NFL Analysis
2/5/24
16 min read
Ranking NFL's 2024 Head Coach Hires
The 2024 NFL head coaching cycle is complete. Eight jobs were filled this offseason, with the Washington Commanders making the final hire over the weekend.
With every job wrapped up, it's a perfect time to rank each of the new hires.
2024 HC Hire Rankings
1. Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks 
There might not be a Mike Maconald detractor anywhere in the football world. Maybe there are a few "never hire a defensive coach" types floating around, but that's neither a serious opinion nor a criticism of Macdonald specifically.
Everyone seriously approaching the Seattle Seahawks’ hire is over the moon about Macdonald.
Macdonald was getting Brandon Staley comparisons early in the process, but that's not fair. Staley had a meteoric rise throughout the NFL ranks before putting forth one season of "revolutionary" defensive schematics that mainly was the work of Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey.
That's not Macdonald at all. Macdonald didn't revolutionize anything. His defense is characterized by split-field coverages, well-timed simulated pressures and good tackling. The first two pillars are where modern defensive football is heading anyway. Macdonald didn't force this shift. He's just good at using those tools.
Macdonald's secret sauce is how he teaches and calls the defense.
It's one thing to put the Xs and Os on the chalkboard in the right spots, but it's another thing entirely to communicate that well to your players and call plays in the right moments.
With Macdonald's Ravens the past two seasons, it was abundantly clear those players locked in on what Macdonald sold them. Everyone plays fast, rarely misses assignments and flies to the ball. It's the same stuff that enamored everyone with DeMeco Ryans in San Francisco, all carried over to Houston.
If you need proof, consider all the players who have been the best version of themselves under Macdonald. Roquan Smith fully blossomed into an All-Pro linebacker. That had a cascading effect on fellow linebacker Patrick Queen, who went from downright bad to making the Pro Bowl.
Justin Madubuike became one of the league’s most explosive defensive tackles. Jadeveon Clowney, a mercenary pass-rusher, cleared nine sacks for the second time since 2018 because of how well Macdonald deployed him.
Even Kyle Van Noy, who all but faded out entirely with the Chargers last season, was a critical piece to Baltimore's lockdown defense. Macdonald got quality play from nickel CB Arthur Maulet off the street.
Macdonald has the goods. As a play-caller, he always adapts to the team in front of him with the correct answers. As a teacher, Macdonald clearly got his point across and got players to buy in.
There's more to being a head coach than that, but with the information we have, Macdonald passes every test with flying colors. The Seahawks are in good hands.
>> READ MORE: Why Macdonald Was Cycle's Best Candidate
2. Jim Harbaugh, Los Angeles Chargers 
It feels reductive to center the Jim Harbaugh argument around winning, but it's all he does. Harbaugh wins football games wherever he goes, whether it's the FCS, FBS or NFL.
Few coaches have ever won as reliably as Harbaugh across two decades and multiple levels of football.
Harbaugh accomplishes that by forming a strong identity. That sounds like a buzzword, and it is, but it's real with Harbaugh. Harbaugh has carved out a clear identity for his teams no matter where he's been. That identity has been essentially the same at his past three stops with Stanford, the San Francisco 49ers and Michigan.
Harbaugh wants to run the ball, unlock the play-action passing game and play hard, physical defensive football. It's an old-timey football philosophy, but Harbaugh always finds ways to adapt it to the modern game. Whether it's the pistol run game with Colin Kaepernick or the new-age simulated pressures with Macdonald and Jesse Minter calling plays at Michigan.
Harbaugh has generally done well to build out his staff. Harbaugh's Stanford teams had Greg Roman, David Shaw, Pep Hamilton and Vic Fangio on staff. Roman and Fangio followed Harbaugh to San Francisco, where both had great success. Roman’s stuff got stale, but at the time, his run game stuff was cutting edge.
Even at Michigan, Harbaugh did well, especially on defense. Harbaugh sought out Don Brown to run his defenses early in his tenure. When he tired of the blitz-heavy approach — good as it was — Harbaugh plucked Macdonald from his brother's staff for a season and handed the keys to Minter a year later.
Macdonald is now a head coach, and Minter is following Harbaugh to the Los Angeles Chargers after a great run with the Wolverines.
Lastly, Harbaugh has a quarterback on par with the best one he's ever coached: Andrew Luck. Justin Herbert isn't the unhinged madman Luck was at times. However, he has the pocket presence, processing and arm talent that made Luck Harbaugh’s best quarterback.
I have an unbelievable amount of faith in Harbaugh's ability to get the most out of Herbert, the same as he's done with every other quarterback he's worked with.
Everyone in the media, myself included, has been burned by the Chargers before. We don't want to feel that pain again. Harbaugh is different, though. This isn't Harbaugh's first rodeo.
Harbaugh will turn the Chargers into a team that can contend for division titles against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
>> READ MORE: How Harbaugh Will Mold Chargers' Roster
3. Raheem Morris, Atlanta Falcons 
No other head coaching hire this cycle has gotten as many "this guy just rocks" endorsements as Raheem Morris to the Atlanta Falcons.
Everyone from Sean McVay to Kyle Shanahan to Dan Quinn to Les Snead has given Morris glowing reviews as a coach and person. Countless players of his have done the same. Morris is a man everyone wants to be around, and that's a huge advantage.
Morris is also incredibly experienced. A 47-year-old with more than 20 years of NFL coaching under his belt, Morris has worn just about every hat.
He's primarily been a defensive backs coach and defensive play caller, but he also served on the Falcons offensive coaching staff from 2016-2019. He briefly served as the interim head coach at the end of the following season.
Morris has been a head coach before, too. Morris took the Tampa Bay Buccaneers job in 2009 at 33 years old. His tenure did not go well, but some of that boils down to quarterback instability.
The degree of success at his last stop isn't what matters, though. What matters is Morris knows what it means to be the head coach. He's been in the seat before and understands what it takes to manage a locker room, build a staff, etc. It helps to have that experience to pull from.
Even if we want to boil Morris' candidacy down to his recent three-year run as the Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator, he's plenty qualified. Morris took over for Staley in 2021 and was expected to run much of the same stuff for continuity's sake. At first, he did just that.
But Morris soon realized that impersonating another coordinator wasn't working for anyone. Morris came up with new and creative answers — particularly up front — and made the most of a defensive roster that atrophied significantly after the team's Super Bowl run.
People will fixate on Morris' failed tenure in Tampa Bay, but that was so long ago, and he was so young. Morris now has a breadth of knowledge and experience to pull from.
He has proven himself (again) as a playcaller, and every single person who has ever worked with him is over the moon about him. Morris deserves this second chance as much as anyone.
4. Dave Canales, Carolina Panthers 
Every coach falls into some larger bucket—play-callers, CEOs, player’s coaches, teachers and so on. From everything we can tell about Dave Canales, he's a teacher.
The last two years of Canales' career speak to that. A long-time Pete Carroll disciple in Seattle, Canales served as the Seahawks’ quarterback coach in 2022. Canales then left to call plays for the first time in Tampa Bay. If you recall, Canales' quarterbacks in those seasons were cast-offs who surged to career years.
Geno Smith took over as the Seahawks quarterback in 2022, marking the first time he'd been a Week 1 starter in the NFL for almost a decade. Smith reached new heights under Canales' guidance.
Never before had Smith looked so poised in the pocket, so sharp in reading the field, and so accurate to every level. Smith looked like a top-12 quarterback after years of being an afterthought as a backup.
This season, Canales helped Baker Mayfield undergo a similar transformation. Most of Mayfield's post-rookie career was defined by shaky pocket presence and a lack of rhythm to anything he did in the passing game.
Though still imperfect, those flaws largely fell away with the Buccaneers in 2023. Mayfield was as poised as he's ever been in the pocket. He was grippin' it and rippin' it down the field more than most other quarterbacks. He was the confident, accurate, swagger-oozing version of Mayfield we were promised out of Oklahoma.
Now, the players deserve credit for those transformations, but there is something to Canales being there for both quarterbacks. The heightened level of poise in the pocket and confidence — even arrogance — in how those quarterbacks attacked down the field speaks to how Canales taught things.
Players play faster and more confidently when they know something has been taught and communicated well. That sure seems to be the case whenever Canales is around.
That makes perfect sense for a Carolina Panthers franchise trying to salvage Bryce Young. The first-overall pick a year ago, Young largely looked overwhelmed and physically ill-equipped to play at a high level in the NFL.
Bringing in someone with Canales' recent history of turning downtrodden quarterbacks around is precisely the move they needed to make.
Canales appears to be a good coach, and his skill set aligns perfectly with what this organization needs. That's a good place to start.
5. Jerod Mayo, New England Patriots 
It's easy to poke holes in the Jerod Mayo hiring if you want to.
For one, Mayo barely has experience as an NFL coach. He's only been coaching since 2019, and he's been the New England Patriots inside linebackers coach the entire time. There's also the "Bill Belichick tree" label looming over him. Precious Belichick disciples haven’t done much as head coaches.
I'm not all that worried about either of those factors with Mayo. Belichick has long been effusive of Mayo's intelligence and demeanor as a player and coach. There's a sharp, level-headed, ego-less nature about Mayo that feels distinct from some of the previous Belichick offshoots.
There's proof of concept with Mayo being a quality coach, too. Mayo has been the Patriots linebackers coach since 2019. He was fortunate enough to inherit Dont'a Hightower for the early part of that stretch, but he has since done well to make the most of the other pieces.
Ja'Whaun Bentley, a 2018 fifth-round pick, has improved tremendously under Mayo's guidance and is now one of the league’s best run defenders. Jahlani Tavai was a nobody in Detroit before blooming into a useful starter with the Patriots. Even rookie Marte Mapu, a hybrid linebacker/safety body type, showed impressive flashes.
There was undoubtedly some Belichick magic involved there as it relates to putting players in the right spots. Still, all those guys, namely Bentley and Tavai, only got faster and more confident the longer they worked with Mayo.
Maybe Mayo will be just another failed Belichick. Maybe his inexperience will hurt him in the end. Even with those possibilities, I'm excited to see Mayo step into the head coaching role. He checks a lot of the boxes you would want.
Mayo, being born and raised in the Belichick environment, shouldn't negate all of that simply because we have been burned by that before.
6. Brian Callahan, Tennessee Titans 
The Tennessee Titans hiring Brian Callahan was one of the quieter hires of this cycle.
Coming into it, Callahan had some buzz but was never expected to be one of the premier candidates. The Titans hired him early anyway, seemingly confident they got their guy.
Callahan has bounced around the league for a while as an offensive coach and spent the last four years as the Cincinnati Bengals’ offensive coordinator.
Being on that Bengals staff makes it difficult to gauge Callahan's impact. Callahan was the coordinator under an offensive head coach, Zac Taylor, which obscures some clarity on who was responsible for what.
Likewise, QB Joe Burrow is a quarterback who comes with his own offensive scheme in a way. Burrow wants to be in the shotgun, spread the field and pepper defenses underneath and deep outside the numbers. In that sense, separating the quarterback from the scheme is challenging.
That said, Callahan's offenses showed impressive growth in the past two seasons. Everyone remembers the explosive 2021 Bengals offense, but as teams adapted the following year, that approach had to go away.
The 2022 Bengals shifted more towards quick passing and greatly expanded their run game to make for a more balanced offense. In 2023, the Bengals shifted again, trying to take more of an under-center approach. Burrow's bum ankle threw a wrench in that, but you saw what they wanted to do when Jake Browning stepped into the lineup.
Above all, Callahan is bringing his father, Bill Callahan, to coach the offensive line. Bill is one of the league's best and most respected offensive line coaches. He’s a force absolutely needed to turn around a Titans offensive line that lost its edge since Derrick Henry’s peak.
I won’t sit here and say Callahan is the most inspired head coaching hire, but I see the vision. Callahan is bringing offensive line stability via his father and was part of a coaching staff that showed remarkable adaptability in Cincinnati.
There's reason to believe Callahan can turn the Titans around.
7. Dan Quinn, Washington Commanders 
Some retreads are exciting, others not so much. The Washington Commanders hiring Dan Quinn falls into the latter category.
In all honesty, Quinn's tenure in Atlanta wasn't as bad as it felt at the time. Quinn deserves credit for hiring Kyle Shanahan and, subsequently, Steve Sarkisian, a good offensive coordinator who got too much criticism for not being Shanahan.
Quinn's defenses in Atlanta also tended to ramp up over the year. That's a tricky line of thinking because it means Quinn couldn't get the guys ready for Week 1. There is something to figuring things out as the NFL season rolled on.
The concern to me is Quinn's rush-four, single-high philosophy.
To his credit, he's not nearly as static as he was with the Falcons. Quinn grew into a more creative play-caller as the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator. He incorporated more interesting blitz packages and embraced Cover 2 as a changeup to his typical one-high coverages.
Quinn is still largely a rush-four, single-high defensive mind, though. There's beauty in the simplicity of it, but the simplicity necessitates having guys who can execute, especially off the edge and at cornerback. Simpler doesn't mean easier. It just means simpler.
To that end, this Commanders’ roster is far from fit to run Quinn's defense. The Commanders traded away two Pro Bowl-caliber pass rushers before the deadline. There's nothing left to build around off the edge.
Cornerback isn't much better. Kendall Fuller has always been better as a zone corner. Benjamin St. Juste sort of falls into the Brandon Browner mold Quinn had in Seattle, but he's not that caliber of player. Last year's first-round pick, Emmanuel Forbes, could barely stay on the field for no other reason than shaky performance.
There's reason to believe Quinn can work. He connects well with players, and he's put together solid staffs in the past. It's just hard to look at this roster through the lens of his defensive philosophy and not be extremely worried.
8. Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas Raiders 
Antonio Pierce is by far the most challenging coaching hire to read. There's just so little to go off of, and the circumstances are unique, given Pierce's stint as the team's interim coach last season.
There's no denying the Las Vegas Raiders were a better team when Pierce took the reins from Josh McDaniels.
Before Pierce, the Raiders were floundering on both sides of the ball and stumbled to a 3-5 record. Pierce took that same team to a 5-4 finish, a run highlighted by a blowout win against the Chiefs on Christmas.
Pierce is lauded for how he connects with players. The team's two star players — Davante Adams and Maxx Crosby — advocated strongly for Pierce. You could feel that player connection in how the Raiders played, too.
The energy was higher on the field, and everything coming out of the locker room post-game was brighter than anything during McDaniels' run.
It's just hard to gauge what Pierce's value is beyond that and how he will grow into a "real" head coaching gig with so little coaching experience.
Pierce is neither an offensive nor defensive play caller. He only has two years of NFL coaching service, both as the Raiders inside linebacker coach.
That hurts Pierce not only in terms of experience and breadth of knowledge but also because he might not have the same connections to build a star-studded staff that other longer-tenured coaches have access to.
I want Pierce to do well. Las Vegas' surge under his guidance last season was remarkable, and players seem to rally around him. Objectively, though, his resume has a lot of blank spaces, and that leaves me feeling a little uneasy.
>> READ MORE: What Pierce Needs to Succeed in Vegas
