Before he was named the Jets’ head coach last year, Robert Saleh had never held the position at any level. If there was one thing that surprised him in his first season, it was how often he needed to do things that had nothing to do with game-planning — from meetings to press conferences to public-facing events required of the face of the franchise.
“The administrative part is probably the biggest thing in terms of making the adjustment with a constant to-do list that you’ve got instead of being able to watch tape,” he said last week, where he was coaching the Senior Bowl. “But it’s a blessing. It’s one of 32, so I’m one of those guys, I count my blessings every day. I’m very fortunate.”
So is Matt Eberflus. The Bears hired him late last month to be their 17th head coach. Like Saleh, he had never held a head coaching role at any point in his career.
In the NFL, that’s not disqualifying. Far from it.
In fact, the last six Super Bowls — counting Sunday’s Bengals-Rams matchup at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles — have featured five different first-time head coaches who were in their first three years with their teams.
The Bengals’ Zac Taylor — who just five years ago was the Rams’ assistant wide receivers coach — is at the end of his third season with the Bengals. A quarterbacks guru by trade, he coached the position for the Dolphins and University of Cincinnati before joining the Rams in 2017. The next year, he was named their quarterbacks coach.
Sean McVay, his boss with the Rams, reached the Super Bowl four years ago in his second season as a head coach. He’ll return Sunday after beating the 49ers and Kyle Shanahan, who three years ago made the Super Bowl in his second season.
Four years ago, Doug Pederson’s Eagles won the Super Bowl in his second season. The year before that, the Falccons’ Dan Quinn lost the Super Bowl at the end of his second year. Pederson is the only one of the five who’d been a head coach at any level before their NFL gig — and that was at Calvary Baptist Academy, a high school in Shreveport, La.
The number of first-time coaches reaching the title game are unique to the NFL. In the same time period, two first-time managers reached the World Series in their first three seasons: the Nationals’ Dave Martinez and the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts. The NBA has had three such coaches reach the championship the last six seasons: the Raptors’ Nick Nurse, the Warriors’ Steve Kerr and the Cavaliers’ Tyronn Lue. Kerr made the Finals in each of his first five seasons, Lue in each of his first three.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell got his first head coaching job a year ago, though he was an interim head coach with the Dolphins in 2015. Speaking at the Senior Bowl, where he too was coaching, Eberflus’ defense speaks for itself even if he doesn’t know the Bears’ new head coach well.
“I know what his system is about,” he said. “I know what he believes in. And I know where he came from. So I know he’s a helluva coach. He’s very demanding. It’s all effort, energy, smart football. It will be … it’s gonna be tough.”
The good news, for Campbell and the Bears alike, is that experience isn’t a prerequisite to leading a team to the Super Bowl.
“There’s going to be four, five teams that you know there’s a damn good chance they’re going to be [in the playoffs],” Campbell said. “Other than that, anything can change. You don’t know how your schedule’s gonna be laid out, you don’t know what’s gonna happen with the injuries. You don’t know how much you develop or they develop, or a lack of developing. You take it as it comes. All we gotta do is improve as a roster and keep developing. And anything can happen.”
