year and was let go. It was a tough spot replacing Jon Gruden with an aging roster, and Morris was young.

Since then, Morris has done a bit of everything. He’s worked with both offenses and defenses. He was the defensive passing coordinator for one team and the offensive passing coordinator for another. He coached defensive backs and wide receivers. He’s called defensive plays, acted as assistant head coach, and even filled in admirably as an interim head coach.

That season, Morris took over an 0-5 team and immediately led them to four wins in the next six, completely turning around a moribund defense. The team lost their final five against a brutal schedule, but Morris did a great job and probably deserved a shot at the full-time gig.

However, the Falcons went with Arthur Smith instead, and now Atlanta has righted its wrong three seasons later and given Morris the chance he earned in 2020.

So what happened since then? The Falcons floundered and went nowhere under Smith going 7–10 each season, while Morris led a brilliant Rams defense to a Super Bowl win his first year there, then was just as impressive this season elevating one of the least talented defenses in the league to respectability.

That is one heck of a resume, and it’s one well worthy of an opportunity at a head coaching role. Consider that the Falcons were heavily rumored to be going with Belichick instead, an old guy stuck in his ways that wanted all the control and probably none of the fault. Belichick never made any sense for this team.

Morris is still young, and he’s proven to be incredibly adaptable. He’s smart and has found success in a variety of roles on a number of teams. Morris needs to nail his offensive coordinator pick and get the right quarterback, but it looks like Atlanta made a great choice.

1. Los Angeles Chargers: Jim Harbaugh

And then there’s the crown jewel of the coaching cycle thus far, Jim Harbaugh.

It’s pretty hard to argue with Harbaugh’s resume. In four seasons with the 49ers, Harbaugh went 44–19–1, a 70% win rate that equates to a 12–5 season, year after year. He made the conference championship in three of those four seasons and nearly won a Super Bowl.

Before that, Harbaugh had great success with Stanford. Since then, he’s been nearly unbeatable at Michigan and just won a national championship. Heck, Harbaugh was the QBs coach for the Raiders back in 2002 when Rich Gannon made a shocking MVP push and got the team to a Super Bowl.

Harbaugh has had great success everywhere he’s gone. He’s consistently gotten the most out of quarterbacks, one of the most important things a coach can do in the NFL and certainly an important role as he inherits Justin Herbert. He’s also consistently proven to be great in the CEO role, hiring and developing great coordinators on both sides of the ball, adapting style of play, and surrounding himself with smart football folks.

To that end, the one question with Harbaugh is just how much of his NFL success in San Francisco should have been attributed to him. That was a defensive team, and the defense was led by the great Vic Fangio, with help from a staff that included Ejiro Evero, Ed Donatell, and Jim Tomsula. Greg Roman also got the most out of Colin Kaepernick before later moving on to Baltimore, where he helped Lamar Jackson earn an MVP.

Did Harbaugh just luck into a great resume because of Fangio’s defense? Well, no. Harbaugh hired Fangio after all. He brought Fangio back to the NFL from Stanford — where Harbaugh hired Fangio there too. He also hired Mike Macdonald at Michigan, now leading that electric Ravens defense, and he’s found, developed and worked with elite minds on both sides of the ball for decades now as a head coach. That’s a feature, not a bug.

For my money, Jim Harbaugh steps back into the NFL as an immediate top-five-to-seven coach in the league.

It won’t be easy getting the Chargers to stop Chargers-ing. LA’s cap situation is dire, and the roster is aging and injury-prone. But Harbaugh should get the most out of Herbert — something no one else has done yet — and help this team compete at highest level.

In a couple years, it won’t be surprising at all if we’re talking about Harbaugh’s Chargers playing on Conference Championship Sunday, instead of including them in the coaching carousel article.