2025 NFL Season Thread: Can Uncle Rico save the Broncos or will they be Nixed?

Brandon Beane is the greatest executive to ever exist, at least according to him.

I'm starting to get a little more optimistic about Hafley.

One of the biggest rubs against Miami is that they're soft, so I'm hopeful that he can at least turn that around. Who they hire as OC will be huge.

I would say I was at a 2 on the optimism scale when the news broke, but I'm probably around a 5 now.

The Titans are my exact point of why would Saleh want to leave a great position for one he will be fired from in 2 years? He probably won't be a HC again, and it won't even be his fault. The Titans are just not going to be good next year, and then he has to hope they are good in 2027.

Which is basically the crux of the issue. You either hire a quality OC who you risk losing after a season or 2 if they're good, or this coaching hire is almost guaranteed to fail. Hafley has to be elite between culture and D to be worth it, which seems unlikely.

Same issue at the Dolphins. He either hires an OC who elevates Ward that is then good enough to leave after a year or 2 or it all falls apart.

But some guys just really want it, so they'll keep taking any chance they get.

The league needs to do something about converging the salaries of HC, OC, and DC. There's too wide of a gap from the HC down to the OC/DC, especially for the OC/DC guys that call plays. It's almost to the point that if your OC especially is being looked at for HC opportunties, you want to offer them a salary similar to what they would receive as a HC in hopes they stay.

Tampa and Philly are good examples of the impact of annual revolving coordinators for competitive teams.

Bucs tried that with Coen

Ego.

From what I can find, it still wasn't close. The initial extension he signed to stay with the Bucs as OC was $4.5 mil annually. He's currently making $12 mil annually with the Jags.

I didn't realize it was that low. I'd read that he was going to be the highest paid NFL coordinator but didn't see an amount.

Even at 8 or 9 I assume most everyone would still take the bigger gig. Coaches are hired to be fired either way.

Case in point, Chip got 6/yr and didn't make it through his first season as Raider OC.

I would have thought the Lions would have paid Johnson a ton to stay as OC the two years before he left

I don’t disagree. And yeah, I think that deal for Chip made him the highest paid coordinator itl. So still half of what Coen is making. Lol Raiders.

Eventually some team will make the tough decision and choose coordinator who is leaving over current HC.

I'm just skimming the posts about coordinators and it's not something I've thought about. It seems like yes, they should be paid more. But should coordinators maybe reject HC jobs. What happens when they go to a teams that sucks and they get fired in 2-3 years?

Rams tried that with Martz

Come back to their old team (Saleh, Nagy, etc), or get same gig elsewhere like Fangio and a million other examples. Presumably with a raise.

If you stay in your position you're still likely to eventually get scapegoated, like Kellen Moore with Fat Mike.

Sort of. Vermeil retired, so they promoted Martz. And it worked out pretty well.

I want to see a team fire the HC and promote the coordinator. It’s a cold spot, but you have to do what’s best for the franchise.

But if you are paid more, then aren't you more than likely to get scapegoated?

Maybe that was the official stance but I was pretty sure they pushed him out behind the scenes. (Seeing as he almost immediately resurfaced with KC.) Reading on it now, maybe not.

Thought it was basically the same as Chip with Oregon where the main guy stepped aside under not so subtle pressure that it would be better for the team.

The more power you have the more you control the scapegoating.

GM>Head Coach>Coordinator

My point was the HC can more easily convince an owner to get rid of a coordinator that he is could be overpaid.

When they're fired as HC they still have 9-12x more money in the bank than if they had stayed on as a coordinator. Plus when they get fired they can immediately get hired back at that coordinator spot somewhere. If Jerry Jones has taught me anything it's that these guys say they want to win, and they do, but it's secondary to the money. As it should be, it's a business.

They likely usually get hired back on as a college HC. And then Chip Kelly fails enough to get other jobs and make a lot of money. It does work both ways.

Isn't this basically what Ben Johnson did? Rejected several offers before landing on one with a patient owner, number one overall pick QB who looked at least ok his rookie year, good weapons and tons of cap space.

The issue I guess would be if you reject jobs and your team regresses the next year. Bobby Slowik went from getting head coach interviews to fired in a year

I understand not wanting to turn down any HC job—same as actors not turning down even the worst roles—but Saleh & Titans is an extreme case.

He can stay in a top 5 DC spot forever until Philly or KC or whoever gets Arch opens up. TEN is as far away as an NFL team can be atm.

Then again, he can just go back to SF in 2-3 years so why not roll the ping pong balls.

The difference is Slowik was good for one year only while Saleh has now had great defenses year after year, and also can point to how the Jets became demonstrably worse in the season he got fired.

A flash in the pan coordinator, I totally get. But coordinators like Saleh and Johnson should absolutely wait for the right position, and Johnson smartly did.

Seems the thing that could've happened is Saleh says the Titans are going to hire him and the 49ers should've just offered him basically the same amount of money to coach for one more year, and then he could've picked a different spot.

I understand the NFL has to promote somehow within, but to me, really good coordinators are usually not good head coaches. They aren't the same skillset, and it's confusing how so many teams just look at who is doing well at running an offense or defense and act as if they will be a good HC. Maybe they think they will bring that offense or defense with them, but it seems to get delegated out, so teams don't even usually get that.