NFL Coaching Carousel: The NFC North Gets Active

It’s that time in the NFL season when teams try to take a look into the future and see who will be their franchise leader. Going into this offseason, there were seven openings for head coaches alone, with plenty of coordinator and general manager positions open.

This offseason has already started with plenty of moves. The Patriots were in the news for multiple reasons, Bill Belichick taking a job with the University of North Carolina and firing Jerod Mayo to replace him with Mike Vrabel. Furthermore, it was announced that former Patriot Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels will return to fill the same role under the Vrabel regime.

But that was only the start of it because two head coaching vacancies were filled this week alone, and both of them are former Lions.

Aaron Glenn has been named the head coach of the New York Jets, replacing interim boss Jeff Ulbrich and possibly bringing in a new era for the Jets as he has plenty of decisions to make regarding the veterans on this team such as Aaron Rodgers, Hassan Reddick and Davante Adams, but also there is a question of whether former Ohio State standout Garrett Wilson wishes to remain in New York.

His friend, and former teammate Ben Johnson also got a job, with the Lions’ rival Chicago Bears. After being highly regarded and sought after by teams such as the Washington Commanders, Johnson decided to remain with the Lions for the season, hoping to win a Super Bowl before leaving the Lions. This did not happen as they fell to the hands of those very Commanders in the divisional round of the playoffs

Now, Johnson inherits an offense with a former first-overall pick, Caleb Williams, four-time 1000 receiver DJ Moore and top-ten pick WR Rome Odunze. Along with their talented secondary with former All-Pro Jaylon Johnson and former Penn State star Jaquan Brisker, Ben Johnson has plenty of tools to build with and possibly return the Bears to relevance and competition.

With these hirings, there are just four vacancies yet to be filled. These vacancies are the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Las Vegas Raiders and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

For the Saints, they have called back Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver for a second interview as they are also talking to former Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy.

On that note, the Cowboys, who waited over a week to decide whether to fire McCarthy or not now find themselves without many real head coaching candidates and dwindling time to decide the direction of the franchise. Frontrunners for the job are now former Cowboys offensive coordinator and current Eagles OC Kellen Moore, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders or current Cowboys OC Brian Schottenheimer.

The Jaguars have had a tumultuous offseason already, it was expected for a long time that Doug Peterson would be fired but Shad Khan, Jags owner, had made the initial decision to retain general manager Trent Baalke to fire him after Buccaneers OC Liam Coen declined the head coach offer to stay in Tampa Bay. Now the Jags are pivoting to former Jets head coach Robert Saleh and current Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo among other candidates such as Todd Monken, Brian Flores and Patrick Graham.

Lastly, the Raiders, who fired Antonio Pierce after a season in which they finished 4-13. The Raiders have turned around and created a shopping list of highly respected former NFL head coaches such as Super Bowl champion Pete Carroll and NFC champion Ron Rivera among the aforementioned candidates, Monken, Spagnuolo and Saleh.

These teams will be certain to address their needs as quickly as they can with the combine and draft just around the corner. Of the four teams left there is plenty of competition for the same candidates so we will have to wait and see how the rest of the offseason unfolds with player signings, trades, and coaching hires.

Massimo Manfra is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email mgm6116@psu.edu.