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Peter King factors in the lockout into 2011 coaching carousel

Dpantherman

By Dpantherman,
in Carolina Panthers

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Dpantherman

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Posted

It's going to be a very odd year for coaching changes.

You're an owner, and you want to make a coaching change for 2011. Here's what you're thinking about as this disappointing (presumably) season winds down:

1. There's a very good chance the new coach won't have access to the players beginning in March, when a potential lockout would happen. He may not have access to the players until a new labor deal is signed, which seems more and more like it won't happen until at least the summer. And that's being optimistic.

2. The new coach won't be able to work with his new staff very much either, because most teams will put assistant coaches on varying part-time contracts. The new coaches won't be in the building much, if at all, during a work stoppage.

3. The big-name coaches -- Bill Cowher, Jon Gruden -- will be in play. But will you want to lock them in at a big number for 2011 if you're not sure when or if you'll be playing football?

"What all that means,'' one head coach not on the hot seat told me Friday, "is an advantage for the in-house candidate unlike there's ever been. Financially and functionally, the top coordinator makes sense more than it ever has.''

In Carolina, there's not an obvious guy in-house, though owner Jerry Richardson wants to keep the coaching payroll down, so he could think of promoting from within.

"I can't imagine what the landscape would be like,'' the current head coach said, "if a new coach walks into his first team meeting on August 11th and says to his team, 'OK, guys, we're switching from the 3-4 to the 4-3, so here's the new defense. And we're going to run the West Coast offense now. We play a game that counts in three weeks. Let's get to work.' I mean, it's impossible. That's why the in-house candidate will be more attractive than ever. When I talk to other coaches, we all see which way it's going. And I'd be surprised if there were a lot of changes that went to guys who planned to come in and change everything.''

I'm hearing more and more that Gruden could live with another year at ESPN -- he has one hard-and-fast year left on his contract there -- but would love to be in play for the right job. I think Cowher would go only to a place where the circumstances were right, and that job might not exist this year. The third-most desirable guy (unless John Fox's star is not totally tarnished by this awful season in Carolina) might be Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh, who I think would love an NFL job someday. This just might not be the day. Even if potential franchise quarterback Andrew Luck leaves Stanford early, the weirdness of the 2011 landscape may make college a lot more desirable in 2011 for Harbaugh.

So add that little wrinkle to what promises to be a year unlike any other in recent NFL history in 2011.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/11/21/monday-morning-qb-week-11/index.html#ixzz161MKEqt2

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