The Dallas Cowboys are allowing the contract of head coach Mike McCarthy to expire without an extension. The contract actually was completed on January 7, but the team had exclusive negotiating rights with McCarthy through Tuesday, January 14. After initially denying the Chicago Bears the chance to talk to McCarthy about their opening, and then opening the door for negotiations on his return, the team closed that chapter of their franchise history on Monday.
McCarthy is now free to pursue employment elsewhere, and it makes sense that he is under consideration for the Bears gig still, as well as other teams. McCarthy’s assistants are also now free to interview in other places for any level of job.
Hired to replace Jason Garrett, McCarthy was charged with making Dallas into annual contenders and also finding the playoff success that has avoided them even during the good seasons. The former had been achieved; three healthy quarterback years delivering three seasons of 12-5 performance. The latter still avoided them, with just one playoff victory in five years and lackluster performances in three of their four contests.
Perhaps watching former defensive coordinator Dan Quinn match McCarthy’s postseason win total in his first attempt as head coach of the Washington Commanders on Sunday helped sway Jerry Jones’ decision.
The last hiring cycle took a while to get going just as this one did, as Dallas waited over a week from the end of the regular season before hiring McCarthy. While Jerry Jones has generally focused on experience in his last four hires, where do things go this cycle?
There’s a ton of guys with various amounts of experience as coordinators, though it’s hard to envision Jones hiring a Liam Coen of Tampa, whose called plays in the NFL just for one season, or Frank Smith of Miami who hasn’t done it at all.
There are assistants who have been head coaches before, like Kliff Kingsbury and Brian Flores. There are former Cowboys assistants like Kellen Moore and Wes Phillips, and Al Harris could emerge as a dark horse candidate, and that’s before the young gun coordinators like Ben Johnson, Bobby Slowik, Joe Brady and others are even mentioned.
It’s going to be a crazy upheaval in the NFL coaching ranks and now that Dallas has thrown their hats in the ring, they will be the biggest tent at the circus.
Al Harris, Cowboys assistant head coach
Josh McCown, Minnesota Vikings QB Coach
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman
Liam Coen, OC, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Ryan Grubb, Seattle Seahawks OC
Ejiro Evero, Carolina Panthers, DC
Jesse Minter, Los Angeles Chargers, DC
Vance Joseph, Denver Broncos, DC
Adam Stenovich, Green Bay Packers OC
North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick ($10 million buyout would get him back from CFB)
Phillips has been instrumental in the improvement of Sam Darnold this season, and while Kevin O’Connell calls the plays, the biggest impediment to Phillips becoming a head coach was that he’s in the booth on gamedays and not down on the sideline. That changed in November.
At 45, Wade Phillips’ son who was an assistant in Dallas for seven years to start his NFL coaching career (staying on with Jason Garrett after his dad was fired) has spent three years in Minnesota. If he were to make the jump, he’d need a defensive coordinator with head coaching experience by his side, but the idea shouldn’t be outright dismissed.
After great success at Jackson State with back-to-back SWAC championships, Sanders has quickly brought Colorado from obscurity to relevancy. 1-11 the season before, Sanders brought them to 4-9 in Year 1 and 9-3 in Year 2 before losing their bowl game to BYU.
Sanders has always been given credence in this space as a real possibility and it will be interesting to see if he is as committed to his “never coach NFL” words as he claims to be.
Grabbing from a fruitful tree is always a wise idea, and snatching Smith from under Mike McDaniel as part of the Kyle Shanahan limb system seems like a wise call. Dallas rarely uses motion at the snap and isn’t particularly good at it; and that’s literally the forte of Smith. Doesn’t currently have play-calling duties though, which could be seen as a knock.
Miami’s rough year thanks to injuries shouldn’t diminish how dominant they’ve been since he took over in 2022, ranking sixth in DVOA that year and second in 2023.
It appears Kingsbury’s time away after the disaster in Arizona has done him a ton of good. The offense he’s put together in DC for rookie Jayden Daniels is quite impressive and a stark contrast to what he was doing with Kyler Murray in the desert.
That transformation may lead to him having a second opportunity not always afforded. Washington’s offense has been up and down, but they rank seventh in DVOA as the season comes to a close. Granted, Daniels offers a dual-threat nature Dallas doesn’t have, but Kingsbury could be ready for another opportunity. And damaging a division rival would be great turn about.
Glenn has ties to Dallas, playing two of his 15 seasons with the organization, but the growth of the Lions’ defense under his tutelage has been impressive on its own. He’s consistently being highlighted by their players as a phenomenal leader of men.
In 2020 they ranked 32nd in defensive DVOA. Since Glenn joined they moved to 29th, 27th, and 13th in 2023. At one point this year he had them ranked 3rd going into Week 15 action, but the cavalcade of injuries in the second half of the season has them a shell of themselves.
The Eagles milked a 10-minute fourth-quarter clock dry with a 21-play drive to seal their win over Pittsburgh. Let that sink in.
One name that is rarely discussed but probably should be is the former heir apparent Kellen Moore. Moore was Jason Garrett 2.0; brought in to the coaching staff as a wunderkind who the Jones family thought a lot of. He carried over as offensive coordinator from Garrett to McCarthy. Being shown the door in 2023 after a playoff failure as McCarthy vowed taking back over play calling would take the offense to a new level.
It did, for a year, before bottoming out in 2024, even before all of the injuries hit. Meanwhile Moore attached himself to Brandon Staley’s sinking ship in L.A. for a year, but has revitalized his reputation thanks to Saquon Barkley’s arrival in Phiadelphia. The Eagles are rolling with a throwback offense focused on running to set up the pass. Everyone knows that’s like catnip to the Jones family.
Slowik is immensely intriguing for several reasons. He auditioned in front of Jones earlier this season and carved up a 77-yard opening play touchdown to announce his arrival. The rest of the game was a dominant run effort with a ton of big plays.
Slowik’s stock has fallen as CJ Stroud struggled to shine without his top receiving targets and behind a ridiculously bad offensive line. Slowik is from the Shanahan coaching tree that has had success at the NFL level and maybe most importantly, he used to coach defense. That combination just feels like he’d make a tremendous hire.
Will Flores get another shot at a head coach gig?
He was dumped by the Dolphins in their owner’s “I’m rich I can do what I want” attempt to lure Sean Payton and Tom Brady to South Beach. The revelation about trying to have a coach to tank games may have pulled the curtain back on the inner workings of the league, but it likely didn’t do Flores much favor.
What has though, is the job he’s done righting the ship in Minnesota with their defense. The relentless attacking nature of the Vikings defense where blitzing is a lifestyle is an intriguing head coach hire waiting to happen.
The evolution of the Ravens’ passing attack, and the under-center autonomy placed on Lamar Jackson’s shoulders over the last season and a half have been incredible. He’s one of one as a QB, but Monken deserves a ton of credit for recognizing how to unlock this team.
The 2024 Ravens, after adding Derrick Henry to the mix, now have a historic offense in terms of DVOA. Their 42.0% rating through 17 weeks is among the best ever, and it’s floated by their No. 1 36.0% offensive rating.
What Ben Johnson’s offense and tutelage has been able to do for Jared Goff has been amazing. In the Stafford trade, Goff was expected to be a placeholder until the Lions drafted their guy. Now the clearly limited passer is running one of the league’s best and most innovative offenses. The Lions are competing for the NFC’s best record heading into the final game of the season and are doing so with a scotch-tape defense. The offense refuses to allow this to stop them and Johnson’s creativity and aggressiveness are the primary reasons why.
There’s a rumor out there that Johnson asked for $15 million a season last cycle. That could be a baseline number, or it could’ve been a number he gave to a franchise he wasn’t truly interested in. Fans should beware taking such reports without the unavailable context.
The job Joe Brady has done with Buffalo offense in 2024 has been incredible. After trading away their top target in Stefon Diggs, the Bills offense went from great to elite, ramping up their production and scoring.
After the strong work at LSU with Joe Burrow, Brady has been throwing haymakers in the NFL the last three seasons coordinating the Josh Allen Buffalo Bills. The Bills finished second in offensive DVOA in 2022, third in 2023 and are currently second in 2024.
