Another NFL season comes to an end, and another Black Monday has brought surprise and not so surprising coach terminations. Let’s take a look at the NFL Black Monday from an HR perspective.
As we do every year, NFL fans flock to news feeds and social media after the final games of the season, watching the “Black Monday” dominos fall, and seeing the same names pop up as replacements. Although we have a little bit of a wildcard this year with the Baltimore Ravens actually pulling the plug after 18 seasons, his availability doesn’t change the fact that the NFL is terrible at succession planning.
You’ve seen it year after year: a coach gets fired, maybe takes a year off to “consult” or be an analyst, and then—poof—he’s back in the mix for a new job. Meanwhile, that fiery young coordinator you’ve been hearing about all season? He might get an interview, but the job often goes to the guy with the .450 career win percentage and a known playbook. Again, there are exceptions every year, and this year we’ve seen success with a new head coach (as a Packer fan I’m physically unable to say it, but you know which team has a first year head coach who won our division and is in the playoffs),but I’m not sure much will change when the hires for coaching vacancies are announced.
The NFL’s Coaching Carousel: Why the Same Faces Keep Coming Around
So what gives? Why does the NFL, a league obsessed with innovation and finding the next big thing, keep hiring the same guys?
As someone who works in Human Resources and loves organizational development, this looks painfully familiar. It’s a classic case of broken succession planning and a major aversion to risk.
The Peter Principle, NFL-Style
Think of a brilliant offensive coordinator. He’s your ace play-caller, the middle manager who’s the best in the league at his specific job. So, the logical promotion is to make him the Head Coach—the CEO of the entire team.
But here’s the catch: being a Head Coach requires a completely different skill set. It’s not about calling a perfect 3rd-and-7 play anymore. It’s about managing 53 egos, handling the media firestorm, working with (or around) the General Manager on personnel, managing the clock, and being the face of a billion-dollar franchise.
A lot of these guys get promoted to their level of incompetence. They were star coordinators, but they weren’t set up to succeed as CEOs. And when they fail, they get fired fast.
Now, an owner and a GM have a vacancy. They’re on the hot seat themselves (unless they’re the Cowboys). Do they:
A) Hire the 35-year-old coordinator who’s never been a HC, but seems like a brilliant, modern mind?
or
B) Hire the 55-year-old retread who’s been a head coach before, knows how to run a building, and won’t make rookie mistakes?
Too often, they pick Option B.
Why? Because in corporate-speak, it’s harder to get fired for a “safe” hire that fails than for a “risky” hire that fails. If you hire the hot young coordinator and he flops, everyone says, “What were you thinking? He wasn’t ready!” If you hire the retread and he flops, you can shrug and say, “Hey, he had a proven track record. It just didn’t work out here.”
Owners are playing not to lose the hiring process, rather than playing to win the Super Bowl.
This creates a vicious cycle. Because the path to head coach is so rigid (college > position coach > coordinator > HC), the pool of candidates with “the right resume” is tiny. Teams don’t invest in developing future head coaches; they typically just pluck the coordinator of the #1 offense that year.
There’s no true “minor league” for head coaches. So when a job opens, the list looks the same every year: the 2-3 hot coordinators, and 4-5 retreads who are “due for a second chance.”
Look at the hires we’ve historically celebrate: Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan. They were the risky, young coordinator picks that hit the jackpot. However, For every McVay, there are several retread hires that teams hope will somehow be different this time around. This season, in addition to Stefanski and Harbaugh, who we can guess will both be head coaches somewhere else next year, we’re already hearing old names like Mike McCarthy, Jason Garrett, Van Joseph, even Jon Gruden and Matt Nagy.
It’s the ultimate organizational paradox: a league that crazes disruption on the field is incredibly resistant to disruption in its leadership hiring.
And here’s the wildest part of all
As if not having a true pipeline for the head coach position and giving few coordinators a shot each year weren’t bad enough, here’s where it gets even worse. Most teams would rather hire their rival’s coordinator than their own. Think about it. Your own offensive coordinator knows your franchise quarterback inside and out. He knows the culture, the locker room leaders, and the existing playbook. But when the head job opens, he’s almost never the guy. Instead, we watch teams conduct a frantic search, only to often land on… the offensive coordinator from a division rival.
It’s the ultimate “grass is greener” syndrome. In the corporate world, promoting a high-potential internal candidate is standard practice—it boosts morale and rewards loyalty. In the NFL, it’s treated as an unthinkable risk. They’d rather hand their playbook and secrets to a familiar foe than trust the devil they know.
So, What’s the Fix?
From an HR perspective, it’s about building a better pipeline. It means:
Grooming coordinators for the CEO aspects of the job, not just the X’s and O’s.
Valuing diverse leadership experiences (Why do only OC and DC coordinators get promoted? Maybe a special teams coordinator sees the whole team differently.).
And most of all, it requires owners to have the guts to define what they need in a leader, not just who they recognize. This is so much easier said than done when it comes to NFL owners.
Until then, the carousel will keep spinning. We’ll keep seeing the same faces in new colors, hoping for a different result. And every Black Monday, we’ll ask the same question: “Him, again?”
Because in the NFL, when it comes to hiring leaders, the safest bet is often to bet on yesterday.