The regular season is over, the postseason is here, Black Monday has come and gone, and the Patriots already have a new coach.
As of Friday morning, we now have seven available NFL head coaching jobs, but at least eight NFL franchises will have a new head coach next season, with that aforementioned position in New England filled almost as quickly as Bill Belichick stepped down. Heck, it was originally seven coaching vacancies when I first wrote this, then the Belichick/Patriots news broke. That's how quickly things can move here.
The right head coach hire can turn a franchise around in a hurry — look at what DeMeco Ryans did in Houston this year, or at the consistent success Kyle Shanahan has found in San Francisco — while the wrong head coach can doom an entire season. See also the teams on this list.
So which of the seven remaining available NFL head coaching jobs is the best one on the market? And which of the presumed available coaching candidates looks like the best fit? And where did the Patriots rank after Belichick stepped down?
There's a surprise at the top of the list, but let's start at the bottom.
(Editor's note: We had the Patriots ranked as the sixth "best" coaching job available before the news New England would hire Jerod Mayo — which was also Brandon's pick as the best fit for the Patriots in his story on the best fits for each NFL head coach job opening.)
TIER III — OBJECTIVELY BAD JOBS, BUT HEY, THERE'S ONLY 32
7. Las Vegas Raiders
It's pretty tough to get excited about the Raiders. Ownership is cheap and has proven to meddle and cut corners where possible, so that's a huge red flag right out of the gates.
The Raiders have one of the worst QB situations in the league. Jimmy Garoppolo was never going to be the answer, and there's little reason to think Aidan O'Connell is anything at this point. Las Vegas picks 13th in the 2024 NFL Draft, which is too low to get a top QB this season after Antonio Pierce's push to end the year.
What talent does this roster have that will matter the next time the Raiders do? Davante Adams is 31. Josh Jacobs turns 26 next month and took a ton of mileage the last couple of seasons. Maxx Crosby is 26, so he's one answer.
There isn't much else, though. This roster is barren and without answers. Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham did a great job with this defense in the back half of the season, but that may not carry over unless you just run it back with him and Pierce.
Also, don't forget the competition in the division. Andy Reid won't be around forever, but Patrick Mahomes will be. Justin Herbert will figure out how to win one of these years. The Broncos are a bit of a mess but found some solutions this year and are pretty much always competitive.
The Raiders are the fourth team in this division and have been for a while.
Josh McDaniels, Jon Gruden, Jack Del Rio, Tony Sparano, Dennis Allen, Hue Jackson, Tom Cable, Lane Kiffin, Art Shell, Norv Turner, Bill Callahan … the list of Raiders coaching corpses is long and ugly.
There are only 32 NFL head-coaching gigs, and this is certainly one of them.
6. Carolina Panthers
Maybe the Panthers should rank last.
The ownership situation is terrible, maybe the worst in the league now. The offense is barren of talent at the skill positions. The offensive line is a mess. The defense has some talent but keeps underperforming.
And then there's Bryce Young.
Unlike most of the teams on this list, there's no empty hole at quarterback. And in this case, that might actually be worse. The new head coach is stuck with Young for at least a few couple more years, whether they want Young or not.
I'm choosing to believe, at least a little, despite the horrid rookie season. We've seen recently how poorly rookie seasons can go for guys like Trevor Lawrence and Jared Goff in awful situations before they were redeemed the following season with a coaching change. (Apparently, we'll see it again a year from now, since Chicago stupidly retained lame duck Matt Eberflus to develop its new No. 1 pick QB after moving on from its OC, DC, and inevitably, QB.)
I wasn't a huge believer in Young, but you don't get drafted No. 1 overall without a lot of folks believing in you. There's no solution to Young's slight stature, but he's a talented player with a live, accurate arm and plenty to like with a history of success at Alabama.
He was objectively awful this year but didn't have any weapons or help on the field or on the sidelines. His book is not yet written.
Carolina is in a bad division. If Young is even vaguely good, it's pretty easy to see him being the best quarterback in this division by the end of next season.
Of course, Carolina doesn't have the No. 1 draft pick it earned this year. The Panthers also don't have next year's second-rounder from the same Young trade.
And again, the ownership is actively embarrassing — but at least David Tepper has plenty of money.
This is a long-term project, and your plans better include Bryce Young.
TIER II — YEAH, THAT'LL DO JUST FINE
5. Tennessee Titans
You can make the case for moving the Titans up a couple of spots, and you can make a case for dropping them into the bottom tier.
The good: Tennessee has a mostly blank slate and the second-most cap room in the league. The team appears to be leaning into a full-on reset, which buys job security and a few years to figure things out. The organization has a strong history and has been stable and competitive. The brand is good.
The bad: It's a truly blank slate. The Titans have the worst offensive line in the league. The defense cratered, traded away some of its top names and will lose others to free agency or aging curves soon. Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill are past their primes and ready to move on. How many names on this roster will be on the next competitive Titans team? The list is awfully short.
The tiebreaker probably comes down to what you think of Will Levis.
I wasn't high on Levis in the draft, and though he has a cannon for an arm and made some big-time throws as a rookie, he also had a consistently terrible Success Rate and couldn't move the chains.
I'm not convinced Levis is the long-term answer, which now means you might not have a quarterback either — in a division where you'll be facing Trevor Lawrence, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson six times a season for the next decade. That lack of quarterback clarity combined with the trio of young quarterbacks already in the division make this job much cloudier than it seems at first.
Tennessee also traded away its third- and fifth-round picks in the upcoming draft. The Titans are a long way away and don't have a path to good answers anytime soon. They may have to keep going down for another year or two before they can start rebounding back up.
4. Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks feel like a middle-of-the-road opening after the surprise announcement that Pete Carroll is out.
The offense has plenty of good weapons with Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet at running back and DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxson Smith-Njigba at receiver. The offensive line was better than expected last year but saw its youth fall off in a big way this season.
The defense needs a fresh start. Devon Witherspoon looks like a star playmaker at corner and Julian Love had a breakout season at safety. The secondary is young and talented but was also a Carroll specialty, so we'll see how that holds up without him. The front seven is going to need a complete overhaul.
Seattle's cap isn't great since the Seahawks were supposed to contend this season, and the team traded away a second-round pick for Leonard Williams. The cupboard is relatively bare.
And then there's Geno Smith. What do you make of Smith? The answer is probably that he's fine. He's a capable at least average-starter-not-signed-to-long-term money, a perfectly fine solution for now, but his presence probably also keeps Seattle just competitive enough to not bottom out and find a long-term solution at quarterback.
The division is tough. San Francisco is a juggernaut, and the Rams and Cardinals are young teams on their way up.
Carroll's shoes will be very difficult to fill. He never won fewer than seven games in 14 seasons with the Seahawks and finished above .500 in all but three of them. The next coach is replacing a legend.
3. Atlanta Falcons
There's plenty to like about the Falcons.
Owner Arthur Blank has a ton of money and has been very willing to spend.
The offense has a ton of talent. Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts were back-to-back-to-back top-10 draft picks and have all looked the part in limited opportunity. Additionally, the offensive line has some big-time talent and was one of the best-ranked in the league entering the season.
The defense overperformed under DC Ryan Nielsen. The unit is on the older side but has real talent like Jessie Bates, A.J. Terrell and others.
The division is soft, too. The NFC South was the worst in football this season. Atlanta was a disaster basically all season and still had a chance to host a playoff game with an hour left in its season and the Saints and Bucs are both old and headed in the wrong direction.
So, what's missing?
The right head coach and any semblance of a quarterback solution.
Desmond Ridder ain't it, and Taylor Heinicke never was. The Falcons were even vaguely competent quarterback play away from coasting to a division title this season. Instead, the No. 8 draft pick is just low enough to leave Atlanta without a great path to a viable option.
Trade for Justin Fields? Sign Kirk Cousins? Bring in a veteran like Ryan Tannehill and gamble on developing someone like Michael Penix later in the draft? All are possible ideas, but all are also stop-gap solutions.
TIER I — THE BEST JOBS ON THE MARKET
2. Los Angeles Chargers
On the one hand, the Chargers have an old, injury-prone roster laden with talent that never adds up to the sum of its parts with middling draft picks, an awful salary cap situation, garbage home-field advantage and a terrible cheapskate owner.
On the other hand, Justin Herbert.
That first paragraph should be enough to doom the Chargers to the bottom tier of the list and maybe last place, but Herbert changes everything.
When I did my opening-day quarterback rankings this season, Herbert ranked fourth at the bottom of a tier with Josh Allen and Joe Burrow. That was probably a little aggressive in hindsight, especially that tier, but Herbert is a top-five quarterback talent and should be a perennial MVP candidate.
That alone outweighs all the other bad because there are only so many top-five quarterbacks in the world — five, as it turns out — and quarterback is the most valuable position in team sports.
The Chargers have a flawed roster. The team lacks leadership and direction and has underachieved for what feels like decades. There are problems up and down this franchise.
But if you get the right head coach plus Herbert, that can cover all the other sins. And that makes the Chargers second on the list, and maybe even first.
1. Washington Commanders
Holy cow, the Washington football team won a thing. How did we get here?
Well, these are not Dan Snyder's Commanders — and that's already an overwhelmingly positive start.
Josh Harris represents a clean start for this team. He's a rich owner with a good product in another league (the NBA) now using smart, proven guys from that league (Bob Myers) to help build his new NFL toy. Harris has a ton of money and will be happy to invest in his team. He wants to win, and he'll pay to get there.
The vibes for this team have been awful for so long, and we're so close to a full-on exorcism. The Snyder regime is gone. Ron Rivera and his staff are gone. The racist team name is gone, and the bad new team name might be gone soon enough too.
Look how lifeless the Houston Texans were a year ago, and look how many good vibes that team has now, in the playoffs just one year later.
And how did the Texans get there? They hired a hot young coach and they used the No. 2 pick of the draft on a star quarterback.
Well, the Commanders had the upcoming No. 2 pick gifted to them down the stretch as the teams around them kept winning games while Washington's defense kept getting torched.
The two most important things an NFL head coach can have are a great quarterback and great ownership. Washington appears to have one and should have the other when it drafts Caleb Williams or Drake Maye this spring, and it's got good receivers for the new quarterback to throw to, too.
The Commanders also have the most cap room in the league, and they have excellent draft capital — the second pick in each round, plus an extra second and an extra third after trading away Montez Sweat and Chase Young.
Washington is set to add an absolute influx of talent to its roster, starting with the most important position, in a division that hasn't seen a repeat division winner in two decades.
Did somebody say worst to first?
And for the sake of posterity, here's how we evaluated the job opening in New England:
6. New England Patriots
It'll be a new era in New England as the Patriots enter a season without Bill Belichick at the helm for the first time this century.
It's hard to replace a legend — but you don't have to tell Patriots fans that. Just look at what's happened since Tom Brady left.
The Patriots are a keystone NFL franchise now because of what Belichick and Brady have done, but already that luster has slipped since Brady's departure. New England won only four games this season, none by even a full touchdown. The Patriots went 29-38 the last four seasons without Brady, a mostly irrelevant footnote on the league.
What exactly are you building around in New England? The offense is a disaster. A once dominant offensive line has fallen apart and barely looks salvageable, and the Patriots might have the worst offensive weapons in the entire league. There's also nothing at QB. Bailey Zappe barely even looks like a backup, and Mac Jones turned into a pumpkin this season, the type that rots and gets smashed by teenagers a week after Halloween.
The defense seems better, but is it? Rookie CB Christian Gonzalez and DT Christian Barmore look like keepers. Guys like Kyle Dugger, Jahlani Tavai, and Jabrill Peppers seem like great pieces, but how will that hold up without Belichick around? He's been the master of turning island of misfit toys like these guys into stars, but we've repeatedly seen what Patriots look like when they leave Belichick and New England. It's not been pretty.
There are precious few pieces to work with in New England, which could mean a long rebuilding curve ahead — especially in a division featuring Josh Allen, Mike McDaniel, and the league's best defense the last two seasons.
Is there a quarterback in the fold? Maybe. The Patriots pick third in the draft, so that probably depends on your opinion of LSU Heisman QB Jayden Daniels, unless one of the top two shockingly slip. Daniels may not be the guy New England wants, or may not fit with a new coach's playing style, and the coach may not necessarily get that choice.
In theory, Daniels plus the third most salary cap and a few of those intriguing young pieces could chart an interesting long-term rebuilding project. But will fans wait that out? Is that what ownership wants? Or will they expect to win now?
It's hard to replace a legend. The next New England coach might just end up the bridge to the real next Patriots coach, if they're not careful.
