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From time to time, but not very often, former special-teams coordinators become NFL head coaches. When it happens, there’s usually some other gig that the coach has performed before making the next step, like John Harbaugh spending a year as defensive backs coach in Philadelphia before becoming the Ravens head coach in 2008. Or Joe Judge serving as both special-teams coordinator and receivers coach in New England for a season, before becoming head coach of the Giants.
Yes, one of those worked out and one didn’t. But isn’t that how it usually goes for offensive and defensive coordinators who become head coaches?
Special-teams coordinators often get the interim label when the head coach is fired. They rarely end up as the permanent head coach — even when they deserve the job, like Rich Bisaccia did after taking the Raiders to the playoffs after Jon Gruden left the Raiders during the 2021 season.
So why aren’t special-teams coordinators more regularly in the mix for head-coaching jobs? I posed that question to the latest special-teams coordinator to become an interim head coach, Darren Rizzi of the Saints, after his team upended the Falcons in his debut.
“I honestly believe that the number one reason is that organizations, GMs, owners, they want to win the press conference,” Rizzi told me by phone after the 20-17 win. “They want to make a splash, get the fans excited and it’s hard to get the fans excited — I mean, you saw what Joe Judge went through right but for every Joe Judge there’s a John Harbaugh and Bill Belichick.”
Yes, Belichick spent nearly a decade as a special-teams coach. But he then became an excellent defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells with the Giants from 1985 through 1990, which resulted in his initial head-coaching job in Cleveland.
The problem is that the introduction of the new coach is…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/special-teams-coordinators-ever-serious-050059158.html
Author : ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
Publish date : 2024-11-13 05:00:59
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