So Your Team Hired A New Coach Part 1

BY ADAM GREENE

We didn’t have quite the coaching carousel we expected as the 2019-20 NFL season came to a close. Some guys that definitely should have been shot out the airlock like the Atlanta Falcons’ Dan Quinn and Detroit Lions’ Matt Patricia got a last-minute call from the governor. Anthony Lynn’s seat never even got hot for the Los Angeles Chargers.

Nope, for whatever reason those teams all decided to stick with their current coaching regimes and completely waste another season.

As for the teams that did make a change, let’s see how they did.

BEST HIRE
RON RIVERA, WASHINGTON REDSKINS

The second this was announced the entire fortunes and future of the Washington Redskins changed. There’s some talent there, but Washington is still a few years away from seriously competing. Luckily for them, they’re in the NFC East so that might not matter.

A coach like Rivera should have never been on the market in the first place and the fact that Dan Snyder, of all people, got this deal done quick and painlessly should give his abused fanbase a little hope that real changes are coming.

There are huge holes on the Skins depth chart, but they might have their quarterback settled, which is something. They definitely have the coach and the draft capital, picking No. 2 overall, to get significantly better in a hurry. This year all it took was nine wins to take the NFC East and, considering the next coach on our list, that might be all you need for a while.

Upgrade over previous coach?
Significant. Jay Gruden should have been fired years ago and, really, should have never been hired as any team’s head coach to begin with. Rivera not only deserves the job, but is a legitimate good coach that’s proved it on the field, building a Super Bowl team in similar conditions.

DUMBEST HIRE
MIKE MCCARTHY, DALLAS COWBOYS

When we look back at this years’ coaching hires down the road, the fact that teams even interviewed Mike McCarthy, let alone that one hired him, will seem astounding to those future generations with their jet packs and moonbases and actual breathable United States atmospheres.

I’ve already written at length what a disastrous choice this was for the Cowboys’ franchise so there’s no reason to rehash all of it.

Truthfully, there was no reason for any of us to be surprised that Jerry Jones screwed this up. He’s hired eight head coaches since he bought the team four facelifts ago. Of those eight chances, he’s nailed two of them. And each were easy, no-brainer hires.

The first was, of course, Jimmy Johnson fresh off an historic run at the University of Miami. He was the hottest head coaching prospect on the planet in 1989. Everybody wanted to hire him. He won, as expected, and was just elected to the NFL Hall of Fame.

The second was Bill Parcells in 2003. Parcells, also in the Hall of Fame, was so good at coaching NFL football he could basically pick his job and decided to spend three years in Dallas before calling quits for good.

Every other guy has been degrees of awful. Barry Switzer did win a Super Bowl with Johnson’s players, only it took him an extra year to do it. As soon as those players started aging and needing to be replaced, suddenly Switzer’s “coaching” didn’t seem to work.

He was followed by Chan Gailey and Dave Campo. After Parcells you had Wade Phillips, who was fired in the middle of the 2010 season and replaced by Jason Garrett. Garrett, of course, held onto the job until a few weeks ago. That’s not exactly a string of Hall of Fame coaches, regardless of the success that Phillips and Gailey had as coordinators.

Jerry Jones, simply, does not know what he is doing.

Upgrade over previous coach?
No. And imagine writing that word down after that question. You’ve let Jason Garrett go and you hired a guy worse than him? Unreal.

Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter!

BetOnline.ag on Instagram–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!