Every year, a handful of future NFL geniuses get promoted to their first coaching job. The trend lately has been toward hiring offensive coordinators, especially those that can trace their coaching lineage back to Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay. College guys are out unless their name happens to be Harbaugh, and coaching retreads are considered less safe than they used to be.
So how are they doing? If you rule out the retreads and guys who auditioned last year, so-so at best. We’re not even halfway through the season, so it’s unfair to make snap judgments. But those judgments are an integral part of today’s NFL, so let’s go there and do some quick updates.
Mike McDonald, Seattle Seahawks
To cushion the impact of this year’s rookies, we’ll start with the positives. Mike McDonald was one of two defensive guys hired this year, the other being Jerod Mayo of New England. His impact has been modest at best—the defense played well enough against weak offenses in Seattle’s first three games, but the Seahawks got lit up by the Lions and 49ers, and even the lowly Giants scored 29 against them.
Seattle’s season to date can be summed up in a single sentence: When they’ve won, it’s been because of Geno Smith. He’s played like an MVP candidate at times, and when Smith is hot, the Seahawks are tough to beat.
This doesn’t feel like a sustainable formula for winning, so the jury is very much out on McDonald’s coaching acumen. Seattle is treading water right now, and the bet here is that they’ll continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Dave Canales, Carolina Panthers
Canales was hired as the offensive guy who could fix Bryce Young, but he’s actually become That Guy, i.e., the guy who got hired by David Tepper because some poor young coach with potential was bound to be hired by the dreadful Panthers owner. Think of Canales as the coach who got stuck with the last chair when the music stopped.
The results have been all too predictable—the Panthers are still a mess, to the point where we still have no idea if Canales is a viable head coach. Young was so bad he had to be replaced right out of the gate, and then he got hurt. Canales was left with Andy Dalton, who always looks good for a game or two until the turnover barrage starts.
Now Young is back in the lineup after Dalton was in a car crash earlier this week. Thankfully, Dalton and his family were all fine, although the post-accident reporting has been a little murky to say the least. But the car crash is basically a perfect metaphor for Carolina’s season, not to mention for the state of this franchise in general.
In New England, Jerod Mayo, is starting to look like a questionable NFL hire
Jerod Mayo’s bona fides as an NFL linebacker are beyond question. He was a tough tackling machine on some great Patriots teams, and when he hung up his helmet he joined the line of possible Belichick successors. After working Bob Kraft and getting the owner’s ear, Mayo got the prize, although it was a mixed bag because of the dreadful state of New England’s roster.
Mayo’s first win against Cincinnati in the season opener made him a great hire, but now the bloom is seriously off the rose. The Patriots have reverted to what most experts thought they’d be, which was a bad football team in need of a complete rebuild. Mayo seems to be losing the locker room, too, to the point that he’s calling his team soft. Which doesn’t bode well for his future given that he had an entire offseason and training camp to toughen them up and install his own culture.
Brian Callahan, Tennessee Titans
Callahan is the other offensive guy on this list, but he walked into a difficult situation in Tennessee. Mike Vrabel lost a power struggle last season, and when he was fired, he left a roster that was in serious need of an upgrade.
On top of that, Callahan is stuck with Will Levis, who has a great arm to go with a terrible decision-making process. Levis has driven Callahan crazy, to the point where the coach is now subbing in former Steelers backup Mason Rudolph, whose decision making is often just as bad. Which means it’s going to be a long year in Tennessee, and when it ends we still may not know if Callahan was a good hire or not.