Mr. Scot

I get it. I'm just not a fan of letting trends affect that sort of decision. Ken Dorsey is technically a young, offensive minded coach. Would he be a better candidate than someone like Dan Quinn, though?

I know a lot of fans love that idea. I don't. Hell, at one point people on here were lobbying that we needed to let Deshaun Watson pick our next GM

If I recall correctly, the year that we hired Ron Rivera, oddsmakers had Bill Cowher listed as the betting favorite. (pretty sure Jon Gruden had nice odds as well)

See, this is where the logic of "Hey, let's do things like that one successful team" breaks down. It's fine to be impressed with the Steelers record. Using that as justification to request an interview with Matt Canada? Not so much

Without an offer of non-interference, I'm not sure how good a candidate we're going to get. Even if we do get a good coach, Tepper continuing to interfere may well sabotage him.

To be fair though, outside of McVay none of those have won a championship yet. Most are still in the realm of "good", not yet "great" (or in some cases even consistently good).

Generally speaking, very few of them would be in position to make a request like that. We're in a position where we might need it in order to get a candidate we want because our owner is a dumbsh-t.

I just don't think there's enough info out there to have confidence in Slowik. I want us to hire "consistently good", not "small sample good".

Vegas has two or three other names also out there who aren't actual candidates. I never take betting odds seriously as any sort of predictor.

The way my mom always used to say it was "if you have to tell me how smart you are, you probably aren't".

You gotta put that in writing. if a promise of non-interference isn't included in the contract, we're likely to be a very tough sell.

Turns out dropping your pants isn't as effective a coaching technique as people expected it to be

Pretty much. The skill level in the original XFL was just awful. What I remember more than any of the actual plays or players are things like their bragging about having guys dive for the ball instead of tossing a coin to decide opening possession, only to see one of the first guys to take part in that bit wind up getting injured in the process. That and listening to Jerry Lawler drool over the cheerleaders

Moore's not even a candidate. As to Johnson, the 15 million demand story was bullsh-t. I don't see us getting him, but part of the reason I'm a big fan is because he's brilliant. He saw what was happening in defenses All around the league (specifically a lot of the Fangio concepts) and figured out how to beat them. That's the kind of intelligence and adaptability that I value in a head coach.

Lemme throw in another reason why I don't care that much about personality... How many remember Ray Rhodes? Rhodes became famous after coaching the Eagles to victory in a game via a profanity laced halftime tirade that was so graphic players told people they couldn't even repeat small portions of it. In their season review for the Eagles that season, NFL Films made a big deal of that moment. General expectation was that Rhodes was gonna be something special and that speech would be a turning point that people would remember farvdown the road. Three mostly unremarkable years later, the Eagles fired Rhodes. He immediately got another head coaching job in Green Bay, and was promptly fired again after a single season. Having that kind of fiery personality isn't enough if you don't also have something more to offer. Rhodes didn't.

Going by my history, I'll probably tune in early. Whether or not I continue watching depends on the product.

Said it elsewhere: The most important thing to me in a head coach is that they be smart. Mike McDaniel is smart. So is Dan Campbell. They just have different personalities. Winning in the NFL requires intelligence and adaptation. What wins today might not win two or three years from now, or sometimes even the following season (ask Ricky Manning). Mike Shula was able to create an offensive scheme that was super effective, but when other teams figured out how to beat it, he had no clue how to respond. I want us to hire somebody who can take the punches that other NFL teams are throwing and figure out how to punch back.

I would argue that we already had...

I wouldn't argue with that. I do think having the candidates communicate with Bryce directly should be part of the process though if for no other purpose than chemistry. This is who you're going to be working with starting off. How well do you think you can get along?

Wasn't that interested in the others anyway (maybe Vrabel) but I still have hope for Ben Johnson. I do accept that it might be vain hope.

I get that a lot

As an aside, I actually wanted Campbell as Panthers coach when Rivera was fired. Of course we got Matt Rhule instead What could have been...

It might be, but I think that's a chance you have to take. I get why people would disagree though...