John Clayton, ESPN Senior Writer 18y

Owners to blame for coaching issues

Sometimes, NFL teams act as though they are brain-dead.

That's the only way I can sum up this head coach hiring season. Eight of the worst 11 teams changed coaches. In total, 10 teams changed coaches, and if the Raiders end up hiring Ken Whisenhunt of the Steelers, eight of those teams hired first-time head coaches.

No one thought through this process for so many reasons:

• The way the owners went for fresh blood and stifled the hiring of minority coaches.
• Though it created a short-term savings for the average salary of a head coach, it only made the hiring of high-priced coordinators costlier and more important.

• It made finding capable coordinators to replace those coaches who were promoted even harder.

This is not to say the idea of recycling former head coaches into new jobs is the best way to do things, but eight first-time head coaches? Give me a break. Three coaches with winning records -- Mike Martz, Mike Sherman and Jim Fassel -- didn't get head coaching jobs, and two coaches who entered the season with winning records -- Steve Mariucci and Jim Haslett -- lost their jobs.

Firing a head coach often is an emotional decision. Fans want change after any losing season. That's football. But it's up to the owners and general managers to get past the emotion and do the right thing. That's why you have to look at this January and question the wisdom of the 10 teams involved in the coaching carousel.

History tells us that half of the first-time coaches will fail. That means four of the teams who hired a first-time coach are going to be looking for a new coach in two or three years. Because history tells us teams do the opposite in their next head coaching hire, four of those teams will be looking for seasoned, experienced head coaches.

The last NFL youth coaching movement was in 1999. Six first-time head coaches were hired. Three succeeded -- Brian Billick in Baltimore, Andy Reid in Philadelphia and Dick Jauron in Chicago. The failures were Chris Palmer in Cleveland (5-27), Mike Riley in San Diego (14-34) and Gunther Cunningham in Kansas City (16-16), although it could be argued Cunningham wasn't a failure. He lost his job when Dick Vermeil became available.

Two of those teams -- the Browns and Chiefs -- made head coaching changes after two seasons.

The argument here is not that coordinators or bright position coaches shouldn't get a head coaching job. The argument is the NFL isn't structured to replace an average of seven head coaches a year.

Owners have to take the blame for this. Owners tailored the tampering rules so that teams can reject interview requests for position coaches who have contracts, even if they are being offered an interview for a coordinators job that would be a step up. That slows the development of qualified position coaches into qualified coordinators.

They aren't thinking clearly. They've created a system in which most of the head coaches are hired in a 20-day window after the regular-season finale, and they've locked up so many of the assistant coaches and coordinators to contracts that some of the new coaches are having trouble filling their staffs.

Obviously, the negative buzz about the fact that no minority head coaches have been hired (excluding Herm Edwards' move from the Jets to the Chiefs) is warranted, but the bigger problem is the lack of a better plan for develop minority coordinators. Clearly, more minority offensive coordinators are needed. But even minority defensive coordinators are held back because of the mass firings of coaching staffs.

Think about it for a second. If a third of the league's coaching staffs are fired, good minority coordinators are going down with those staffs. Bills defensive coordinator Jerry Gray was a legitimate head coaching candidate this offseason and was about to interview for the Houston job when Mike Mularkey fired him and his defensive staff. Though Mularkey kept the news of Gray's firing quiet, everyone knew he was out. It killed Gray's chances of getting a head coaching job.

It's hard to give a head coaching job to a coordinator who has just been fired. Ted Cottrell had no chance of getting a head coaching job after the Vikings fired the entire staff an hour after Minnesota's season-ending victory over the Bears. He got an interview, but the Vikings weren't going to hire him. Ron Rivera, Tim Lewis and Donnie Henderson got interviews but no jobs. Still, they are young coordinators and should have more chances.

The biggest laugh of the week came when commissioner Paul Tagliabue expressed concern about the skyrocketing salaries of coaches and its impact on the collective bargaining agreement. Tagliabue is right in expressing that point because it's real. Since the players are getting 65 percent of the revenue shared among the owners, the owners will lose money if the coaching salaries get too high.

The reason salaries are increasing is because owners have a quick trigger finger for firing coaches, and that's driving up salaries. Put on your business hat for a second. With increased revenues, salaries tend to rise. Each new coach tends to get a little more than the coach with the same experience level hired before him. Just in the past year, the starter salary for a first-time head coach has jumped from $1.4 million to between $1.6 million and $2 million a year.

Also, by making five offensive coordinators -- six if Whisenhunt goes -- head coaches, the owners gave other experienced offensive coordinators more negotiating power. Al Saunders' $2-plus million salary as offensive coordinator of the Redskins topped the salaries paid to the seven new head coaches. You can blame that on the Redskins, but Saunders would have gotten at least $1.5 million to be a coordinator from a couple of other teams.

Owners are creating the market by constantly turning over coaching staffs and putting themselves in the market for new coaches who will cost more to hire. That's bad business.

If four or five of these first-time coaches fail within two years, those same owners wind up paying $2.3 million to $2.5 million for the first-time coach, and more than likely, spending $3 million or more for a more experienced coach. They just aren't thinking.

Remember, the numbers haven't changed. Half of this year's first-time head coaches will likely get fired. That means three or four are doomed. To make 10 coaching changes at a time when most of the qualified assistants are locked into long-term deals is insane.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

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