The Buffalo Bills hiring of Joe Brady as their head coach to immediately succeed Sean McDermott got me thinking all the way back in January.
Thinking a lot.
The reasonably surprising hire generated plenty questions in my head, and one cluster of related questions have stayed squarely at the front of my mind ever since — how frequently do teams promote from within? How often do teams wish they would’ve hired from within instead of finding their next head coach from another team?
By now, you know how
it typically goes in the NFL on the hiring front — hot-shot coordinator from one team becomes an external head-coach hire elsewhere. That’s the most commonly followed blueprint. It’s been that way forever.
And the Washington Commanders unprecedented bag-fumbling of a coaching staff that, in 2013, consisted of Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, Mike McDaniel, and Raheem Morris is the most infamous example of what I’m going to call an Internal Promotion Miss (IPM).
Since said bag-fumbling by Washington, the Shanahan and McVay coaching trees have become the most rapidly sprouting trees of their kind in the modern NFL, and none of this research is to suggest for a second either Shanahan or McVay were ever thought to be directly replaced by one of their disciples. And of course, Shanahan and McVay themselves are the original IPM examples for this study.
Shanahan made stops as an offensive coordinator in Houston, Washington, Cleveland, and Atlanta — and despite a bevy of head-coaching hires by those franchises during his time spent as an offensive coordinator in each city, he was never internally promoted to head coach. He got the 49ers head-coaching job in 2017. Chalk him up as an IPM in each aforementioned instanced.
McVay was in Washington’s organization from 2010 – 2016 before being named the Los Angeles Rams head coach in 2017.
Now, the entirety of the evidence will not allow me to suggest that simply promoting from within is the full-proof way to land a highly successful head coach in the NFL. If the method was that cut and dry, it would’ve been long been copied in this league. Jim Tomsula with the 49ers, Dirk Koetter with the Buccaneers, Antonio Pierce with the Raiders, Lovie Smith with the Texans, and the Patriots with Jerod Mayo are all examples over the past decade-ish of internal promotions that’ve flopped as head coaches.
Here are the *recent* IPMs, all of which have transpired over the past decade, and you’ll notice, they tend to be from one side of the ball:
- Ben Johnson was an offensive assistant in Miami with the Dolphins from 2012 – 2018. The Dolphins hired Brian Flores as head coach in 2019, and two more coaches after him to date.
- Mike Macdonald was with the Ravens organization from 2014 – 2020 and then 2022 – 2023. Baltimore fired John Harbaugh after the 2025 campaign.
- Nick Sirianni was the Colts offensive coordinator from 2018 – 2020. Indianapolis fired Frank Reich during the 2022 season.
- Matt LaFleur was the Falcons offensive coordinator in 2015 and 2016 during the ultimately failed Arthur Smith era. He was also the Titans offensive coordinator in 2018, the first season of the Mike Vrabel era. They’re now on their third coach since Vrabel.
- Kevin O’Connell was the Commanders offensive coordinator in 2019 before Washington decided to hire Ron Rivera as their head coach in 2020.
- Kevin Stefanski spent 2006 – 2019 with the Vikings, and the 2020 campaign was the second-to-last in the Mike Zimmer era for Minnesota.
- Zac Taylor was the Dolphins offensive coordinator in 2015 before the team decided to hire Adam Gase for the 2016 season.
- Dave Canales was a longtime Seahawks offensive assistant coach, from 2010 – 2022 and then Buccaneers offensive coordinator in 2023 before taking his current gig as head coach of the Panthers in 2024.
- Liam Coen was with Rams on offensive staff from 2018-2020 then again in 2022. He then replaced Canales as Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator in 2024 before getting hired as the Jaguars head coach in 2025.
Canales and Coan have yet to win a playoff game as head coaches. If this research featured strict standards on that front, I could’ve included the likes of Shane Steichen, Mike McDaniel, and Morris, all of whom have appeared reasonably component in their head-coaching gigs yet haven’t won a playoff game either.
However, with Canales and Coan, that’s now consecutive years the Buccaneers have allowed a young offensive coordinator to walk, instead standing firm on Todd Bowles, who, yes, has won a playoff game as Tampa Bay’s head coach but, frankly, feels uninspiring, and inching close to the hot seat.
From my IPM research, it’s often two years later when a lame duck head coach is fired that the IPM regret *really* kicks in.
After the Bills hired Brady, there was a unified message from team brass about the authenticity of the interview process that featured a whopping nine candidates. Brady wasn’t given preferential treatment despite his multiple seasons already spent in the building at One Bills Drive.
Team president of football operations/general manager Brandon Beane mentioned how the reception for their announcement of Brady as the next head coach would’ve likely been different had he spent the past few years as a coordinator with the Green Bay Packers and his offense was as successful as it’d been in that role with the Bills.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume Beane and Co. did not want to add another Internal Promotion Miss to the NFL’s increasingly growing list.
