Brad Childress was asked how he still can have what he calls "great" conversations with Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf, the two men who abruptly fired him 302 days after he led their franchise to the NFC Championship Game 12 years ago.
"Well," Childress said, "it really is like Bum Phillips said back in the day. 'There's two kinds of coaches. Them that's fired and them that's gonna be fired.' It happens. Things change."
Yep.
One of the wildest offseasons of change in NFL history has reshuffled all 32 teams — including a whopping 10 that switched head coaches — in time for the league's 103rd season. Kickoff is Thursday night, when the defending champion Los Angeles Rams play host to the AFC favorite Buffalo Bills at SoFi Stadium, where the Rams beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl 207 days earlier.
If the Rams hold serve over the weaker NFC and make it to Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12 in Glendale, Ariz., it will be 36-year-old coach Sean McVay's third appearance in the big game. Among active head coaches, only New England's Bill Belichick, with nine in 27 seasons, and Kansas City's Andy Reid, with three in 23 seasons, have three or more Super Bowl appearances.
"So many things have to go right," McVay said this summer. "We could be a better team this year — and I think we've got a chance to do that — and it might not mean we win a Super Bowl because there are certain things — the bounce of a ball — that are out of your control."
No Super Bowl winner has repeated since the 2004 Patriots in Tom Brady's fifth season. The Rams return 16 starters, including superstars Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald, but they've also lost elite edge rusher Von Miller, cornerstone left tackle Andrew Whitworth and premier receiver Odell Beckham Jr., among others.
The Rams' coaching staff also was pilfered once again by teams desperate for their piece of McVay's modern-day football magic. A year after losing seven assistants, McVay lost six more, including three to the Vikings. Offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell became Vikings head coach and brought with him tight ends coach Wes Phillips — Bum's grandson — and offensive assistant Chris O'Hara to be the Vikings' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
The Next Big Thing
O'Connell is the sixth coordinator McVay has had to replace in the past three years. Liam Coen, 36 and a Rams assistant from 2018-20, returns after a year as offensive coordinator at Kentucky. He could very well become the Next Big Thing in the next cycle of head coaching hires if the Rams can deftly maneuver the league's toughest schedule, which features opponents that went 164-125 (.567) a year ago.
O'Connell, 36 and only four months older than McVay, is the fourth McVay assistant to get a head coaching job in the past four years. Green Bay's Matt LaFleur, now the NFC North's longest-tenured head coach entering Year 4, and Cincinnati's Zac Taylor were hired in 2019, and the Chargers' Brandon Staley was hired last year.
McVay and O'Connell are the youngest head coaches in the league. Taylor, 39, is the fourth-youngest. He's two months older than Miami's Mike McDaniel, one of the league's five first-time head coaches along with O'Connell; Chicago's Matt Eberflus, 52; Denver's Nathaniel Hackett, the 42-year-old former Packers offensive coordinator; and the Giants' Brian Daboll, the 47-year-old former Bills offensive coordinator.
49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was asked last month what advice he'd give a newbie like O'Connell now that the 42-year-old Shanahan is, believe it or not, tied for sixth in NFL head coaching seniority heading into Year 6.
"Just be himself," Shanahan said. "Be aggressive in everything you do. Don't hesitate if you believe in something. There's a reason you've gotten this opportunity. Listen to everybody and their experience, but if you have an opinion and you want to go with it, don't hesitate."
Shanahan was one of six head coaching hires before the 2017 season. He's one of three along with McVay and Buffalo's Sean McDermott who hasn't been fired.
Only five head coaches in the league — Belichick (2000), Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin (2007), Baltimore's John Harbaugh (2008), Seattle's Pete Carroll (2010) and Reid (2013) — have been around longer than the guys who were hired just five years ago.
Does that seem odd to you, Kyle Shanahan?
"Yes," he said. "That is a little weird. I guess that's why I'm getting grayer each year."
Understandable.
Since Belichick was hired in 2000, the NFL's other 31 teams have made 159 coaching changes. The Raiders lead the way with 10. The Browns and Dolphins have made nine each. The Giants are on their third head coach in five seasons.
Offense wins the job
Of those 159 hires since 2000, 86 have been coaches with offensive backgrounds (54.1%), 71 with defensive backgrounds and two with special teams backgrounds.
The numbers have leaned even more heavily in favor of offensive-minded coaches the past six years. After 2015, when six of the seven new hires were defensive-minded coaches, NFL teams have chosen offensive-minded head coaches in 35 of 50 hires (70%).
After firing defensive-minded Ron Rivera after 12 games in 2019, Panthers owner David Tepper said, "In the modern NFL, I think there is a preference for offensive coordinators, and I think there are reasons for that. The NFL has made rules to lean to the offense. That's why you're having more people go that way. And I think you have a lot of people on that side of the ball accepting the more modern processes."
Tepper hired Baylor head coach Matt Rhule after that season. Rhule is offensive-minded, but his only NFL experience to that point came eight years earlier when he spent one season as the Giants' assistant offensive line coach. After back-to-back five-win seasons, Rhule enters Year 3 sitting upon arguably the hottest coaching seat in the NFL.
Of course, with few exceptions — most notably Pittsburgh, where the Steelers haven't fired a head coach while hiring only three since 1969 — all NFL head coaching seats are hot by nature.
Childress said he wasn't expecting his firing until he looked up at 7:45 the morning after a 31-3 loss to the Packers and saw the Wilfs standing in the doorway to his office at Winter Park.
"I just go back to what Bum said," Childress said. "Bum was a smart guy."
