The Draw Play

I HAVE RETURNED FROM THE ETHER TO ONCE AGAIN MAKE FUN OF FOOTBALL. I had a good time, thanks for asking. No, sadly, I had no fun foreign football fan experiences like last time.

I wanted to get this one out before vacation but the Saints took forever to officially announce Kellen Moore and then I didn’t find the time. So let’s do it now. Let’s discuss the new coaching changes for the 2025 season.

BEN JOHNSON – BEARS
One of the funniest things I saw from multiple Lions fans to start last year was how Ben Johnson wouldn’t leave. He already turned down Washington last year because he just loved Detroit so much. The only thing I could think to myself was “you poor naive souls, so new to success, you don’t know how this works do you”. Someone was going to back up the dump truck of money to Johnson, and he was going to leave. The only coordinators who “stay” are long-washed up guys who have been in the league forever and already failed at HC before, like Spags. No rising star is going to turn down the dump truck of money and power. The Bears provided the biggest dump truck this time and got the gem of the prospects.

I think Johnson is a good hire. The Bears were stupid to not fire Eberflush last season but getting the sharpest young offensive mind in the game to mentor their new QB was a good get. Simple as that. I do worry that Johnson might end up of the Brandon Staley or Mike McDaniel mold, a guy who is too smart and focused on his scheme to function properly as a head coach. But he could also end up the next Shanahan or McVay, scheme geniuses who are more than capable. Whatever he ends up being, this was worth the swing. I’m very excited to see if he can tame Caleb into a smart chaos missile instead of a wild pitch. Dennis Allen was picked up as defensive coordinator, and while Allen sucks ass as a head coach, he’s pretty good at coordinator, so that was also what I would consider a good move. He also managed to bring Antwaan Randle El with him for WR coach/assistant coach(a rising star), as well as Eric Bienemy for running backs and Al Harris for defensive backs. This is actually a pretty good staff, imo. If it wasn’t the Bears I’d be even more optimistic about this than I am now. There is of course, also the red flag of Press Taylor, passing game coordinator.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – 3, Dan Roushar, Eric Bienemy, & Richard Hightower

MIKE VRABEL – PATRIOTS
First off, Jerod Mayo was done dirty. Was he a good coach in his only season? No. He was pretty much ass. But to be handed the reigns as the successor to the greatest coach of our time, with a complete shit roster in an expected painful rebuild, well, what did you expect? He’s a first-time head coach. Head coaches also need time to develop. He wasn’t even a coordinator before this. Mayo needed time too. Instead, he got thrown in the wastebasket. He was not a good coach, but it still felt wrong to dump him so quickly for just another Belichick. I think Mayo should have gotten two years minimum. His firing felt kinda gross, shit as he was.

Is Mike Vrabel the most predictable hire of all time? The instant Mayo got let go basically everyone immediately pegged Vrabel as the guy. Vrabel is a good coach and the Titans were stupid to let him walk. He will improve the Patriots. How much? That’s the question. Kraft is becoming more exposed as yet another dumbshit owner and the older he gets the less patient he is likely to be, and Vrabel is a hard-nosed tough guy who already got into one power struggle. This might blow up. But for the meantime he’s likely much safer than Mayo was. He also brought back Josh McDaniels, the prodigal failson of Boston.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – 2, Jason Houghtaling, Terrell Williams

AARON GLENN – JETS
As far as vibes coaches go, Aaron Glenn seems awesome. He is a great example of a guy who developed as a coach too, he wasn’t the best in his early starts under Dan Campbell for Detroit. But he seems like a dude who took all of Dan Campbell’s BRICK WALL vibes and learned how to bring his own flavor to the table. I love Aaron Glenn as a coaching prospect and I do think there is a legitimate chance that he could be a better fit for the job of Head Coach than Ben Johnson, who might suffer from Coordinator brain. Of course, like with Johnson, he got hired by a badly run franchise known to ruin things, so we’ll see. My initial gut reaction was to love this hire for the Jets.

But as time wore on, I’ve cooled on it. Isn’t Glenn pretty much just Robert Saleh, again? A big hoo-rah defensive guy with great vibes? I think Saleh was overall an okay coach and was not the problem with the Jets during his tenure, but he also wasn’t anything spectacular and Saleh was a better defensive coordinator than Glenn ever was. I don’t recognize a single name on Glenn’s coaching staff except DC Steve Wilks, who is fine. Wait…I take that back, apparently noted Seahawks draft bust Aaron Curry is a linebackers coach now. Good for him.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – Just one, and he looks more like a pinkie to be honest, Eric Washington

LIAM COEN – JAGS
Liam Coen came into Jacksonville on a miraculous face-turn. He spurned the Jags because of Trent Baalke, and it was finally enough of a wake up call to Khan that Baalke needed to get let go. So Liam Coen enters the room as the man who saved the franchise from the demon in the walls. Then, in his introductory press conference, he wears an ill-fitting suit and (clearly nervous in front of the mic) he lets out the worst “Duvall” chant you will ever hear in your life. First impressions matter, and woof. He’s been able to laugh at himself for it in several interviews since, so I’ll give him credit for that. But still, listening to his failed Duvall makes my testicles shrivel up.

I don’t have a high opinion on this hire. Coen is now the second guy to get a HC job after one year coaching Baker Mayfield on a stud offense. Canales had more of a resume built up before he was taken by the Panthers last year (and his first season was promising), but Coen? He’s a McVay acolyte, with one year of experience as OC under McVay in 2022, aka the year they imploded after winning the Super Bowl. Coen seems like a guy who needed another year or two to prove he’s worthy of the gig and I think that is going to bite the Jaguars in the ass. He hired Shane Waldron as passing game coordinator, which, okay then. He hired Anthony Campanile to be DC, and his experience so far is mostly as a linebackers coach and being extremely Italian. I feel like Coen is going to be mediocre at best, hang around for a few years, and then all of this repeats after the Jags give up on Trevor.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – 2 solid thumbs, Derrick Leblanc, Luke Thompson. One incredible man has the shape but isn’t bald enough, Shaun Sarrett

KELLEN MOORE – SAINTS
I do not envy Kellen Moore. Moore has been a name to watch for several seasons now and he finally got his chance, and it’s a bad spot to be. The Saints are a mess. They are in perpetual cap hell, and the longer Mickey Loomis does his bullshit the worse it gets. Moore feels like a bridge, a guy put there solely to get them through to the other side of this disaster. I don’t think any coach who ended up here was going to be able to fix it. The Saints are not devoid of talent but this is just rotten circumstance and it’ll take one hell of a coaching job to pull them out of this hole. I wish him well, but I have a feeling he’ll be someone’s else’s solid OC in 2028. Fun fact, he hired Brandon Staley, his old boss on the Chargers, to be his DC. I often wonder how these bizarre coaching circumstances feel like for the guys doing them. Old dudes who used to be HCs forced to work under hot youngshot new HCs, sometimes guys they hired. Dudes swapping positions like this. It’s a weird job.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – maybe 1? Bo Davis? This is a very thumb-free staff and for that reason alone is doomed.

PETE CARROLL – RAIDERS
PETE FROM THE TOP ROPE! HE’S BACK! This one shocked me, I legitimately thought Pete was probably done. He’s old, I expected him to maybe act as a sort of consultant of sorts moving forward, but here he is, to fix the Raiders. Unlike Jerod Mayo, I do not think Antonio Pierce was done dirty. I will forever have a place in my heart for Pierce as the leader of the Giants linebackers during the 2007 run but Pierce was a terrible HC. He got the job by having cool guy vibes and being more likeable than Josh McDaniels, and beating the Chiefs once. He looked in over his head, he was stupid, he was cowardly with his decisions, and I’ve seen some backdoor hushed tones that he was fuckin lazy too.

Pete is an obvious upgrade but the question is long-term. Pete is old. He’s 73 (despite looking great for his age). There is no way he is the long-term answer here. How much longer can he reasonably be expected to coach in the first place? If he stays healthy and fit, he still might not last that long. But that aside, Pete rules. He’s a great players coach, and he’s already made a big move to get Geno Smith down to Vegas with him so they can presumably pick up where they left off in Seattle. That also solved the Raiders biggest problem. I like Pete and I hope he does well, and I can’t believe we get another chance to see the Carroll/Harbaugh rivalry in action. Also…POTATO CHIP KELLY IS BACK AS OC. Joe Philbin? I forgot about that guy! The Raiders are going to be fun as hell, even if they aren’t good.

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – 3 thumbs, Matt Capurro, Tom McMahon, and Joe Woods

BRIAN SCHOTTENHEIMER – COWBOYS
Here’s the laugher of the crop. The runt of the litter. The one fucked up cookie on the pan. The one toe you have that’s bent wrong and the nail is super gross and you always hope nobody looks at it. There is simply no way to call this a good decision. It might work out? Life is full of surprises. But if this works out pretty much everyone will be stunned.

The Cowboys fucked up all year. They just left McCarthy out there to languish in a lost season full of injuries and never approached him regarding a contract extension, despite apparently being invested in getting him back? The Cowboys never fired McCarthy. They finally tried to extend him at season’s end, well after most coaching vacancies had been filled. McCarthy rejected the contract and walked away and the Cowboys were left in a limbo of their own failure, too late to even interview a desirable candidate. They did toy with the idea of Deion Sanders, which would have been HILARIOUS, but it was likely nothing more than a press stunt. Instead Jerruh is a dumbshit goblin who is too high on his own farts to ever hire someone who won’t capitulate to his every whim. So who was left? Well, the offensive coordinator who has pretty much been mid since he entered the league, of course: Brian Schottenheimer.

Schottenheimer has basically always been a bleh OC. He’s peaked at middling. His best season is like a really well-cooked plate of plain white rice with no seasoning. There’s a reason he hasn’t sniffed a head coaching job at any point in the last decade. He’s just not that good. He is, at his best, serviceable. I don’t think he’s as bad as the jokes will portray him as, but he’s not good. He never pulled off anything like what Liam Coen managed to do last season. And there is no evidence he is a good fit for the head coaching position. He was hired because he will say yes to the senile old bat nesting in the owners box. For that reason alone I expect we see him there, clapping his ass off, for another 3 seasons at minimum. If Dak and CeeDee stay healthy and the Cowboys don’t fuck with Micah Parsons (they very well could lose him to shenanigans) the Cowboys will still have enough talent to be annoying. But the ceiling now might be a wildcard exit at best. Just an all-around fuckup by Dem Boys. Great stuff. Matt Eberflush is the DC now, too!

HOW MANY THUMBS ON THE COACHING STAFF – Maaaaaaaaybe 1? Steve Shimko? Pathetic.

OTHER NOTABLE COACHING CHANGES
Texans fired OC Bobby Slowik, who had a major fall from grace after 2023’s big breakout campaign. The Texans offense fell apart in 2024 and I don’t think it was fair to put all the blame on Slowik, but he didn’t help himself with his playcalling or adjustments to try and deal with the injuries and problems. He’s now on the Dolphins. The Texans hired new OC Nick Caley, a guy DeMeco Ryans knew from the Rams.

The Bengals fired DC Lou Anarumo. Another fall from grace from a once-promising head coaching candidate. The Bengals defense last year was an atrocity and you could blame them for pretty much everything. Anarumo is now the DC for the Colts, a franchise likely to fire everyone by the end of 2025, so tough luck out there buddy. The Bengals replaced him with Al Golden, who is mostly known for his stint as HC of the Miami Hurricanes.

After being completely gutted by the hiring wave, the Lions replaced Johnson with John Morton and Glenn with Kelvin Sheppard, both relatively unknown guys who have served under Campbell for a time. Big ups to Morton though, who is a Bonafide Thumb.

WHO DO WE THINK GETS FIRED IN 2025? My guesses as to who is on the hot seat:
Brian Daboll, Giants – I think it’s almost a miracle he kept his job in the first place. It’ll take a miracle for next season to not be his end.
Brian Callahan, Titans – They fired Vrabel and replaced him with this fucking dud, and they are drafting #1. Callahan might have some leeway with a new draft pick but do not be surprised if his unremarkable ass is grass. The most forgettable coach in the league.
Shane Steichen, Colts – The Colts have been of no value since Steichen was hired, and last year ended in disaster when the Colts let Drew Lock knock them out of the playoff hunt. Steichen was going to live or die by Anthony Richardson, who sucks, and took a nap.
Jonathan Gannon, Cardinals – I’m of the belief that coaches should (with exceptions) get 3 years to prove themselves. 3 years should be enough time to climb out of a deep hole and at least show that you are going in the right direction. Gannon could be forgiven for last year. This year was not flattering to him. If the Cardinals look the same next year, he probably deserves the boot.
Mike McDaniel, Dolphins – McDaniel’s spice has gone milder every year since his big debut. The Dolphins are total ass without Tua, and mostly just a bit above average with him. If they struggle, again, I think McDaniel is in hotter water than people are willing to discuss.
Dave Canales, Panthers – A long shot, but not out of the question. I think Canales did okay last year, but Bryce Young still sucks. Ignore the fact that he improved from utter filth and look at him with a wider lens: he’s still mostly ass. If Bryce doesn’t continue to improve, Canales is at the whims of the worst owner in the sport who has already fired like 6 guys, which could spell a premature end.