I Have a Coaching Favorite, and His Name is Gus Bradley

Lovie Smith interviewed with the Eagles on Thursday and left without a contract. At this point, unless there's a mystery candidate out there that we haven't heard of, it seems likely that the team is waiting on one of the playoff coordinators. Among that group, the guy I'm by far the most excited about is Gus Bradley, the Seahawks defensive coordinator. We've already read some of Monte Kiffin's praise for his former assistant. Here's more:

"He really is exceptional," Kiffin, now USC's defensive coordinator, said in a phone interview. "You could tell. He's not just a really, really smart coach; he's got a great personality. He connects with the players really well.

"He reminds me of (Steelers coach) Mike Tomlin. We hired Mike at 29-years-old out of the University of Cincinnati. It didn't take long to know that Mike was special, and I knew from Day 1 that Gus was special. He'll be a head coach in the NFL. He's got no panic. Some people do, it doesn't mean they're not really good coaches, but Gus, he's special. When he interviews, he'll knock your socks off. I'm not trying to pump him up, but I know what he is. He's put it on tape up there."

Let's go Falcons, let's go!

Head Coach Search Diary: When Will It End?

This Friday will be exactly 14 years to the day after Andy Reid was hired to be the last Eagles coach. Hopefully this search is also getting to the end. It's rapidly reaching the point where I'm glancing at Twitter every hour hoping to see one final rumor that ends it all.

Although it's been less than two weeks since Reid was fired, the Eagles have now entered the third stage of the search process. First was the wide open possibility of candidates, when the Eagles were connected to everyone and anyone. For example, they tried to interview all three coordinators with the Atlanta Falcons, just because they could. In the second stage, the Eagles honed in on what seemed like their top two choices, according to reports: Chip Kelly and Bill O'Brien. Both decided to return to the college ranks instead.

This has left the Eagles with a shrinking pool of candidates. You have your playoff coordinators, like Mike McCoy or Gus Bradley, who look promising but may not be available for weeks. You have your retread candidates, like Lovie Smith, who will interview on Thursday. And you have your wildcards, like Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly -- a last-dtich grasp into the receding college ranks.

It's tough to handicap at this point. I think Smith has as good a shot as anyone right now. He's a stoic, capable Andy Reid-type with experience running a winning franchise -- but almost exactly the opposite strategic strengths. While Reid needs a capable, independent defensive coordinator while he runs an always solid offense, Smith needs things the other way around. Luckily, he's been a fantastic defensive coach, finishing lower than 11th in DVOA only once since 2001. If you could pair him with the right offensive mind, perhaps even another recently fired head coach like Norv Turner or Mike Mularkey, you might have the makings of a smart staff.

Bradley is the younger and more exciting defensive head coach pick. He doesn't have Smith's experience, but no one has anything but great things to say about his future. For the Eagles' sake, I hope the Seahawks lose this weekend so that Bradley becomes available. Besides that, suppose there's always Bruce Arians to fall back on. That kind of selection unfortunately doesn't come with the experience of Smith or the upside of Bradley. Let's hope things don't get that desperate.

Photo from Getty.

Who Wants Some Nick Saban?

Sheil Kapadia:

“I don’t have any unfinished business in the NFL,” Saban said over the weekend, according to USA Today. “It’s not something I’m concerned about. It’s not even anything I want to do.”

Of course, what coaches say and what they do are often two different things. Saban is coming off back-to-back BCS titles and now has four overall (three in the past four seasons). Maybe he’s perfectly content staying in Tuscaloosa and going for a three-peat. Maybe he has his eyes on Bear Bryant’s record of six national titles. Maybe he figures he’s already had a taste of the NFL, and it wasn’t that great. Maybe.

It was impossible to come away from Alabama's destruction of #1 Notre Dame without acknowledging that Nick Saban is one of the top five football coaches anywhere in the country. I don't know if he wants to try the NFL again after a poor experience in Miami. Probably not, although no one seems to enjoy success less than Saban.

But the broader point is that the Eagles should try to get him. I like Mike McCoy and Gus Bradley and others on paper. They seem like they could be good head coaches. But with his third title in four years, Saban has proven that he is a level above everyone else in college football -- and he wasn't so bad with the Dolphins either. Whatever other personal quirks (read: demonic undertones) you have to embrace to hire him, there's a good chance Saban makes it worth your while.

As The Coaching Carousel Turns

Playoff football was upstaged this weekend in Philadelphia as the Eagles coaching search stretched into a second week. While the Packers took care of Joe Webb (remember him?) and RGIII suffered a horrific and entirely foreseeable injury, all eyes in Eagles-land were looking toward Chip Kelly.

Kelly flirted with three teams, taking interviews with the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, and the Eagles. Although the Browns have tried to distance themselves in recent reports, they clearly were all in on Kelly. Joe Banner made a full-court press to get him and came up short. The Eagles, while less committed to Kelly, certainly had him high on their list. They conducted a 9-hour lunch with Kelly on Saturday, which is easily the most absurd job interview description I've ever heard.

Ultimately, I think it's sad for the NFL that we won't have Kelly coaching in 2013. There's far too much talk about whether or not his offense could work at the professional level, instead of embracing the excitement of something new. Whether Kelly will ever coach in the NFL is now a serious question. He had his pick between three teams in different situations and chose to remain in Oregon instead. That's fine. There's a lot about the school that beats coming to Philly, especially in terms of control and lifestyle. There's no reason to draw broad conclusions about the Eagles job, as some have done, just because Kelly turned them down. I wish him all the best and hope that someday he finds a situation that feels comfortable. Those doors will always be open.

In other news, the Bills actually hired someone, Syracuse coach Doug Marrone. To me, he was a nice backup option, but nothing more. Like Steve Sarkisian, Marrone has turned around a school with awful recent history and made them respectable. He finished his four seasons at Syracuse with a 25-25 record, a major improvement from their 10-37 record under previous coach Greg Robinson. Still, the team plays in an increasingly makeshift Big East and his fourth season -- an 8-5 bowl-winning one -- wasn't so impressive. Marrone was offensive coordinator under Sean Payton with the Saints for three years prior, but how much of that offense was set by Payton? Fine hire, but I'm not sad at all that the Eagles didn't get a chance to interview him.

The Eagles are scheduling interviews with other people right now. Bruce Arians, the Colts offensive coordinator, missed that team's first round playoff loss because he was admitted to the hospital with nausea and headaches. Hopefully all is well with him, but I'm not in love with his candidacy either. As someone who started coaching football in the late 1970s, Arians is no young man (a decade older than Marty Mornhinweg). He has bounced around over the last decade as offensive coordinator in the NFL, but only started to get serious head coaching consideration this year when he filled in admirably for Chuck Pagano. Arians is riding high based on that goodwill, but the Colts were one of the worst playoff teams in recent memory. When you step back and dispassionately assess the situation, there's nothing that stands out as particularly promising about him..

Seattle defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, on the other hand, is a new name that sounds much more promising. The skinny on Bradley is simple. First, look at Sunday's game. After allowing 14 points early to the dangerous Redskins on Sunday, his innovative hybrid defense tightened up and didn't allow another point. No wonder the Seahawks are ranked fourth in the NFL in defensive DVOA. Second, read what Monte Kiffin had to say about Bradley when he recommended him to then-Seahawks coach Jim Mora Jr. back in 2009:

"Monte says, 'J.L., listen to me. I have got a guy here in Tampa that is one of, if not, the finest football coaches I have ever worked with. He's an A-plus. He's a once-in-a-lifetime coach. You need to talk to him,' " Mora recalled. "He said, 'J.L., this guy is special. You have to bring him in. You have to talk to him.' "

Finally, watch Bradley lay into his defense on the sideline. Wouldn't it be fun to have a coach with that much fire on the sidelines in Philly? The 46 year-old only arrived in the NFL in 2006 after spending 15 years in the FCS college ranks (i.e. Division I-AA), but everyone praises him. You can read much more about Bradley here and here and here. As long as he can hire an experienced offensive staff, there's much to like about his candidacy.

Photo from Getty.

The Case For The Right Retread Coach

Sometimes the new shiny thing is the most attractive option. Sometimes it just seems that way.

In the Eagles head coaching search, most people are firmly against hiring a retread coach, someone who's been around the block once already. Sure, there are Jon Gruden supporters and Bill Cowher supporters, but most people would rather get Chip Kelly or Mike McCoy or some other new name. I think the Eagles probably agree with this philosophy as well. They've been strongly linked to college coaches and other coordinators, but Mike Nolan is the only retread they've interviewed so far.

Nolan is a poor candidate, if you use history as any judge. As I detailed on Thursday, Bill Belichick is the only example of a recently hired coach who went on to have great success at his second job after posting a losing record in his first. Trying to find the one diamond in the rough is a losing proposition.

But that doesn't mean that all second-chance coaches are bad. 32 have been hired since 1999 (not including KC's hiring of Andy Reid today). Many of those hires were predicated on the idea that the coach learned something from their previous failure. But I wanted to look at only the ones who earned their second shot with solid performance the first time around. I isolated 16 who had winning records and won at least one playoff game at their previous job. That list looks much more promising. Here's how they did (or are doing) in their second chance:

Let me break it down by color. Five coaches marked in blue are clear success stories. Dungy, Coughlin, and Gruden all won Super Bowls with their second team. Holmgren came close. I suppose Parcells in Dallas is more debatable, but he reversed three straight 5-11 seasons, posted a winning record, and formed the foundation of the reasonably successful Wade Phillips era. Then you have the four green coaches, who are current and relatively new hires. Three of the four — Carroll, Shanahan, and Fox — are currently in the playoffs and look to have bright futures. Too early to tell with Jeff Fisher in St. Louis.

I marked another three coaches in orange as special cases. Gibbs and Shell each came back to coaching after over a decade sitting on the couch. Hiring coaches who have been away from the game for that long is unlikely to ever work, and I doubt the Eagles are interested in any such candidates. Schottenheimer is also in this special category because Dan Snyder unwisely fired him after a single season in Washington. He won 8 of his last 11 games that year, and went on immediately to the Chargers, where he posted a solid .588 winning percentage over five seasons (although no playoff victories).

That leaves only four hires, marked in red, who really turned out poorly: Green, Seifert, Mariucci, and Mora Jr. Any coach could end up just as bad. But I look at the success rate, including three Super Bowl-winning coaches and three current up-and-comers and wonder if the Eagles could find a similarly successful retread candidate. If they avoided the Nolans of the world in favor of coaches with a winning background, they might have a greater chance of a favorable outcome. You would be looking at people who have already proven they can run an organization, win games, and get to the playoffs — even if they may not have reached the promised land yet.

Who might that be? Well, Jon Gruden is an obvious example. He did this once already, and is widely hailed as one of the smartest football minds around. Lovie Smith is another potential candidate. I've heard few rumors about where he might end up, which is surprising considering he had only three losing seasons in nine years in Chicago, and has built top defenses everywhere he's been. Both have weaknesses as candidates, but as cool as it would be to snag a hotshot like Kelly, history suggests a retread like one of them could be just what the Eagles need.

Photo from Getty.

Bill O'Brien Plays The World, Stays At Penn State

Bill O'Brien was rightfully near the top of the Eagles head coaching list. But shortly after the Eagles secretly interviewed the Penn State coach yesterday, he dropped out of NFL consideration, at least for this year. In a brilliant piece of maneuvering, O'Brien parlayed interest from the Eagles, Browns, and others into a $1.3 million raise and power to restructure the athletic department (perhaps even choose the AD). Now he gets money, leverage, and praise from alumni, fans, players, and recruits who are happy to see him stay in Happy Valley.

Great scoop by David Jones of the Patriot News.

Head Coach Search Diary: Grab Bag

I started to profile each of the Eagles potential head coaching candidates, but at this point they're flying by too fast for me to write up a long post on each one. Plus, others have hopped on the bandwagon and done a lot of in-depth research already. Let's talk about some of the recently rumored candidates in more abbreviated fashion.

First up is the trio of Falcons assistants that quickly whittled down to just a pair. The Eagles' initial attempt to interview all of Atlanta's coordinators was bizarre. Both Dirk Koetter and Mike Nolan only arrived a year ago, so it wasn't about importing talent from a top organization. And then you add special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong in the mix for no apparent reason.

Koetter -- profiled here by Jason Brewer -- pulled out of the search process yesterday when he received a long-term contract extension to remain with the Falcons. All I can say is good riddance. The former college head coach at Boise State and Arizona State ran the Jaguars offense from 2007-2011 with nothing positive to show for it. The Falcons have a good offense this year, but they had essentially the same DVOA before Koetter showed up. Nothing special there.

Nolan, on the other hand, has commanded a number of top NFL defenses over the last 20 years as coordinator or head coach. He's intriguing on that level, but that level alone. When he finally was promoted to the top job with the 49ers in 2007, he flamed out. Over four seasons he managed only a pitiful .327 winning percentage. Tommy Lawlor discussed Nolan and the other Falcons candidates, and he concluded that the coach may have learned from his mistakes, like Bill Belichick before him. One point Tommy makes is that multiple coaches recently have won Super Bowls with their second teams: Belichick, Tony Dungy, Jon Gruden. I think that's quite unlikely in Nolan's case.

If you go back and look through all 32 retread candidates hired since 1999, you'll notice a striking pattern. The best second-chance coaches, while they may not have won a Super Bowl with their previous team, demonstrated some level of success. They had winning records overall. They won playoff games. Guys like Dungy, Gruden, John Fox, Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Pete Carroll -- they all finished their previous NFL job above .500 and with playoff games won. Belichick is actually the only successful retread coach I found who didn't have a winning record the first time through, although he did win one playoff game. Unless you think Nolan is a once-in-a-lifetime coach like Belichick, I wouldn't take those odds.

As to Armstrong, I'm sorry to say this but he seems like a classic Rooney Rule interview. He already interviewed with both the Bears and the Chiefs (right before Kansas City brought Andy Reid to town and seem likely to keep him there). What makes it especially obvious is that he's not even the best special teams coach out there. That would be Dave Toub of the Bears, who has managed to keep Chicago in the top ten special teams DVOA for all but one year since his arrival in 2004 (plus three number one overall finishes). The sad truth is that, even as offense dominates the league more and more, only one NFL offensive play caller is a minority. That limits the pool of potentially worthy Rooney Rule interviewees. 

Two other fringe candidates that were mentioned in connection with the Eagles, at least in passing, were Syracuse coach Doug Marrone (see Jason's profile) and Washington coach Steve Sarkisian. Both have turned downtrodden college football programs into at least respectable successes. Neither has a resume that screams home run, but they are offensive gurus with some NFL experience. Overall they seem like interesting Plan B choices, but nothing to get excited about right now. If the Eagles hired a defensive head coach though, luring one of these promising candidates back to the pros as a highly-paid offensive coordinator might be an interesting avenue to explore.

Mike McCoy, offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos, is reportedly scheduled to interview with the Eagles on Sunday. That's the first name on this list so far that I'm highly interested in. Jason did another breakdown for McCoy, and you can see what I mean. The 40 year-old played quarterback at the University of Utah and tried to bust into the NFL, CFL, and NFL Europe with little success. He ended up as an offensive assistant with the Panthers, and eventually became the quarterback coach for Jake Delhomme's best years. McCoy then jumped to Denver in 2009, where he worked under Josh McDaniels. Despite a poor overall record, the coaching duo actually made Kyle Orton look like a competent starter.

In 2011, John Fox came to the Broncos and kept McCoy on and gave him a chance to demonstrate some amazing offensive flexibility. After starting the season with Orton at the helm, McCoy masterfully rebooted the offense for Tim Tebow, using his (limited) strengths instead of forcing him into the old system. After that experiment ran its course, McCoy transitioned to working with Peyton Manning and helped the future Hall of Famer put up one of his best seasons at age 36. When Lurie talks about wanting a coach who can analyze the world of football, find "inefficiencies," and convert a team to take advantage, McCoy sounds like the type of coach he's talking about.

Photo from Getty

Howie's Saying The Right Things About Nick Foles

Howie Roseman, as reported by Sheil Kapadia:

“Nick [Foles] has a lot of promise, but I think the analogy I would draw there is that when you watch baseball, you see sometimes young starting pitchers go through the lineup one time and get them out pretty quickly because there’s no book on them. Or play their opponents, and the same thing. They go through the first time pretty well. So we’ve got to just make sure that we’re evaluating Nick, the full package of Nick. He’s got a lot of good tools. But that and the coach are obviously the two most important things for the franchise.”

Bingo.