The Daily Briefing Friday, January 21, 2022

But things get a lot harder this week.

We are thinking that the best QBs get things done, so let’s take Green Bay and Tampa Bay in the NFC even though there are a lot of things to like about the two NFC West teams otherwise.

Identifying the “best” QB is more of a problem in the AFC, but we’ll go with JOSH ALLEN and the Bills and JOE BURROW and the Bengals.  The latter pick gives us pause though, because the Titans with RYAN TANNEHILL have won a lot of big games and if RB DEREK HENRY is both healthy AND fresh…

So home teams in the NFC and road teams in the AFC.  Trying to wrap our head around a Cincinnati-Buffalo Championship Game that would have seemed unthinkable four years ago.

CHICAGO

Jim Caldwell is in play in Chicago per Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com:

Graziano: According to multiple sources, the Raiders and Vikings both reached out to former Colts and Lions coach Jim Caldwell this week to request to interview him, and he declined both requests. This indicates strongly that Caldwell believes he will get one of the other open jobs, and my understanding is that he’s in the mix in both Chicago and Jacksonville and already is reaching out to candidates for his staff.

If I had to bet right now, I’d say Caldwell ends up in Chicago, where former Colts general manager Bill Polian is helping direct the search, though it’s obviously interesting that Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus is scheduled for a second interview there. The Bears were interviewing Bills defensive coordinator and former Vikings coach Leslie Frazier on Friday, and I’m told there’s still support for Frazier in their building. Former Eagles coach Doug Pederson is also someone to watch in Chicago if Caldwell doesn’t turn out to be its guy.

GREEN BAY

It looks like WR RANDALL COBB will return Saturday night, which is a good thing with WR MARQUEZ VALDES-SCANTLING trending down.  Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com:

The last two times the Green Bay Packers were in the playoffs, Randall Cobb had to watch from his couch.

The Packers had moved on from the receiver after the 2018 season, and he spent the next two years with non-playoff teams Dallas in 2019 and Houston in 2020.

When he tore multiple muscles in his abdomen as he caught a touchdown pass 12 weeks into his return to Green Bay this season, he was determined not to be a spectator again. Sure enough, Cobb is expected to return for Saturday’s NFC divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers at Lambeau Field.

However, even with Cobb’s return, the Packers’ receiving corps might not be at full strength.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling was listed as doubtful because of the back injury he suffered in the regular-season finale against the Detroit Lions. He practiced on Tuesday but then was a nonparticipant the rest of the week.

Cobb said he could have played two weeks ago at Detroit, about five weeks after he underwent surgery.

“The past four years I’ve been watching the playoffs from the couch,” Cobb said, counting the 2017 and ’18 seasons, when the Packers missed the postseason. “I haven’t seen the playoffs since 2016, so I’m really excited for the opportunity to be out there and help contribute.”

– – –

The Packers activated Cobb off injured reserve Thursday. They had a spot open after they released defensive tackle Kingsley Keke a day earlier. The Packers would also need spots for outside linebackers Za’Darius Smith (back) and Whitney Mercilus (biceps), who are attempting to come back from IR. Coach Matt LaFleur left that possibility as questionable.

Cornerback Jaire Alexander, who is on the roster but hasn’t played since his Week 4 shoulder injury, was listed as questionable.

There are other question marks as well.

When left tackle David Bakhtiari played the first 27 snaps of the Week 18 game against the Lions, it was believed to be a precursor to him playing full time when the playoffs started. That might not be a sure thing. Bakhtiari practiced only one day this week — the middle of three practices — and was listed as questionable.

LaFleur was vague about why and about what might have happened in the days since Bakhtiari made his return in the regular-season finale after more than a year away because of ACL surgery.

“He’s working his tail off,” LaFleur said. ‘And we’ll see where he’s at.”

The Packers will have at least one of their two preferred starting tackles. LaFleur said right tackle Billy Turner, who missed the last month of the regular season with a knee injury, has been cleared to play.

MINNESOTA

The Vikings have identified Jonathan Gannon as someone worthy of a coaching interview.  Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press:

Jonathan Gannon, the Vikings’ assistant defensive backs coach from 2014-17, is now in the mix to be their head coach.

The Vikings on Thursday conducted a virtual interview with Gannon, who in 2021 was in his first season as defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles. They are looking for a replacement for Mike Zimmer, who was fired Jan. 10 by Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf.

The Vikings are also looking for a replacement for Rick Spielman, who was fired that day as general manager. They put in eight requests last week with other teams to speak to candidates for general manager, and all eight now have been interviewed.

On Thursday, the Vikings conducted virtual interviews with New England Patriots senior consultant Eliot Wolf and Cleveland Browns vice president of player personnel Glenn Cook. It is uncertain if the Vikings, who interviewed the eight candidates from Sunday through Thursday, will speak with any other candidates before narrowing the field.

The Vikings have interviewed four candidates for head coach. After leaving Zimmer’s staff on the Vikings, Gannon, 39, was defensive backs coach for the Indianapolis Colts from 2018-20. He then went to Philadelphia, where the Eagles were No. 10 in the NFL in 2021 in total defense.

Wolf, 39, is the son of hall of fame executive Ron Wolf, who was Green Bay’s general manager from 1991-2000 and helped lead the Packers to two Super Bowls, winning one. Eliot Wolf worked in the Packers’ front office from 2004-17 before serving as Cleveland’s assistant general manager from 2018-19 and then joining the Patriots in 2020.

Cook, 37, has been with the Browns since 2016. Before that, he was a Packers scout from 2012-15.

– – –

Even with the enigma of QB KIRK COUSINS in the mix, Jonathan Jones of CBSSports.com thinks the Vikings have the best of the open coaching jobs:

Call me crazy, but I think the team with a solid quarterback, running back, offensive line and defense in place is the best head-coaching spot in the NFL right now.

I’m talking about the Minnesota Vikings, of course. Having asked around the league this past week, several coaches, agents and executives would agree. Mike Zimmer’s philosophies had gotten stale in Minnesota, but new blood can shake things up.

There are plenty of factors in determining “best spot” right now. Some of these teams don’t even have GMs yet. With some teams, you have to project to free agency what their chances are of markedly improving the team.

I have the Vikings No. 1 because you don’t have to worry about the QB position right now. Kirk Cousins is under contract and more than capable of getting you to the playoffs. That’s more than can be said about the overwhelming majority of teams searching for head coaches. On top of that, you have a patient-enough ownership group in the Wilfs that won’t meddle in your affairs.

Here’s how I see the jobs ranking, in order of best to worst: Minnesota, Chicago, Miami, Denver, Las Vegas, New York Giants, Jaguars, Texans.

The Bears are a legacy franchise that recently changed its reporting structure at the top. Ted Phillips is no longer the go-between, and the Bears have a franchise quarterback on a rookie contract in Justin Fields. (You’ll note much of this list is motivated by the *current* quarterback situation with respective teams.)

I think here is where the debate really starts, and if you want to switch these next two teams, that’s fine with me. I have the Dolphins at No. 3 because they have a quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa, a GM in Chris Grier who just had a fantastic draft last year (Jaylen Waddle, Jaelan Phillips and Jevon Holland), and upwards of $70 million in cap space come March. For as ugly as the offensive line is, you have the capital to make it better.

I have the Broncos next, and honestly I want to have them lower. After speaking with various sources who had the Broncos at 1 or 2, I decided to open my mind a little more to their situation.

I’ll start with the bad first: they don’t have a quarterback. Vic Fangio said as much the day before he got fired. The franchise hasn’t won since Peyton Manning was there. The team will soon be sold and who knows who the owner will be. A quarter of your games will be against Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert.

The good: You have a well-respected GM in George Paton, even if he’s still unproven after just one year. You have the ability to go out and get a quarterback. (If in two months the Broncos have Aaron Rodgers, this is the top job on the list.) You have your receivers and tight end under contract and a great crop of young defensive studs on the other side of the ball.

Those are enough pros and cons to land the Broncos in the middle of this list for right now.

Next up are the Raiders. Right now we have no idea who their GM will be or how that person will be selected. Mark Davis is currently deciding whether to keep interim head coach Rich Bisaccia while the prospect of Jim Harbaugh dangles over Allegiant Stadium. (Among those advising Davis are current Raiders fullback-turned-senior advisor Marcel Reece, team president Dan Ventrelle and former Raiders player and long-time personnel man Ken Herock.)

The Raiders are coming off a year where an adjective like “tumultuous” doesn’t do the situation justice. The team has resources and a quarterback in Derek Carr, but they’ve missed on recent first-round picks, and that’ll come back to bite them soon enough. And as mentioned above, they get the Chargers and Chiefs twice a year each.

The Giants are sort of this year’s definition of one man’s trash is another’s treasure. What do you do with Daniel Jones? Or Saquon Barkley? How about the $72 million receiver who didn’t catch a touchdown pass? Or the offensive line outside of Andrew Thomas? Or the pass rush? Maybe the next GM (Joe Schoen, Ryan Poles or Adam Peters) will make sense of this puzzle, install their top pick for head coach and hit the ground running with this legacy franchise.

But with only the Jets losing as much as the Giants have the last five years, plus all those questions, I can’t reasonably put New York above No. 6 on my list.

And finally we wrap up with the AFC South. The Jaguars could be higher on this list because they have Trevor Lawrence — whom you pray hasn’t been corrupted too much — and more than $60 million in cap space. But the next head coach gets to be paired with GM Trent Baalke, whose recent career is littered with head coaches who quickly become former head coaches while he remained in place (or got promoted!) There’s also the need for speed on offense, undoing the damage Urban Meyer did to the roster, dealing with a fan base that was once apathetic and is now angry, and an owner who a decade in is still making rookie mistakes.

Bringing up the caboose here is the Texans. Deshaun Watson likely won’t be playing for them in 2022, so they’ll have the No. 3 overall pick plus whatever three future firsts they wind up getting for him. Cal McNair has shown nothing to inspire confidence. The team just fired David Culley after one year after he was essentially set up to fail.

League sources feel this job will ultimately go to someone with Patriots ties to work with GM Nick Caserio. That head coach will obviously know the deal going in and not view this as the least attractive job on the market. But there are deep-seated issues in Houston that won’t be cleared up in a single season.

DALLAS

This makes sense:

@BryanBroaddus

If DQ does leave been told to keep an eye on Mike Zimmer is that outside the building candidate. Might be why Joe Whitt interviewed in Seattle yesterday.

– – –

Jonathan Jones of CBSSports.com crunches the number of the final Dallas run:

Listening to Mike McCarthy’s press conference Wednesday, I was struck by how he still doesn’t get it. The Cowboys coach was still deeply in denial about the final sequence in the wild-card loss to San Francisco that saw Dallas unable to fire off one shot into the end zone for the win.

To put it simply: if your play call resulted in your team having a zero-percent chance of winning, it wasn’t the right play call.

The Cowboys gambled by running a QB draw with 14 seconds left. Is it possible to run the draw, get up and get to the line, spike the ball and have at least one second on the clock? Of course it’s possible. But the reason why teams aren’t supposed to do that is because any number of real-life human factors involved could make that impossible.

“When you’re looking at a normal clock play, 16 seconds is the threshold, but then there is the tight clock play situation which we were in,” McCarthy said. “And when you’re trying to go from a different, the 40, 45-yard throw for the final play, because we’re in the last two-play sequence. This is how we train it. This is how we rep it every Friday and Saturday.”

I’m not blaming the officials. The umpire ran as quickly as he could from the spot he was supposed to be in to get in and touch the ball. Of course center Tyler Biadasz could spot his own ball, but he had it spotted incorrectly by at least a yard. That adjustment cost precious time the Cowboys couldn’t afford to waste. Plus, there was the collision between the umpire and Dak Prescott, which again was a natural potential circumstance considering the situation.

McCarthy is still so enamored with the play call that he could only find one place to lay the blame: at Prescott’s feet.

“But as far as the draw play, the execution, the only thing Dak and I talked about was put a yard limit on it,” McCarthy said. “Cut it to 10 yards. That’s probably going to be the change, the adjustment we make.”

Let’s play that out. Prescott slides after gaining 10 yards that takes Dallas from the San Francisco 41 to the 31. That would leave enough time for one shot to the end zone. No clue what the analytics say (and frankly it’s such a unique situation I’m not sure there’s enough data to accurately level a true percentage of success on such a play), but I would much rather have two shots at the end zone from 41 yards away with 14 seconds than one shot at the end zone from the 31.

Either way, the Cowboys got no shots at the end zone.

“No one is mentioning that Dallas likely practiced that play with Dak sliding before he got tackled,” a current NFL player said to me this week. “That screwed a lot of stuff up. the timing and the spot. Those plays are practiced in a way that tends to be different than how it happens in the game.

“When they rehearsed it, no player in his right mind is coming anywhere near Dak. So that :14 number is artificially low. Not to mention that the spotter in practice likely knows what’s happening beforehand, whereas that official may have been slightly caught off guard and a step slow.”

It reminded me of the end of the movie “Sully.” (SPOILER ALERT: If you still haven’t seen the film about US Airways Flight 1549 after five-and-a-half years and will be upset at me revealing the end, please skip to the next section.)

The National Transportation Safety Board runs simulations that show pilot Chesley Sullenberger could have landed the plane safely at an airport after the damage to the plane’s engines occurred. Sullenberger successfully argues that the simulations don’t take into account human actions and the time it takes to recognize what’s going on. Once 35 seconds are added to the flight simulation, it is proven that Sullenberger couldn’t have made it back to an airport and made the best decision possible.

In repping the 14-second draw, the Cowboys did not take human factors into account. They did not account for official error (if you must call it that). Or Prescott to be tackled. Or the center incorrectly spotting the ball. But all of those are reasonable circumstances that emerged from the play, and not accounting for them to take place in live action is a failure on the coaching staff.

It was the wrong play call and it will never be the right play call. Maybe McCarthy will realize that by the time training camp rolls around and they start practicing this again.

NEW YORK GIANTS

The Giants are into their second round of GM interviews with three known candidates remaining.  Paul Schwartz of the New York Post:

The Giants promised a thorough process to find their next general manager and they are delivering on that, as far as requesting and undertaking extensive interviews with some of the most highly regarded young NFL executives in the league. To that end, they will bring in Adam Peters of the 49ers on Thursday for an in-person interview.

On Wednesday, the Giants spent hours with Ryan Poles of the Chiefs. The second round of interviews kicked off Tuesday with Joe Schoen of the Bills. It is certainly possible the meeting with Peters will end the interview process and the Giants come to a decision on their new general manager by Friday. They need to jump into the search for a new head coach, with six teams — the Bears, Vikings, Dolphins, Broncos, Texans and Jaguars — already taking steps to fill their head coach vacancies and a seventh team, the Raiders, likely to enter the market. To that end, the Giants on Wednesday put in a request to interview Dan Quinn, the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator.

All GM interviews in this second round have or will take place at the Giants’ facility, conducted by co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch and also Chris Mara, the senior vice president of player personnel. The finalists will all get a tour of the facility and sit down with other members of the Giants’ front office for more casual discussions. The first round, consisting of nine interviews, were all conducted via teleconference.

The eventual hiring of someone with no ties the organization figures to be a pivotal turning point for the Giants, who have not turned their football operation over to an outsider since 1979. There have not been any stipulations given to any of the candidates, according to someone with knowledge of the hiring process, that the new GM will have to adopt any of the Giants’ front office methods, as far as player scouting and evaluations, player development or player procurement. After five consecutive seasons with double-digit losses and what will be their fifth head coach in the last eight years, ownership finally realizes it must give the new GM carte blanche to run the operation the way he sees fit.

The new GM will not be able to come in and immediately overhaul the entire scouting operation, as ongoing preparation for free agency and the NFL draft necessitates that many of the current Giants front office personnel remain in their positions. After the draft in late April, though, expect to see several moves as the new man in charge begins to shape the building to his liking.

Peters is 42 years old and yet in his 18th year working in the NFL. He was a defensive end at UCLA and got his NFL start as a scouting assistant with the Patriots, where he received Super Bowl rings in each of his first two years in New England. Peters was hired by John Elway and spent eight years in Denver, mostly running the draft for the Broncos. When John Lynch in 2017 was hired out of the broadcast booth as the 49ers’ GM, he raided the Broncos for Peters, hiring him without an official interview. Lynch, a Hall of Fame safety, had no training as an NFL executive and there are those in the 49ers organization who view Peters as the most indispensable member of the front office.

There are those inside the building at the 49ers’ Santa Clara complex who sense Peters has a strong relationship with the coaching staff and view him as comfortable in the locker room interacting with the players. He is considered to be easy to work with.

Poles, 36, the youngest of the three known finalists, is the Chiefs’ executive director of player personnel. He is the lone minority candidate to make it to the second round for an in-person interview, which fulfills the Rooney Rule requirement.

Schoen, the first of nine candidates to be interviewed via videoconference, was also the first finalist to come in for an in-person interview. Schoen, 42, is the Bills’ assistant GM.

All three finalists work for teams still alive in the playoffs. Schoen’s Bills face Poles’ Chiefs in an AFC divisional playoff game and Peters’ 49ers play the Packers at Lambeau Field in an NFC divisional game.

The other executives from the first round of Giants interviews: Ran Carthon (49ers director of player personnel), Adrian Wilson (Cardinals vice president of pro personnel), Quentin Harris (Cardinals vice president of player personnel), Ryan Cowden (Titans vice president of player personnel), Monti Ossenfort (Titans director of player personnel) and Joe Hortiz (Ravens director of player personnel). 

More from Jeremy Fowler and Dan Graziano of ESPN.com on why Dan Quinn is a certified Coach candidate even without a GM in place:

Fowler: General managers go into interviews with a list of head-coaching candidates with whom they’d like to work. Sometimes, hot names overlap. I’m told that’s the case with Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who is on the list of multiple general manager finalists. The Giants have officially requested to speak with Quinn, and I’m expecting them to do the same with Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, whose name has been involved in the GM proceedings. Buffalo executive Joe Schoen is believed to be close with Daboll, who can help the Giants’ quarterback position, whether that’s Daniel Jones or someone else (the new GM will make that call).

Todd Bowles is another name to watch here; the former Jets head coach has New Jersey ties. And here’s a long-shot name to watch: Marvin Lewis, who went 131-122-3 as the Bengals coach from 2003 to 2018. He has been an adviser at Arizona State under coach Herm Edwards since 2019.

Graziano: Yeah, it’s interesting that the Giants put in for Quinn before finishing the GM interviews. There has been a sense around the league for a while that Quinn could be the Broncos’ guy, and maybe the Giants have heard so many good things about him from their GM candidates that they want to see if they can throw a Hail Mary and get him before he’s gone.

I also expect them to look into former Dolphins coach Brian Flores and Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. Flores and GM candidate Ryan Poles, an executive for the Chiefs, both went to Boston College, as did Giants owner John Mara. Poles and Flores also share the same agent, as is the case with Schoen and Daboll, and it’s not unusual for agents involved in this process to try to pair their clients up with teams.

My sense is the Giants should have a GM in place soon, maybe even by the weekend, and you’ll start to see their list of head-coach candidates unfurl a bit once that happens.

TAMPA BAY

The Buccaneers didn’t need RB LEONARD FOURNETTE to dispose of the Eagles, but the Rams might be a different story.  He has returned to practice.  Greg Auman of The Athletic:

@gregauman

Leonard Fournette continues to practice today as he works back from his hamstring. Looks promising for him being activated off injured reserve ahead of Sunday’s game.

ARIZONA

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com tracks the conflicting rumors about how upset owner Mike Bidwill is with the Cardinals floundering finish:

For nine straight seasons as a head coach at Texas Tech and then Arizona, a good-to-great start for coach Kliff Kingsbury became a bad finish.

This year, 10-2 became 1-5 and a one-game exit from the postseason. Three days later, conflicting reports have emerged regarding whether owner Michael Bidwill has met with Kingsbury regarding the disastrous end to a promising season.

Kyle Odegard, who previously worked for the team’s official website, reported on Thursday afternoon that a “tense meeting” occurred on Wednesday between Bidwill, Kingsbury, and G.M. Steve Keim. Odegard added that “shit hit the fan” during the meeting.

Ian Rapoport quickly contradicted that report, claiming that “there has been no meeting.”

Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic adds that, while an unnamed source “didn’t hear of this meeting,” Bidwill is “very, very upset” with the manner in which the regular season ended and with the team’s one-game flameout in the postseason.

After an 8-0 start, the Cardinals lost a close Thursday night game against the Packers. Two weeks later, the Cardinals were blown out by the mediocre Panthers. The Cardinals also were outclassed by the lowly Lions, and they lost a Week 18 game against the Seahawks. For Arizona, the division title was on the line. For the Seahawks, nothing was on the line.

The Cardinals lost five straight home games to end the season, and they were outclassed on Monday night against the Rams.

Frankly, the fact that a meeting hasn’t already happened (if Rapoport’s report is accurate) seems very odd. Why wouldn’t a meeting have already occurred, given the manner in which the season ended?

It’s not crazy to wonder whether Bidwill is evaluating and thinking and strategizing before he meets with Kingsbury. When that meeting happens, it’s entirely possible that the poop will hit the propeller.

And that the Cardinals will be looking for a new coach.

SAN FRANCISCO

The 49ers have some positive injury-related news.  Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com:

After a trio of injury scares to key players in the past week, the San Francisco 49ers are likely to have all three of those players available for Saturday night’s NFC divisional-round showdown with the Green Bay Packers.

Neither linebacker Fred Warner nor quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo appeared on Thursday’s injury report, and defensive end Nick Bosa is close to being back, drawing a questionable tag.

That means Warner’s sprained right ankle is feeling better and Garoppolo will play through a sprained right shoulder and thumb. Bosa has another step to clear to get through concussion protocol, but coach Kyle Shanahan expressed optimism that will happen.

“It’s looking good,” Shanahan said Thursday.

Throughout the week, the Niners expressed confidence that all three players would be able to play in Green Bay, but Bosa’s status was the most up in the air given the unpredictable nature of head injuries.

Bosa suffered the injury in the second quarter of Sunday’s win against the Dallas Cowboys when teammate D.J. Jones accidentally hit him in the helmet with his knee as they converged on quarterback Dak Prescott.

The Niners played the rest of that game without Bosa. He was able to practice on a limited basis Wednesday and Thursday, a sign he has been trending in the right direction.

“He’s come along well going through the NFL protocol there,” defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans said Wednesday. “Definitely need him out there.”

Garoppolo’s injury was a surprise addition on Monday when Shanahan announced he suffered a “slightly” sprained right throwing shoulder in the Dallas game. That was on top of the torn ligament in his right thumb he was already managing.

On Tuesday, Garoppolo indicated he would be good to go against the Packers but made no guarantees, offering only that he “would feel it out throughout the week.” Garoppolo was limited in Tuesday’s light practice but was listed as a full participant on Wednesday and Thursday.

Garoppolo acknowledged the shoulder issue does affect his ability to throw, much like the thumb injury, but he doesn’t intend to let either bother him too much.

“It’s playoff football,” Garoppolo said. “We know what time it is and there ain’t no time to rest right now.”

After spraining his right ankle with a little less than nine minutes left against the Cowboys, Warner wasted little time offering reassurances that he would be OK.

He had tests done on his ankle Monday morning, and once those revealed it was not a high ankle sprain, he was confident that he’d be able to play against the Packers. He took to Twitter soon after to proclaim as such and, like Garoppolo, was limited on Tuesday before full practices Wednesday and Thursday.

“The fact that the MRI results came back great, it was good news for sure,” Warner said. “The way I’ve been feeling gives me a lot of confidence for Saturday.”

Elsewhere on the Niners injury report, cornerback Ambry Thomas (knee) and defensive end Jordan Willis are also listed as questionable. For the second week in a row, nobody on the active roster has been designated as out or doubtful leading into the weekend.

KANSAS CITY

With the big game with Buffalo approaching, a criminal distraction for Kansas City.  Adam Teicher of ESPN.com on a domestic outburst from LB WILLIE GAY:

Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Willie Gay on Thursday afternoon pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal property damage of less than $1,000 after he was arrested Wednesday night by police.

Gay, 23, was released from the detention center in Johnson County, Kansas on Thursday afternoon.

Gay’s agents, Maxx Lepsettler and Ryan Rubin, said in a statement that Gay was visiting his son when he got into an argument with the child’s mother, who called police.

A police report estimated the total property damage at $225 for a vacuum cleaner, cellphone screen protector, humidifier and damage to a wall and door frame.

The mother of Gay’s 3-month-old son has requested a civil protection order, which means Gay is not allowed to have contact with either of them until the case is heard by a civil judge.

The Class B non-person misdemeanor “constitutes a domestic violence offense,” according to court records. He is scheduled to return to court on March 2.

Gay was not at practice Thursday and those available to speak with reporters deferred all questions about his status for Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game against the Buffalo Bills to coach Andy Reid, who does not speak to the media again until Friday.

“I’m going to leave that up to Andy. I’m sure he’ll address it,” Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said. “But if this happened in a game and it was an injury, we’d just operate that way. But we’ll see what happens.”

Gay, the Chiefs’ second-round draft pick in 2020, started 11 games this season plus the Chiefs’ wild-card round playoff win last weekend against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has two interceptions and 0.5 sacks.

Earlier this season, Gay spoke about his struggles with mental health, saying that he was “going through some things, man,” but that he wanted to be an example for other NFL players that keep such issues bottled up by being open and honest about them.

– – –

Zach Crizer of YahooSports.com, writing from the Chiefs perspective, analyzes the importance of a bye:

The Kansas City Chiefs are preparing to host a divisional-round matchup at Arrowhead. Andy Reid is drawing up head-spinning goal-line plays, and Patrick Mahomes is taking aim at the conference title game. The territory may feel familiar, but this is also a new frontier.

For the first time in the Mahomes era, the Chiefs aren’t entering this round fresh — they’re coming off a wild-card weekend when they actually had to play their way in. They handled Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers, no sweat. Their next game will be decidedly more challenging as Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills thunder into town after steamrolling the New England Patriots.

The Chiefs land in this predicament because of the NFL’s expanded postseason field and a wild (and wildly frustrating) Week 17 loss to Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17. In blowing two 14-point leads and bungling a late-game situation, Kansas City handed the AFC’s No. 1 seed, and only first-round bye, to the Tennessee Titans.

Some repercussions from that misstep are obvious: The Chiefs had to play last weekend, which despite the lopsided matchup carried risk of a loss or a season-derailing injury to a major contributor. Now, they will face drastically better competition than they would have with the No. 1 seed — the Bills actually rate as a better team than the Chiefs by most advanced metrics, including Football Outsiders’ DVOA. And even with a win, the franchise could face a true playoff road trip for the first time in 12 postseason games, since losing to the Patriots in the divisional round after the 2015 season.

Intuitively, it looks less advantageous. With byes in shorter supply in the new NFL playoff format, though, we wanted to know exactly how much damage the Chiefs did to their chances at a third straight trip to the Super Bowl.

What is that bye worth? And will it cost them?

Taking a 30,000-foot view, getting that first-round bye can look almost like a prerequisite to winning the Super Bowl. Since divisional realignment in 2002, 76% of Super Bowl participants had a bye, and that trend has been more pronounced in recent years. Last year’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the first team to even reach the game after playing on wild-card weekend since 2012.

That doesn’t really answer our question, though. Especially when two teams per league got byes, those numbers essentially tell us that the best teams usually win — not a groundbreaking insight.

To drill down further, I looked at how those top seeds coming off a bye performed only in the divisional round immediately following the open week. Since 2002, they are 52-22 against their less rested challengers — meaning they have played roughly 12-win football (in a 17-game season) against other playoff-level competition. The past decade is even more extreme: Teams coming off byes are 30-8 — about a 13.5-win pace — since 2011.

So, if you’re keeping track at home, all signs point to having a bye being extremely helpful. However, those numbers still don’t account for the fact that better teams are trudging ahead without byes in this new format, or for the reality of difficult matchups. To better understand the predicament the Chiefs face against the Bills, we can use FiveThirtyEight’s win probability metric to isolate Kansas City’s situation.

Their quarterback-adjusted forecast gives the Chiefs a 65% chance at winning on Sunday, while their traditional forecast pegs it at 61%. For perspective, those teams coming off byes since 2002 have won 70.3% of their games, while their average expected win probability headed into the games was 65.9%, making for a difference of 4.3 percentage points.

Creating a sample of games similar to Chiefs-Bills, we can take all the playoff games since 2002 where the host had a win probability between 59% and 66%. The 19 teams with such win probabilities coming off a bye went 14-5, winning at a 73.9% clip (over other playoff-caliber teams!) despite an average win probability of 63.5%. That’s a boost.

The Chiefs, however, didn’t have a bye this season. They’re simply a home team that played just as recently as their formidable opponents. The 31 home teams to face that situation since 2002, which include conference title game participants, have gone 19-12, winning 61.3% of the games where the average win probability was … 62.4%. These teams basically win as often as FiveThirtyEight’s model would expect.

Football always operates on small sample sizes, so it’s far from a rule, but the data from the NFL’s recent history supports our logical suspicion that a bye week provides a serious lift.

Why the Chiefs’ loss isn’t the Titans’ gain

What that data also hints at is a major difference between home-field advantage and bye-week advantage.

The Titans — a weaker team by any statistical estimation — are beneficiaries of that bye-week boost this week, but it’s a fleeting edge. Even now, they have only slightly better odds of beating the Bengals (-190 at BetMGM) than the Chiefs have of taking down the Bills (-125).

On the other hand, the Chiefs could outrun their disadvantage by beating Buffalo. Losing that bye could cause big trouble for the Chiefs this weekend, but the fallout from their Week 17 stumble basically ends there.

If the Titans and Chiefs were to advance and meet next weekend, the evidence suggests there’s little advantage gained from the game being in Nashville. Numerous studies have documented the decline of home-field advantage in the NFL, even if you disregard the stilted pandemic season in 2020.

Data from NFELO tracking the effects of home fields shows that over in the NFC, the Green Bay Packers may still be working with a significant edge, but few environments make any difference at all. None of the remaining AFC teams boast a notable home-field advantage.

That puts the Titans behind the eight ball if they advance past Cincinnati. They would no longer be coming off a bye, and any way you slice it, they rate as a less efficient team than either the Chiefs or Bills. That’s reflected in their third-place +325 odds of winning the AFC at BetMGM.

Whoever walks out of the Chiefs-Bills matchup victorious will likely be favored to reach Super Bowl LVI. And maybe the conference was always setting up to swing on that clash, but by missing out on a bye week, the Chiefs sowed the seeds of some chaos. That championship-level challenge is coming early.

LAS VEGAS

Jim Harbaugh to the Raiders?  The latest from Jeremy Fowler and Dan Graziano of ESPN.com:

Graziano: We were the first, back in December, to tell you to watch out for the Raiders and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. The latest I’ve been told is that he has had a contract extension offer on his desk from Michigan for nearly two weeks now but is waiting to see what happens with the Raiders’ job. He has interest in returning to the NFL, where he was 49-22-1 in four seasons as the 49ers coach from 2011 to 2014, and in the Raiders specifically.

The Raiders’ season just ended last Saturday, and team owner Mark Davis was waiting for the end of the season before beginning this process. So it could be just a matter of time before things are finalized and Harbaugh is the new Raiders coach. If it doesn’t happen, yes, interim coach Rich Bisaccia deserves and will get a look, but I’ve also been told to watch out for Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as a candidate here.

Fowler: Bisaccia and Davis met at length Wednesday afternoon, and the word out of Las Vegas is the meeting went well. But Davis conveyed he has a process he must go through to finalize head-coaching plans. So Bisaccia remains in the mix for the full-time job, but Davis will interview other candidates. And the more he interviews, the harder it might be to keep the interim coach.

While that fascinating Harbaugh subplot outlined above percolates, the Raiders could crystallize their general manager search after firing Mike Mayock earlier this week. A Patriots-style attack could be in order: GM candidate Dave Ziegler, the Pats’ director of player personnel, has history with current Raiders exec DuJuan Daniels, who came from New England. They both know head-coach candidate and Patriots defensive coach Jerod Mayo well.

The expectation is that Indianapolis exec Ed Dodds is in the mix here, but as of Thursday afternoon the Colts had not received an interview request for him. Dodds has turned down jobs before, but the Raiders’ playoff roster could appeal to him.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

GM Tom Tedesco says he’s fine with the decisions made by Coach Brandon Staley that have flummoxed traditionalists.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Chargers coach Brandon Staley gained a reputation as perhaps the most analytics-driven coach in the NFL during the 2021 season, and when the Chargers fell short of the playoffs, Staley’s approach drew plenty of criticism. But Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco is completely on board with Staley’s approach.

“I support him 100 percent,” Telesco said of Staley. “I’m a big believer in using data to make decisions, as is he. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t context involved in that — I mean, we’re not robots — but we’re trying to put our players in a position of strength, in a position of advantage, as much as we can. I love the identity that we play with. I know, on the outside, that not everyone may agree with how we play, but it’s who we are and I love it. That’s what we are and that’s the way that we’re going to play moving forward. You know what you get with us; we’re going to play aggressive — it’s not reckless, I really don’t see it as reckless. All of these decisions, even though they’re made in real-time, there’s research involved in it prior to the game. There’s also context involved in that, too. Like I said, Brandon is not a robot, but with decisions on the field, you have to make quick, quick decisions in real-time. I thought that he did a really excellent job with that this year. He has my support behind that.”

Telesco also said Staley is building his relationships with his players in a way that should bear fruit for years to come.

“He handled things very well this year,” Telesco said. “It’s great working with them. We have a great working relationship. I think you guys can tell, too, he really has a great connection with our team and with our players. I think you saw that on a daily basis. He has definitely brought an identity to this football team, which is step number one as you come in as a new head coach. I think that the future’s bright with where we are.”

Telesco has now completed nine seasons as the Chargers’ GM, and Staley is the third head coach during that time. Telesco says he’s not thinking about his job security, but he needs Staley to succeed, as if the Chargers need to make big changes, Telesco likely wouldn’t get the chance to stick around to work with a fourth head coach.

HOUSTON

Hmmmm.

@HoustonTexans

We completed an interview with Josh McCown for our head coaching position today.

@AdamSchefter

A candidate that interested the Texans last year.

More from Mike Florio:

The Texans interviewed long-time NFL quarterback Josh McCown for the head-coaching job a year ago, despite the fact that McCown has no experience coaching college or pro football, in any capacity. They’ve interviewed him again this year, despite the fact that (checks notes) McCown still has no experience coaching college or pro football, in any capacity.

There’s building chatter in league circles that the Texans really want to hire McCown. Some in the media possibly have been enlisted to spin the notion that it’s not as crazy as it sounds. (It is.)

The Texans apparently know they need more than a supportive tweet from one of G.M. Nick Caserio’s reporter-friends. They believe they need, as we hear it, another team to interview McCown in order to legitimate and normalize the notion of McCown going straight to the job of head coach, despite having no experience coaching college or pro football, in any capacity.

Will someone do it? Maybe. Many favors are traded in the NFL, for many different reasons. What if, for example, the Jaguars decide to do a solid for McCown’s agent, Mike McCartney, who also represents Michigan pass rusher Asa Hutchinson? How long does it take? Two hours? The time spent could help set the right tone for the inevitable Hutchinson contract talks.

The point for now is that the Texans are seriously considering hiring McCown, despite no coaching experience at the college or pro level, in any capacity. And maybe they will.

If it works, great. If it doesn’t, they can always fire him after a year, citing “philosophical differences.”

FYI – Asa Hutchinson is the Governor of Arkansas.  AIDAN HUTCHINSON is the Michigan defensive lineman.

THIS AND THAT

RANKING THE RECENT COACHING HIRES

Eight teams are trying to upgrade their coaching in 2022.  Bill Barnwell ranks who got it right in the last five years.

Sometimes, you guys make it easy for me. Wasting time on Twitter the other day, I put up a poll asking voters to pick the best coaching hire of the past five years. I listed four options and could have easily put a couple more into the conversation. The results were the internet equivalent of a four-way tie, with each option receiving between 22% and 27% of the vote.

With the league about to employ a handful of new coaches and many of the league’s best hires from the past few years competing for a Super Bowl, I thought now would be a good time to weigh in with my own thoughts on the matter. There are potentially six coaches who would be plausible picks at No. 1, and that could change if one of them wins Super Bowl LVI next month.

To narrow down the list, I went with two rules, which conveniently left us with 10 coaches. One was that we’re exclusively looking at coaches who were hired over the past five years, so coaches who got their jobs heading into the 2017 season. That distinction causes Doug Pederson to miss out, because the Eagles hired him before the 2016 campaign. His tenure in Philadelphia didn’t end well, but it’s tough to argue with a coach who took over a 7-9 team and won a Super Bowl two years later.

The other rule is that the coaches needed to have won at least one playoff game with their new teams to make it into the rankings, which leaves out a bunch of possible candidates. Kliff Kingsbury lost his chance when his Cardinals were blown out by the Rams. Mike McCarthy (Cowboys) isn’t in the mix, and neither are Brandon Staley (Chargers), Nick Sirianni (Eagles) or Ron Rivera (Washington), each of whom have done solid work early in their tenures. I might put some of those guys ahead of some of the options at the bottom of our top 10 in a vacuum, but I think it’s fair to set that distinction. Frankly, there’s a pretty large gap between the top six candidates and everyone else.

I’ll start with the 10th-ranked coach and work my way up to my pick as the best hire of the past five seasons.

10. Zac Taylor, Bengals

Previous job: Quarterbacks coach, Rams

Record as coach: 16-32-1 (.337)

Playoffs: 1-0, advanced as far as the divisional round

Team record, prior three seasons: 19-28-1 (.406)

QB inherited: Andy Dalton

After getting off to a 6-25-1 start in two unremarkable seasons to start his career, Taylor and his staff have turned things around in Year 3. The LSU combination of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase has rekindled its former connection for the Bengals, who were the last team standing in the slugfest that was the AFC North this season. Burrow solidified Cincinnati’s playoff credentials by throwing nine touchdown passes and more than 900 yards over a two-game stretch against the Ravens and Chiefs, with the latter victory knocking Kansas City out of the top seed in the AFC.

Every Bengals fan would have happily signed up for a division title and a playoff win before the 2021 season began, so Taylor is playing with house money over the rest of the season. Naturally, if he can make a deeper playoff run, it should secure an even longer runway for him. Given the long tenure of predecessor Marvin Lewis, the team’s newfound success and the presence of young difference-makers at all levels on offense, I don’t think Taylor is going anywhere for awhile.

With that being said, he’s pretty clearly the bottom choice on this list. Nobody would have batted an eye if the Bengals had fired the 38-year-old after his first two seasons in Cincinnati. Unlike the higher-profile coaches I mentioned in the introduction, though, Taylor has a playoff win, so he’s on the list.

9. Anthony Lynn, Chargers

Previous job: Interim coach, Bills

Record as coach: 33-32 (.508)

Playoffs: 1-1, advanced as far as the divisional round

Team record, prior three seasons: 18-30 (.375)

QB inherited: Philip Rivers

Lynn is unique on this list for a few reasons. He’s the only coach here to be fired, having made it to the postseason with a 12-4 mark in 2018 before being let go after a 7-9 season in 2020. Lynn has also been let go from another job since then, having gone one-and-done as the offensive coordinator with the Lions this past season. Only 12 months or so removed from being an NFL head coach, he will likely be looking at a positional-coaching role in 2022 if he wants to stay at the professional level.

Lynn is also the only Black coach on this list, which is a reminder of how few minority coaches have been hired over the past five years. Just seven of the league’s jobs have gone to minority coaches over that time frame. Lynn and Vance Joseph (Broncos) were hired in 2017, and they were eventually followed by Steve Wilks (Cardinals, 2018), Brian Flores (Dolphins, 2019), Ron Rivera (Washington, 2020) and most recently Robert Saleh (Jets, 2021) and David Culley (Texans, 2021).

Many of those coaches dealt with remarkably quick hooks. Wilks and Culley went one-and-done. Joseph lasted two years in Denver. Lynn went 12-4 and was out of a job two years later. Flores took over a tanking Dolphins team, started 0-7, went 24-18 over the ensuing two-and-a-half years and was let go anyway. Many of these coaches had better records and performances than white coaches who enjoyed longer runways, including Taylor, who presided over a hapless Bengals team for two seasons without being fired.

There’s a bigger-picture conversation to be had about the NFL’s hiring practices when it comes to minority coaches, and it deserves its own article. While the league has focused on guaranteeing minority coaches interviews for jobs, research from 2019 suggested that minority coaches needed to have stronger résumés, were less likely to get second chances and got less time to prove themselves in their new jobs than white coaches. Given the situations Flores and Culley inherited, there are fair questions to be raised about whether coaches of color are getting opportunities in jobs where they’re likely to succeed.

8. Kevin Stefanski, Browns

Previous job: Offensive coordinator, Vikings

Record as coach: 19-14 (.576)

Playoffs: 1-1, advanced as far as the divisional round

Team record, prior three seasons: 13-34-1 (.281)

QB inherited: Baker Mayfield

While the Browns are coming off a disappointing season, consider that the .470 winning percentage they posted in 2021 would have been their best mark since 2007 if it weren’t for the playoff season of 2020. That Browns team wasn’t quite as good as its record, owing to some generous luck in one-score games, but Cleveland has looked like a consistently competent football team for much of the past two seasons, just two years after going 0-16 under Hue Jackson. Its playoff win over the Steelers — which came while Stefanski was isolating in his basement as a result of testing positive for COVID-19 — was the organization’s first playoff win since 1994, when its coach was Bill Belichick.

Stefanski rightfully received credit for steadying the ship and building a logical offense around his players’ strengths in 2020. Many of the decisions the Browns made in free agency paid off that season, a credit to both Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry. I’m not sure it should factor in to his work with the Browns, but it also seems worth noting that Stefanski is really the only offensive coordinator over the past four years to leave the Vikings without having violently angered Mike Zimmer, a small victory in its own right.

Mayfield’s relationship with and development under Stefanski seemed to stall this season, in part because the mercurial quarterback was playing through a torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder. With the 2018 No. 1 overall pick pick a free agent after 2022, the organization is about to hit a crossroads. Browns fans were understandably thrilled with the 2020 Coach of the Year after Stefanski led them back to the postseason, but what happens next will determine whether he goes down the same path as 2017 winner Sean McVay or follows in the footsteps of the guy who won that award the following year, Matt Nagy.

7. Frank Reich, Colts

Previous job: Offensive coordinator, Eagles

Record as coach: 37-28 (.569)

Playoffs: 1-2, advanced as far as the divisional round

Team record, prior three seasons: 20-28 (.417)

QB inherited: Andrew Luck

There’s a sour taste in everyone’s mouth about the Colts given how their season ended, but we have to take a longer view of things with how Reich has performed in Indianapolis. It would have been easy for him to lack credibility, given that he was hired only after Josh McDaniels left Indianapolis at the altar. Reich had to inherit members of a coaching staff McDaniels hired and was taking over a team that had just spent the season without Luck.

After one year of getting to work with Luck, the quarterback retired, leaving Reich and the Colts to pick up the pieces and sort through alternatives such as Jacoby Brissett, Philip Rivers and Carson Wentz. They have been consistently competitive, reliably beating at least one or two of the league’s best teams each season. They’ve also lost to the Jaguars at least once in each of Reich’s four years in charge; Jacksonville is 4-4 against Indianapolis and 11-46 against every other team over that time frame.

It certainly seems like there are more questions about Reich and the Colts’ ultimate upside after their collapse at the end of the season. I think everyone acknowledges that Reich stepped into a tough situation that only got tougher after Luck’s retirement, but the Colts have won one playoff game in four seasons, and it came against the Texans. Reich has been a rock of stability for the Colts as they’ve gone through transition after transition, but after their disastrous end to 2021, it’s fair to want more.

6. Mike Vrabel, Titans

Previous job: Defensive coordinator, Texans

Record as coach: 41-24 (.631)

Playoffs: 2-2, advanced as far as the AFC Championship Game

Team record, prior three seasons: 21-27 (.438)

QB inherited: Marcus Mariota

Talk to current and ex-players around the NFL about Vrabel and you almost invariably hear the same thing: “I’d love to play for that guy.” Whether it’s his performance, his demeanor or the culture that has sprouted up in Nashville after his arrival, the Titans have emerged from years of frustration to become a team just about everybody in the NFL is afraid to play. Now, as the 1-seed in the AFC, they have a clear path to the Super Bowl.

It’s worth noting that Vrabel was sort of a questionable hire when the Titans chose him four years ago. Mike Mularkey was coming off consecutive 9-7 seasons, and his team had just upset the Chiefs in the wild-card round before getting blown out by the Patriots in the 2017 playoffs. Vrabel had been an NFL coach for only four seasons and a coordinator for one, during which his Texans defense had dropped from eighth to 19th in defensive DVOA. The former Patriots standout had enjoyed a reputation as a player who would eventually make a great coach during his time in the league, but that had also been true of Mike Singletary, who was overmatched during his time with the 49ers.

Vrabel was only able to match Mularkey’s 9-7 regular-season record during his first two seasons at the helm, but the Titans broke through in the playoffs in Year 2, beating the Patriots and Ravens and advancing to the AFC Championship Game. The Titans have gone 23-10 over the ensuing two seasons, and while their underlying performance hasn’t been as impressive as their record, Vrabel’s game management has generally been a plus. I don’t think I’ll ever forget him exploiting the league’s delay of game rules in the fourth quarter against the Patriots while his former coach, Bill Belichick, fumed on the opposite sideline.

On the other hand, Vrabel made major misstep in punting late during last season’s playoff loss to the Ravens, and the Titans were mostly able to avoid tough competition while they were without Derrick Henry during the second half of this season. The star back is expected to return from his foot injury this weekend, which would leave the Titans without excuses as they get to play through the AFC bracket at home. This looms as a key postseason for Vrabel. Advance to the Super Bowl, and he will rightfully be regarded as one of the league’s top coaches. Come up short, and there will be questions about whether the Titans just whiffed on the best chance they’ll have to win silverware.

5. Kyle Shanahan, 49ers

Previous job: Offensive coordinator, Falcons

Record as coach: 39-42 (.481)

Playoffs: 3-1, advanced as far as the Super Bowl

Team record, prior three seasons: 15-33 (.312)

QB inherited: Colin Kaepernick

Shanahan is the most difficult coach to judge on this list. The positives seem obvious. At its best, his offense can be irresistible, as we saw in the 2019 NFC Championship Game. When he has had chosen starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo on the field, the 49ers have gone 31-14. Shanahan’s first playoff run saw the them make it to the Super Bowl, and they just started their second playoff run of the Shanahan era by outplaying and upsetting the Cowboys in Dallas. For an organization that had gone through three coaches in three seasons before hiring Shanahan, the 49ers would happily make this hire again.

At the same time, it’s pretty easy to poke holes in his work. The organization’s commitment to injury-prone Garoppolo has often yielded a low ceiling and a low floor, with Shanahan’s record still under .500 after five years in charge. With Shanahan holding final say on personnel decisions, the Niners have made move after move to try to add offensive talent, sacrificing their secondary in the process. In both 2019 and 2021, you could argue that their success had as much or more to do with their defense than it did their offense, a credit to coordinators Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans.

Things are about to get more interesting. The 49ers were nearly out of the postseason before a late Garoppolo drive in Week 18 pushed them back in at the expense of the Saints. If they can beat the Packers and make another trip to the NFC Championship Game, Shanahan will have made two deep playoff runs in three years. If they lose, the Trey Lance era at quarterback will begin in earnest and Shanahan’s most expensive bet will be on the line. Lance’s future in San Francisco might determine that of the guy who traded three first-round picks to get him.

4. Bruce Arians, Buccaneers

Previous job: Head coach, Cardinals

Record as coach: 31-18 (.633)

Playoffs: 5-0, won the Super Bowl

Team record, prior three seasons: 19-29 (.396)

QB inherited: Jameis Winston

There’s an easy case for naming Arians as the No. 1 coach on this list: He’s the only one hired over the past five years to win a Super Bowl. The Buccaneers hadn’t made the playoffs since 2007 or won a playoff game since their last championship run in 2002 before Arians arrived, so it’s hardly like he inherited a winning hand from Dirk Koetter & Co. The Bucs have gone from being an afterthought to taking over as Super Bowl champs, and it would hardly be shocking if they repeated the feat again in 2021.

We also have to be realistic. Arians inherited Winston as his starting quarterback and went 7-9 with the inconsistent 2016 No. 1 overall pick. When the Bucs signed Tom Brady in free agency in 2020, everything changed. Brady has thrived with Tampa’s skill players in Arians’ offense, and the coach certainly deserves credit for that work, but it’s not as if he turned things around with a rookie quarterback or a guy who didn’t have 20 years of experience playing at a similarly high level elsewhere.

Arians is a different sort of coach from the other guys on this list, many of whom are younger and were brought in to rebuild franchises. I’m not sure he knew he was going to get Brady in the second year of his time with the Buccaneers, but in his late 60s and having already retired from coaching twice, he wasn’t coming in on a five-year plan. The Bucs’ goal in hiring Arians was to turn things around quickly, and while it took landing the greatest player in NFL history, you can’t argue with the results. Other coaches have needed to do heavier lifting, which is why I have Arians at No. 4, but I wouldn’t fault anyone for putting the Kangol enthusiast at No. 1.

3. Sean McDermott, Bills

Previous job: Defensive coordinator, Panthers

Record as coach: 49-32 (.605)

Playoffs: 3-3, advanced as far as the AFC Championship Game

Team record, prior three seasons: 24-24 (.500)

QB inherited: Tyrod Taylor

I’m including winning percentage before and after each of the coaches were hired as a quick measure of the change they’ve been able to enact within their organizations, but it undersells McDermott’s impact. The Bills were enduring a streak of 17 seasons without playoff football before he arrived, and since then they’ve made the postseason four times in five years.

I genuinely think the first of those appearances was essentially by accident, as a rebuilding Bills team benched Taylor for Nathan Peterman late in the season, only for Peterman to immediately cede the job back to the incumbent. Taylor led a win over the Chiefs, and the Bills got help from the Bengals to make an unlikely trip into the postseason, where they lost to the Jaguars.

That team McDermott inherited was basically vaporized; the Bills have been rebuilt in the image of McDermott and fellow Panthers product Brandon Beane, who was hired as the team’s general manager in 2017. Virtually everybody from the Rex Ryan and Doug Whaley regime was excised in a matter of two years, with the Bills finding ways to add talent through any and all avenues. Obviously, selecting Josh Allen was much maligned by many at the time (including me), but that has turned out to be an absolute masterstroke. Allen is quite clearly the team’s successor to Jim Kelly, a player the franchise had been looking to find for more than two decades.

More than Allen, though, it’s striking to see how many players leave their old teams and get better after joining the Bills. The heartbeat of their roster is the safety duo of Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, mid-tier free agents who have turned into the league’s best pairing over the past five seasons. Jon Feliciano, Jordan Phillips and John Brown have come over and noticeably elevated their game under McDermott and coordinators Leslie Frazier and Brian Daboll. Even Stefon Diggs and Mitch Morse, who were stars before moving to Western New York, can say that they’ve improved after joining the Bills.

The next step for Buffalo and the thing that might push McDermott up the ranks to No. 1 would be a Super Bowl appearance. No team has a higher ceiling on both offense and defense than the Bills, who showed that off in their blowout victory over the Patriots last week. Regardless what happens this weekend, McDermott’s transformed Bills are pretty clearly here to stay.

2. Matt LaFleur, Packers

Previous job: Offensive coordinator, Titans

Record as coach: 39-10 (.796)

Playoffs: 2-2, advanced as far as the NFC Championship Game

Team record, prior three seasons: 23-24-1 (.490)

QB inherited: Aaron Rodgers

Outside of winning a Super Bowl, I’m not sure any coach has gotten off to a better start across his first three seasons than LaFleur. The Packers had fallen off and grown stale in the dying days of the Mike McCarthy era, and while they could blame their 7-9 record in 2017 on an injury to Rodgers, they went 6-9-1 with a full season from their legendary quarterback the following year.

From the moment LaFleur arrived, Green Bay has been unimpeachable. It went 13-3 in 2019, 13-3 in 2020 and started 13-3 in 2021 before resting its players for most of a meaningless Week 18 game. The playoffs haven’t been quite as fruitful, as the Packers were blown out by the 49ers in the 2019 NFC Championship Game and lost controversially at home to the Bucs in the same game the following season, with LaFleur taking some of the blame for a now-infamous decision to kick a field goal down 8 points with 2:09 to go. Generally, though, he has been one of the best coaches in the league when it comes to handling fourth-down decisions and game management, which is one of the reasons the Packers have been so great in close games.

How can I rank LaFleur ahead of Arians when they both have Hall of Fame quarterbacks and Arians has won a Super Bowl? Consider how those quarterbacks have grown under their new coaches. Brady’s numbers fell off with little offensive help in 2019, but after posting a 119 and 115 ANY/A+ (adjusted net yards per attempt, accounting for era) in 2017 and 2018, he has been back at 116 in 2020 and 115 in 2021.

Rodgers, meanwhile, had been in the middle of an extended decline before LaFleur arrived, with the future Hall of Famer following his MVP season in 2014 by producing an average ANY/A+ of 106 between 2015 and 2018. He was right in line with that mark at 105 in 2019, but he has led the league with a 134 ANY/A+ in 2020 and a 123 mark in 2021. Rodgers is going to go from being seemingly on his way out to winning consecutive MVP awards in his late 30s. His coach deserves some of the credit for that improvement. LaFleur is firmly entrenched here and would probably go to the top with a Super Bowl win.

1. Sean McVay, Rams

Previous job: Offensive coordinator, Washington

Record as coach: 55-26 (.679)

Playoffs: 4-3, advanced as far as the Super Bowl

Team record, prior three seasons: 17-31 (.354)

QB inherited: Jared Goff

The steady success the Rams have enjoyed since McVay arrived in town has made it easy to forget about how forlorn this franchise was before he arrived. The last winning season it had posted before McVay arrived was in 2003, when McVay was a 17-year-old junior quarterback in Georgia. Running back Steven Jackson’s entire career came and went without the Rams posting a single nine-win season.

Since then, they have posted a winning season in each of McVay’s first five years. McVay turned around the franchise as immediately as any new coach in recent memory without needing to change the quarterback. In his first offseason with the team, he and general manager Les Snead signed Robert Woods and Andrew Whitworth in free agency, drafted Cooper Kupp, Gerald Everett and John Johnson and traded for Sammy Watkins. Watkins aside, that core helped transform the Rams on offense and morphed Goff overnight from a hopeless rookie into one of the league’s most efficient quarterbacks.

McVay’s relationship with Goff faded and ended in ugly fashion, leading to the Matthew Stafford trade last offseason. If you want to criticize his work, you probably have to lean on some of the contract extensions the Rams have made. New deals for Goff, Todd Gurley and Brandin Cooks were major disappointments. For all of his offensive genius, McVay was also flummoxed on his only trip to the league’s biggest stage, with Bill Belichick and the Patriots holding the Rams to a field goal in a 13-3 loss in Super Bowl LIII.

With that said, McVay’s impact on this franchise just after it moved to L.A. and before it built a new stadium probably amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars. The Rams had the fifth-worst record in football in the five years before McVay arrived and have the third-best record since. Imagine if somebody took over the Jaguars this offseason and turned them into a perennial Super Bowl contender overnight. That’s what McVay has done in Los Angeles. The only thing he hasn’t done is win a championship.