NFL 2025 Head Coach Moves: Who Gets Top Prize Ben Johnson? Who Trades for Mike Tomlin or Steals Bill Belichick from NCAA?
We know it’s playoff time in the NFL after wild card weekend wrapped up last night. But the NFL head coach carousel is in full swing with one team, the Patriots, already making a hire in Mike Vrabel. There are still plenty of vacancies to fill with Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, seemingly the top prize out of new candidates, getting many interviews and there are even reports that someone might trade for Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin.
With Monday’s news that Mike McCarthy is out in Dallas after contract negotiations broke down, here are the six current vacancies that need filled:
- New York Jets (fired Robert Saleh)
- Jacksonville Jaguars (fired Doug Pederson)
- Las Vegas Raiders (fired Antonio Pierce)
- Chicago Bears (fired Matt Eberflus)
- New Orleans Saints (fired Dennis Allen)
- Dallas Cowboys (fired Mike McCarthy)
The only coach on this list who is likely to get the same level of job for 2025 is McCarthy. Besides McCarthy and Ben Johnson, other hot names in this coaching cycle include:
- Pete Carroll (former Seahawks coach)
- Aaron Glenn (Lions’ defensive coordinator)
- Kliff Kingsbury (Commanders’ offensive coordinator)
- Joe Brady (Bills’ offensive coordinator)
- Brian Flores (Vikings’ defensive coordinator)
- Todd Monken (Ravens’ offensive coordinator)
- Liam Coen (Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator)
Now, Ben Johnson is just one man, so the other five teams who don’t get him are going to have to look elsewhere. Who should they get to fit their needs best? Who might they settle for? Let’s break down the 2025 head coach landscape in the NFL.
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Patriots Hire Mike Vrabel
The Patriots struck first when they replaced Jerod Mayo after one year with Mike Vrabel, their former linebacker and a successful coach for the Titans (2018-23) where he won 54.5% of his games in the regular season and had that spirited run to the 2019 AFC Championship Game.
Vrabel often gets lumped into the Bill Belichick coaching tree only because he used to play for Belichick, but he never actually served as a coach with the Patriots after retirement. He got his start in NFL coaching with Bill O’Brien’s teams in Houston before getting the Tennessee job in 2018.
I can understand why some fans would have wanted Ben Johnson to elevate the play of quarterback Drake Maye, but Vrabel is a really solid hire. He’s got a personal connection to the Patriots, he knows what those dynasty years were like and the work it took, and he always did a really solid job as an underdog and overachiever in Tennessee until they screwed him over by trading A.J. Brown in 2022.
Vrabel is an aggressive coach and can help a roster that is still lacking in high-end talent. With the quarterback already in place and a high draft pick to come, he has a chance to make an impact soon in the AFC East. It’s certainly a much more reasonable hiring than the ill-fated promotion of Mayo to replace Belichick.
Chicago Bears: The Search for a Mentor for Caleb Williams
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Bears: Ben Johnson, Kliff Kingsbury, Mike McCarthy
Historically speaking, the Chicago Bears have been a tough coaching job for the 30-plus years during the salary cap era. You have to deal with a consistent winning franchise like the Packers, the quarterback position has been a mess for decades, the weather stinks, the stadium is old, etc.
But 2025 might be the best time in a long time to go coach the Bears. They have a young quarterback in Caleb Williams who showed a lot of promise, but he clearly needs a quality coaching staff around him that the Bears just couldn’t provide in 2024. They fired the offensive coordinator early, and they fired Matt Eberflus after one of the most egregious cases of poor clock management in NFL history on Thanksgiving in Detroit.
It’s also Detroit where the Bears might be finding their next coach as Ben Johnson should be their main target. He won’t have the offensive line right away in Chicago that he has in Detroit, but he’ll be able to better use Williams’ mobility to make plays, get the receivers more involved, and balance the offense.
Some felt this “fake stumble” touchdown play the Lions ran against Chicago for a touchdown was Johnson auditioning for the Bears’ job in December:
Johnson would be a great hire and stealing him from the Detroit Lions in the division would make it even sweeter. If the Bears can’t pull it off, then there’s always a backup plan like going with Kliff Kingsbury, the former Arizona coach and current Washington offensive coordinator who is no stranger to working with the likes of Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray, and now Jayden Daniels is looking like the best rookie quarterback in NFL history under his guidance.
Kingsbury was not successful as Arizona’s head coach and may be one of those coaches who work best as a coordinator. But if he’s going to get a second shot, then Chicago makes a lot of sense with the ability to develop Williams the way he’s worked with Daniels, who no one expected to be this good so fast.
The other option that opened up Monday is Mike McCarthy, the former coach of the Packers and Cowboys. For all his faults, he’s won 174 games in the regular season and has a very nice winning percentage at .608. He’s won a Super Bowl even if it was a long time ago. He led Dallas to 12 wins in three consecutive seasons and would be a good coach to have for Williams.
Wherever the Bears go, they need to pick someone with an offensive lean for a change. I know Marc Trestman and Matt Nagy didn’t work out, but at least Nagy was in the playoffs twice. The Bears have a quarterback to actually build around for a change, so they should make sure they hire someone who can get the most out of that before it comes time to hopefully pay him a lucrative second contract.
Las Vegas Raiders: Is Tom Brady Running the Show Now?
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Raiders: Ben Johnson, Joe Brady, Todd Monken
With Tom Brady a minority owner for the Las Vegas Raiders now, many believe he is going to have a significant say in decisions like the team’s next coach and quarterback. He even has reportedly talked to Bill Belichick about coming to coach the Raiders, but Belichick just took a job with the University of North Carolina, so he seems to be college bound.
For now. Belichick once resigned as head coach of the Jets after one day before taking the job with the Patriots where he drafted Brady in the sixth round in 2000. But it would not be a great hire for the team since they are in the worst quarterback position of any NFL team with no worthy starter on the roster for 2025, and they don’t hold the top pick in what isn’t even a great draft class (allegedly) for quarterbacks.
A lack of quarterback has been Belichick’s main issue in his non-Brady seasons, but it sure would give the AFC West the strongest coaching division in NFL history with Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh, and Sean Payton already there. Still, he’d have to pry Belichick away from the NCAA before he even gets started.
There’s a chance the Raiders roll the dice and wait for whichever hotshot coordinator does the best in the playoffs from Ben Johnson (Lions) to Joe Brady (Bills) to Todd Monken (Ravens). That’s something Al Davis would have done in the past.
You stick with the offensive coordinator and hope he can figure out something for the next quarterback they find. We talked about Johnson’s success in Detroit, but Joe Brady is a Sean Payton disciple who has done a really good job with Buffalo’s offense this year. Monken has had success in college (Georgia) and has really helped take Lamar Jackson’s game to a new level with back-to-back All-Pro seasons.
It could just be a matter of which playoff success story wants to go help the Raiders turn things around. But the lack of quarterback will make it a tough sell on someone like Johnson, who probably wants the best job possible for his first attempt at a head coaching position.
Jacksonville Jaguars: The Right Team for Mike Tomlin?
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Jaguars: Mike Tomlin, Ben Johnson, Kliff Kingsbury
The Jaguars were always a questionable success story in 2022 under Doug Pederson given their huge reliance on 17-point comebacks, the fact that Tennessee needed to implode with a 7-game losing streak for the Jaguars to make the playoffs, and then a 27-0 comeback in the wild card round against the Chargers. It’s not like Pederson was on solid ground there, so it’s no surprise he’s been fired two seasons later in Jacksonville.
It’s not a terrible landing spot given the cushy division that’s winnable, but this might be the best spot for someone like Mike Tomlin to go to if a team is serious about a trade and if he would accept it after things have really run their course in Pittsburgh. Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016, so he is the fourth-longest tenured coach to stick with a team despite eight straight seasons without a playoff win.
If Tomlin went to Jacksonville, he’d have the easiest AFC division to win in the South, he’d have a decent, young quarterback in Trevor Lawrence, and he has a stud No. 1 wide receiver (Brian Thomas Jr). who hasn’t lost his mind yet or gone full diva. That’s a start. Plus, the Jaguars have some young defensive talent like Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker.
The Jaguars struggled on both sides of the ball this season, but at least Lawrence will be back healthy. The defense could use the bigger boost, and maybe Tomlin’s message will be fresh for that locker room after he’s seemingly lost the room in Pittsburgh.
If the Jaguars don’t want to give up picks or Tomlin doesn’t want to go there, then they could throw their hand in the Ben Johnson sweepstakes, or they could settle for hiring Kingsbury to give him his second shot with a mobile quarterback and some decent weapons in a winnable division.
Dallas Cowboys: Late to the Party, Swing for the Fences
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Cowboys: Deion Sanders, Mike Tomlin, Kliff Kingsbury
It was only on Monday when the news broke that Mike McCarthy is out in Dallas, so the Cowboys are late to the party in interviewing coordinators like Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Steve Spagnuolo, and Matt Nagy (Chiefs).
The fact of the matter is owner Jerry Jones is 82 and he’s going to bring in a big name to coach his team. He wouldn’t accept anything less. Promoting Jason Garrett in 2011 was a break from tradition and also some loyalty to a longtime player and assistant coach in Dallas. Jerry likes to hire known commodities such as Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Bill Parcells, and Mike McCarthy.
That’s why wooing someone like Bill Belichick back to the NFL when he’s only 15 wins away from breaking Don Shula’s wins record is definitely on the table for Jerry. If Parcells, Belichick’s mentor, could work for Jones in Dallas for four seasons, then maybe Belichick can work it out, and he’d finally have a good quarterback again in Dak Prescott, he’d have a defensive stud like Micah Parsons, and he can improve that side of the ball so that you’re not down 27-0 in a home playoff game against the bottom seed.
But Belichick has a college job. So does Deion Sanders, who is another target of Jones after the Hall of Fame corner played for him in the 1990s in Dallas. Sanders has been successful at turning around the Colorado football program, but some like Michael Irvin have been pushing to get him to coach the Cowboys.
Sanders reportedly is not taking the job based on his comments Monday night, but things could always change:
Sanders has said very recently that for a team to get him as their NFL coach, he’d have to be able to have his sons Shedeur and Shilo with him. That’s going to be a problem for Dallas when Prescott has a huge contract on the books that would make a record for dead cap space (roughly $104 million) if they tried to trade him. The Cowboys likely don’t have a draft pick high enough to get Shedeur that way either and sit him for a few years a la the Michael Penix Jr. plan in Atlanta that’s already blown up.
So, either Deion would have to settle for coaching Dak, or he’d have to go back on his word about having to coach his son. It doesn’t look like this move will happen, but it also looked like McCarthy’s job might be safe a week ago, so who knows.
If the Cowboys can’t woo a Ben Johnson to come to Dallas either, then maybe settling for Kingsbury wouldn’t be so bad if it weakens Washington’s offense. But Kingsbury doesn’t really win games (.432 winning percentage) and isn’t a plus for the defense, so that move might not thrill Jones as he seeks the coach who can get him one last run at Super Bowl glory.
New York Jets: Need a Leader
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Jets: Aaron Glenn, Pete Carroll, Mike Tomlin
Simply put, the New York Jets are a mess. They already fired Robert Saleh after a 2-3 start, they fired GM Joe Douglas after Week 11, and they don’t even know if they’ll want to bring Aaron Rodgers back for another season or if he’ll wander off into a darkness retreat for good.
It’s not an attractive job by any means, but the Jets need some leadership and someone with a strong personality to handle the New York media and put their foot down in that locker room, Rodgers or not.
That’s why I think Aaron Glenn, a 3-time Pro Bowl corner who the Jets drafted in the first round in 1994, could come back to the team in his first head coaching job. He’s doing a fine job of coordinating a Detroit defense through a ton of injuries, and he’s learned to be aggressive under Dan Campbell. This might be the best spot available to him in 2025.
The Jets have supposedly interviewed Rex Ryan, the last coach to take them to the playoffs in 2009-10, and Rex is very confident he’s getting the job. But he hasn’t coached in the NFL since 2016, and he hasn’t had a winning season since 2010. Teams just don’t hire 62-year-old coaches who have been out of the game this long anymore.
If you’re going to go back to an old coach, then Pete Carroll is available. He coached the Jets in the 90s, but he had a lot more success with the Seahawks most recently. He wants to get back into the game and would be a fiery leader that can keep the team competitive. But he also isn’t a long-term answer.
The Jets could even go flashy and try to acquire Mike Tomlin from Pittsburgh. He reportedly has a mutual respect with Aaron Rodgers, though it’s hard to say if that’s the greatest fit. With the way Tomlin loves to barely beat teams, that clashes with Rodgers’ front-running nature after the Jets blew six late leads and lost a ton of close games this year.
It’s not an attractive job with the major quarterback questions and trying to deal with the AFC quarterback gauntlet on top of the New York media. But the Jets need someone with a strong presence to right the ship.
New Orleans Saints: Need a Builder
Best coaching fits for the 2025 Saints: Brian Flores, Liam Coen, Aaron Glenn
The least attractive job has to be New Orleans because of the cap hell they are experiencing with their aging roster that isn’t winning games. The Saints are already $52 million over the cap for 2025.
The NFC South is not the toughest division to compete in, but that could always change if Michael Penix Jr. and Bryce Young take big strides in 2025. But you’re likely looking at the Saints going with a hungry, first-time coach or someone just happy to get another job like this.
But there needs to be some patience as it’s likely not going to be pretty in 2025. That’s why I could see Aaron Glenn taking this job if he really wants to be a coach this year and no one else offers.
Brian Flores has experience in a lousy situation with Miami where the team tanked and had to rebuild before he got a few winning records (no playoff appearances) out of them before he was fired in 2022. But he also has that history of suing the NFL for racial discrimination in hiring coaches, so it’s possible no owner ever feels comfortable enough again to have him as their head coach. He’s also had past players come out and speak negatively about him, including Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tua Tagovailoa.
I also like this as a spot for Liam Coen, the Tampa Bay offensive coordinator who did a great job designing things for the Bucs this year with Baker Mayfield exploding in a career season. Coen knows the division well, he’s only 39, he’s from that Sean McVay coaching tree, and he could help Derek Carr or the next quarterback get better.
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