Declan Doyle was the youngest offensive coordinator in the NFL last season under Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, and the Bears let him make the lateral move to the Baltimore Ravens so he’d get an opportunity to call plays. This year, he’s still the youngest play caller in the NFL (now 30), and he made an immediate impression on the Ravens.
Doyle’s coaching career started at Iowa in 2016, where he was an offensive student assistant until 2018, but in 2019 he was hired by head coach Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints. When Payton retired following the 2021 season, Doyle stayed in New Orleans one more year, but when Payton unretired to take the Denver Broncos job in 2023, Doyle followed Payton to the Mile High City.
This is Doyle’s 11th year coaching football, and he spent just one year in Chicago with Johnson, but it was an impactful time for him.
“He is brilliant; he’s detailed. He made me view football in a completely different lens.” Doyle said of Johnson via Ryan Mink, the Editorial Director for the Ravens’ team site. “From the spacing of the field, the spacing of the passing game. He taught me more about football in a year than … he’s arguably the best coach I’ve ever been around. He’s probably the most influential person that I’ve been around. In addition to it, my relationship with him is like he was the older brother I never had. I felt like he was the closest thing to myself that I’ve ever been around in coaching in just how he approaches the game, how he felt about offense, his logic.”
Now I gave you Doyle’s coaching history to highlight all his time spent with Payton, the 2006 NFL Coach of the Year, 2009 Super Bowl champion, owner of a 184–108 record (.630), and a likely future Hall of Famer, and yet he has all that praise for Ben Johnson based on their lone year together.
