Welcome to our 2023 future head coaches list, an annual exercise in which we give you an exhaustive list of future candidates. Last year, we had our largest roster ever at a time when there weren’t a ton of job openings. Just five teams—the Broncos, Colts, Cardinals, Texans and Panthers—changed coaches last year. Two of those jobs, in Carolina and Denver, went to second-chance candidates with whom we were already intimately familiar.
This was something of a prediction come true by those with knowledge of the coaching carousel’s inner workings: Teams were craving experience after the high-profile ouster of Urban Meyer in Jacksonville and the far less divisive (but still disappointing) end to the Matt Rhule tenure in Carolina. Since then, Doug Pederson’s steady hand in Jacksonville, I would imagine, has not dissuaded owners from looking heavily at a pool of second-chance head coaches. Our list this year features more than a handful.
The theme for this year, as it pertains to those whose job it is to prepare for hirings and firings is: Watch out. Typically, following a year of low turnover, we see high turnover. One industry insider easily made the case for 10 coaching changes (albeit many depended on teams’ realizing their worst-possible scenarios). Another source referred to it as “coachpocalypse.” There are a handful of coaches without contract extensions heading into a decisive third year (teams usually extend or cut ties with a coach before the final year of their deals). There are coaches operating under the weight of immense pressure. And there are coaches working for an exceedingly older population of owners who may not tolerate good enough. We have said this about Jerry Jones in Dallas for years, even though Jones has been something of a model for patience. But there are other septuagenarians and octogenarians looking for Super Bowl glory.
