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Be careful what you wish for
For years here on Hogs Haven, members have bemoaned the fact that certain coaches — Sean McVay & Kevin O’Connell in particular — were allowed to leave Washington only to see them go on to success as head coaches (or in the case of KOC, coordinator and head coach) for other teams. “Why,” many Hogs Haven members have lamented, “can’t we hold onto guys like McVay and O’Connell when we have them?”
This sort of misses the point that both of these guys underwent career development in Washington that led,
ultimately, to their future success. It is, in fact, uncommon for NFL teams to ultimately benefit from this kind of talent development, as most successful coordinators are forced by necessity to change teams to get a head coaching opportunity. That’s what happened with McVay, and what would have happened eventually with O’Connell if he’d continued his successful tenure in Washington beyond 2019.
Of course, McVay was an offensive coordinator under Jay Gruden who got hired by the Rams as the youngest head coach in the league at 30 years of age in 2017. The opportunity for the Redskins to keep McVay any longer than they did (he spent 7 years in Washington under 2 head coaches as offensive assistant, tight ends coach and offensive coordinator) was close to zero. He is a Washington success story because he is an LA Rams success story.
Kevin O’Connell was on a similar and slightly faster coaching career trajectory to that of McVay when Ron Rivera replaced Jay Gruden as head coach in 2020. KOC had been with the Commanders for 3 years, progressing from QB coach to passing game coordinator and then, in 2019, to offensive coordinator. When Rivera arrived in 2020, he interviewed KOC, thanked him for his service, and hired Scot(t) Turner to replace him. O’Connell went to LA to spend two more seasons as offensive coordinator under McVay before getting hired as the head coach of the Vikings in 2022. Even if Rivera had kept KOC on as OC in Washington, had O’Connell been successful, he’d have eventually gotten a head coaching gig and left Washington. Of course, if he had been retained by Rivera and not been successful, he’d have left under different circumstances and we’d have one less successful former Washington coach to lament having lost.
That’s how NFL head coaching jobs work. Successful coordinators rarely get the chance for promotion to head coach because their success, almost by definition, usually occurs in an environment of stability under a successful head coach. It’s nearly impossible to develop good coaches like McVay and O’Connell and keep them beyond the position of coordinator because, if they sustain success, they will get hired by another team as a head coach.
The good news
The Washington Commanders clearly feel as if they have the next Sean McVay or Kevin O’Connell on the coaching staff right now.
On Friday, Ian Rappaport and others reported that Washington had hired/promoted the team’s Assistant Quarterbacks coach of two years, 30-year-old David Blough, to the position of offensive coordinator, recently vacated by Blough’s former boss, Kliff Kingsbury.
While Blough’s coaching career is entering just his 3rd year, his NFL experience includes 5 seasons as a backup quarterback, which mirrors, to some degree, the 4 seasons Kevin O’Connell spent on NFL rosters.
It appears that Hogs Haven readers are getting exactly what they constantly ask for — a young Washington position coach being rewarded with a promotion to coordinator within the organization and not poached by another team. This is particularly notable since Detroit, where Blough spent 4 seasons as a player, had requested permission to interview him for their vacant offensive coordinator position.
But did Hogs Haven readers collectively really get what they wanted?
The results of this week’s Reacts survey indicate that they did not.
When we asked what type of offensive coordinator our readers wanted to replace Kliff Kingsbury, only 16% said they wanted the team to promote from within.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that they preferred a successful former offensive coordinator. Given the nature of the NFL, a successful former OC typically means a failed or fired former head coach. Some of the candidates that were available early in the week when the survey was posted included Brian Daboll, Kevin Stefanski, Mike Kafka, and Zac Robinson. Of course, Mike McDaniel became available later in the week when he was fired from his position as head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and Ravens OC Todd Monken became a likely option when Harbaugh was fired in Baltimore.
Respondents in our survey appear to have a nervousness about a first-time play-caller, which is exactly what they are getting with David Blough, though he was credited by former Lions OC Ben Johnson for suggesting plays for their team to run in upcoming games. Blough, during his playing career, was long-considered a player with a mind for coaching.
The presence on Blough’s staff of Anthony Lynn and Brian Johnson — should he choose to retain them and should they choose to stay — may provide some comfort in terms of play-calling guidance. Johnson, of course, has experience as the Eagles offensive coordinator and play-caller. Interestingly, Lynn was the offensive coordinator in Detroit in 2021 when David Blough was the Lions’ backup QB. Prior to that, Lynn was the interim head coach and OC in Buffalo in 2016, and the head coach of the Chargers for the 4 seasons between his stints in Buffalo and Detroit.
The other concern that some HH members have is that Blough will be successful.
If David Blough does well as offensive coordinator and the Commanders return to their winning ways of 2024, then he becomes a head coaching candidate to be hired away by other teams. That was an oft-discussed concern when Kliff Kingsbury was hired as OC two years ago. Dan Quinn’s response was then, and is likely to be in the future, to have a multi-layered succession plan in place.
Of course, if Blough struggles, the plan of succession is likely to be the least of DQ’s worries.
What kind of Defensive Coordinator do fans want?
Heading into 2024, Dan Quinn started out his Washington tenure with an experienced play-caller and former head coach, Kingsbury, as his offensive coordinator but a first-time coordinator on the defensive side of things with Joe Whitt.
With Whitt’s rather spectacular failure as the Commanders DC, it seems unrealistic to find his replacement from within as DQ has now done on the offensive side of things.
Do Hogs Haven readers lean towards the hiring of a younger position coach from another team — someone like Nate Scheelhaase, Grant Udinski, or Brian Fleury — or do they prefer to go with a tried and tested former defensive coordinator?
More than 8 out of 10 respondents said that they want to replace Whitt with a successful former defensive coordinator (which, again, will usually go hand-in-hand with having been fired as a head coach along the way).
Candidates who fit the bill include Raheem Morris, Jonathan Gannon or Don “Wink” Martindale — and possibly Jim Schwartz (Browns) and Jeff Ulbrich (Falcons) who work for teams that have recently fired their head coaches, or Brian Flores whose contract with the Vikings expires at the end of the ‘25 season.
The desire here seems to be to do the opposite of what DQ did in hiring Whitt, but also may reflect longstanding dissatisfaction with Washington’s defensive fearsomeness. Washington’s defense has ranked higher than 13th only two times since 2006. Basically, you have to go back to the tenure of Gregg Williams as the Redskins’ DC to find back to back years in which the team fielded a top-10 defense.
The news on candidates being interviewed to replace Joe Whitt has so far been sparse, but the decision to relieve Whitt of play-calling duties was made in November, signalling that his career in Washington was effectively at an end.
With months to think about and discuss possibilities with potential replacements, I imagine that Dan Quinn has a new coordinator already in mind and that it won’t be very long before we find out who it is.
