Last year, it was like there was a scoreboard validating each assistant coach’s candidacy.
Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith got interview requests from all seven teams with openings. Panthers offensive coordinator Joe Brady and Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy had such overtures from six of the seven teams, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh was 5-for-7, and Rams defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, a latecomer to the party as a first-year coordinator, wound up scoring four interviews.
And if that was a sign that last year the NFL very much knew what it was looking for in that particular cycle, the opposite could wind up being the case this year.
We’re three days out from Black Monday, and if you’re looking for this year’s version of Smith or Saleh—the candidate to whom everyone will want to talk—then good luck, because it sure seems like that guy doesn’t exist in 2022.
“Every team’s list of top-five candidates won’t be the same this year,” said one experienced coaching agent.
Given what the NFL’s been looking for the last couple of years, that might not be a bad thing. If there’s less-fervent competition for a small number of candidates, that could, theoretically, allow for teams to take their time with the process. And since there won’t be a couple of boxes every team feels like it has to check—the must-talk-to candidate—it stands to reason that more teams will cast a wider net.
That, in turn, would open up the chance there’s real competition among candidates for the jobs, rather than competition among teams for candidates, giving the proverbial under-the-radar guy, like Mike Tomlin in 2007, a better shot at landing the job. Anyway, in a month or so, we’ll know if it worked out that way.
But for now, as we dive into the 2022 hiring cycle, it means there’s less certainty heading into the regular season’s final weekend than I can ever remember before.
