Pretty interesting podcast interview from last New Year's Eve with former Eagles and Browns executive Joe Banner on hiring head coaches:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000461194339. The interview starts at around 15:30.
When the Eagles were looking for a coach in 1999, they did a study of all of the coaches who had won at least two Super Bowls. They found no commonalities in football background (offense or defense, etc.), but they all had several traits:
- Great leader
- Great evaluator and manager of people
- Detail-oriented, to the point of being obsessive
- Strong convictions -- regardless of what their philosophy was, there was no ambiguity about what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it
Reid checked all of the boxes and so the Eagles hired him even though he had never been a coordinator or head coach, which was a very unusual move at the time. The Packers also had an opening that year but didn't interview him even though he was on their staff (QB coach). Banner also talked about two hires that he was involved in that didn't go as well -- Rob Chudzinski and Mike Pettine with the Browns.
He felt the then-current (last offseason) candidate pool had been pretty well picked over due to the high turnover of head coaches in recent years and that college coaches needed a closer look. He really liked Baylor's Matt Rhule and Ohio State's Ryan Day, because they had some NFL experience and had shown leadership skills and the ability to put together an entire college program.
He said that the top mistake that NFL teams make is not hiring strong leaders. They say that's what they want then end up going with guys because they are great playcallers or because they are associated with certain successful coaches or teams. He said that there is a huge difference between the job description of a head coach and the job description of a coordinator.