"When will we know the new head coach?" - A three year study

[1of10Charnatives]

@Evil Hurney Thank you for not only putting this study together and the great job in doing so, but in bringing a relevant, refreshingly new, not retread topic of discussion to the table.

[PanthersGTI]

1/24

I think they interview Kafka Sunday and then talk it over/hammer out the details and get the offer signed Monday night/Tuesday morning.

[kungfoodude]

13 hours ago, Evil Hurney said:

Introduction and Raw Data:

I was curious when we might start hearing head coaches being "hired" by their new teams so I did a bit of digging. I looked at the last 3 hiring cycles and compared the earliest date when the hire was reported (NOT finalized) to the last date of the regular season. Here are the results (I apologize for any misspellings)

/cdn-cgi/mirage/020c0f87d61c068f33a4ff78c891995c10b9506773413970b538114a60ede8ec/1280/https://www.carolinahuddle.com/uploads/monthly_2023_01/image.png.55894bcdf496095e2d457713a5c0d78d.png

Analysis:

I took that data and built a pseudo cumulative distribution function. The chart is fairly linear. For those curious the biggest outlier is our old friend Ron being hired a mere 2 days after the regular season.

/cdn-cgi/mirage/020c0f87d61c068f33a4ff78c891995c10b9506773413970b538114a60ede8ec/1280/https://www.carolinahuddle.com/uploads/monthly_2023_01/image.png.3ba99cb6f9f1e49050a258227df2ee11.png

Takeaway:

Half of all new HC hires (in the NFL) are completed within 17 days of the final set of games. The 50% mark for this year would be January 25th.

No hire has taken more than 30 days, which would be February 7th this year.

Don't tell me the odds:

/cdn-cgi/mirage/020c0f87d61c068f33a4ff78c891995c10b9506773413970b538114a60ede8ec/1280/https://www.carolinahuddle.com/uploads/monthly_2023_01/image.png.e15273f0302425fa295da5a2c4759dd5.png

This is really great stiff. Bravo.

[Sgt Schultz]

8 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

Interesting analysis. Great chart. I am guessing that two of the factors driving quick hiring (guessing when you look at non sports industries, the hiring of highly visible, top level, multi million dollar positions do not normally play out nearly as quickly), are the limited pool of perceived viable candidates (pro teams tend not to consider the literally hundreds of professional and college level head coaches and coordinators that make up the nominal hiring pool, but rather almost immediately focus nearly exclusively on a handful of these candidates), and the pressure of impending duties the new coach and his as yet to be hired staff will assume.

What's the first non draft activity a coaching staff needs to be prepared for, OTA's?

KInd of makes for an interesting question:

Are NFL teams doing it all wrong? In the grand scheme of things, what's more important, being sure you've got the right head coach in place for the future, or making sure that coach has as much time to prepare for the draft and OTA's as possible?

Given the rate of league turnover at head coaching positions and the presumed ability of any competent FO staff to prep for the draft without constant hand holding by the coaching staff, is there Moneyball like opportunity for a team or team to buck the trend and decide it's more important to not rush and take their time hiring a coach?

Is this even a workable approach given how firmly entrenched hiring norms in the league are at present?

The problem I see with waiting is that there is an urgency to lock up one of the better candidates, at least better perceived candidates. Now the downside of that is it is how we wound up with The Process at a huge price tag.  Perhaps had they taken a breath and talked to a few more people after him, Tepper would have come to his senses (and probably told Hurney his "hepp" was no longer needed).

So, I am afraid that the urgency will always be there because, like Black Friday, teams are afraid the shelves will be bare if they don't.  Right now, waiting is less a function of a contemplative approach and more an indicator that the team can't find anybody that wants the job.  I remember a few Raiders searches and, if I am not mistaken, the 49ers search after they pushed Harbaugh out dragging for that reason.  I wish it was otherwise, but as long as one team is going to race to the finish line, I think is stays the way it is.

The fanbase, especially on this board, is antsy.  What they don't keep in mind is that it is not in the team's interest to show any cards about how things are going.  Somebody may have already blown away the interview and given all the right answers, including names of assistants and direction of the team in the short, medium, and long terms.  But you don't say "Lipshitz really is a perfect fit for us, and we are going to focus on hiring him."  Obviously, assuming he is not a dolt, if you do it becomes like a bidding war on eBay in the final minute of the auction and if Lipshitz says no, you have tarnished every subsequent candidate's view. 

[Samppson]

So it looks like in the next few days we should see a jump, maybe a hiring or two. I guess it all depends on how patient teams want to be with the guys still in the playoffs.

[Evil Hurney]

16 minutes ago, Sgt Schultz said:

The problem I see with waiting is that there is an urgency to lock up one of the better candidates, at least better perceived candidates. Now the downside of that is it is how we wound up with The Process at a huge price tag.  Perhaps had they taken a breath and talked to a few more people after him, Tepper would have come to his senses (and probably told Hurney his "hepp" was no longer needed).

So, I am afraid that the urgency will always be there because, like Black Friday, teams are afraid the shelves will be bare if they don't.  Right now, waiting is less a function of a contemplative approach and more an indicator that the team can't find anybody that wants the job.  I remember a few Raiders searches and, if I am not mistaken, the 49ers search after they pushed Harbaugh out dragging for that reason.  I wish it was otherwise, but as long as one team is going to race to the finish line, I think is stays the way it is.

The fanbase, especially on this board, is antsy.  What they don't keep in mind is that it is not in the team's interest to show any cards about how things are going.  Somebody may have already blown away the interview and given all the right answers, including names of assistants and direction of the team in the short, medium, and long terms.  But you don't say "Lipshitz really is a perfect fit for us, and we are going to focus on hiring him."  Obviously, assuming he is not a dolt, if you do it becomes like a bidding war on eBay in the final minute of the auction and if Lipshitz says no, you have tarnished every subsequent candidate's view. 

It appears teams may be getting more patient (or it could a byproduct of something else like the new Rooney Rule). The 2020 hiring cycle (that included Rhule) had all the candidates hired within 2-weeks. Meanwhile the 2021 cycle had about half and 2022 cycle had no one hired within the arbitrary two week window.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Evil Hurney

[1of10Charnatives]

19 minutes ago, Sgt Schultz said:

The problem I see with waiting is that there is an urgency to lock up one of the better candidates, at least better perceived candidates. Now the downside of that is it is how we wound up with The Process at a huge price tag.  Perhaps had they taken a breath and talked to a few more people after him, Tepper would have come to his senses (and probably told Hurney his "hepp" was no longer needed).

So, I am afraid that the urgency will always be there because, like Black Friday, teams are afraid the shelves will be bare if they don't.  Right now, waiting is less a function of a contemplative approach and more an indicator that the team can't find anybody that wants the job.  I remember a few Raiders searches and, if I am not mistaken, the 49ers search after they pushed Harbaugh out dragging for that reason.  I wish it was otherwise, but as long as one team is going to race to the finish line, I think is stays the way it is.

The fanbase, especially on this board, is antsy.  What they don't keep in mind is that it is not in the team's interest to show any cards about how things are going.  Somebody may have already blown away the interview and given all the right answers, including names of assistants and direction of the team in the short, medium, and long terms.  But you don't say "Lipshitz really is a perfect fit for us, and we are going to focus on hiring him."  Obviously, assuming he is not a dolt, if you do it becomes like a bidding war on eBay in the final minute of the auction and if Lipshitz says no, you have tarnished every subsequent candidate's view. 

I was thinking of exactly the Fhule hire when I wrote my post and specifically the circumstances where he Pied Piper Tepper and Hurney. If they make themselves go home and think it over a week or two, then bring Fhule in for meet and greets with other staff etc., maybe cooler heads prevail in the end and all the fluff pitch of a guy who is a brilliant snake oil salesman and little else has time to wear off.

In the end they definitely hired on emotion, and I think the short hiring cycle, and fear of bare cupboard drives a lot of this, but the reality is most hires don't work out in the end, so it seems to me the opportunity to go against the grain would be to refuse to succumb to that way of thinking. Every year there is a collective perception that a few candidates are the "hot" options and if you don't get one of those, you'll lose out. The vast majority of those "hot" candidates are fired within the next five years anyway.

How often do NFL teams miss out on a hidden gem, a less obviously great option, because of this short, emotion driven process?

[Sgt Schultz]

56 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

I was thinking of exactly the Fhule hire when I wrote my post and specifically the circumstances where he Pied Piper Tepper and Hurney. If they make themselves go home and think it over a week or two, then bring Fhule in for meet and greets with other staff etc., maybe cooler heads prevail in the end and all the fluff pitch of a guy who is a brilliant snake oil salesman and little else has time to wear off.

In the end they definitely hired on emotion, and I think the short hiring cycle, and fear of bare cupboard drives a lot of this, but the reality is most hires don't work out in the end, so it seems to me the opportunity to go against the grain would be to refuse to succumb to that way of thinking. Every year there is a collective perception that a few candidates are the "hot" options and if you don't get one of those, you'll lose out. The vast majority of those "hot" candidates are fired within the next five years anyway.

How often do NFL teams miss out on a hidden gem, a less obviously great option, because of this short, emotion driven process?

Rhule was a classic example of the bad TV commercial proclaiming "and if you act in the next 15 minutes...."

[Jay Roosevelt]

Being able to interview assistants from playoff teams in-person immediately would help speed all this up.