Coaching Carousel! Minter, McCarthy, and McDaniel Land New Gigs

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1:07Austin Gayle:Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I'm your host, Shiel Kapadia. Today we are talking coaching carousel. Take a little break from championship weekend because we wanted to get to the Ravens hire of Jesse Minter. We wanted to get to the Steelers hire of Mike McCarthy and then a big OC hire by the Los Angeles Chargers bringing in Mike McDaniel. So we're going to talk about all those things. And then we do get into the discourse around one of the championship games in that fourth and one decision by Sean Payton, because that was such a big topic of conversation on Monday after the games. My guest today, the Ringers, Austin Gale.

1:42Austin Gayle:Let's take a break. We come back and we talk to Austin. The Ringer NFL Show is presented by FanDuel. FanDuel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live and your way so you can build the bet that fits your play. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs all month long. Download the FanDuel app or head to fanduel.com slash Ringer NFL to get started. 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

2:35Austin Gayle:All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with Austin Gale. We are talking coaching carousel. We're going to start off, Austin, with the Ravens. Made a hire that we haven't talked about yet, bringing in Jesse Minter, Chargers defensive coordinator. Give me your thoughts, your first impressions on Minter. What do you got? I kind of want to lay out the resume first for those who don't know about Jesse Minter. So he was with the Baltimore Ravens from 2017 to 2020, overlapped with Mike McDonald there. He was a defensive assistant coach. Then he went to Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, was the defense coordinator there, won a national championship in 2023.

3:11In 2023, they had the best defense in all of college football in points allowed and yards allowed per game. Goes to the Chargers, DC there, again under Jim Harbaugh. And they've had a top six defense by most metrics each of the two seasons that he's been there. So he's been a very impressive defensive play caller pretty much since he started with Michigan there a few years ago. And now what Baltimore is getting, I think, is a guy on the cutting edge of defensive scheme and play calling that you see with Mike McDonald now in Seattle going to the Super Bowl. I think that's what the Baltimore Ravens want, right?

3:39Like letting Mike McDonald leave a few years ago there, they feel like they're getting the best version of that again, in Jesse mentor, a guy that's going to come in and help them. I think like really take what a defense that is super talented, Kyle Hamilton, all these other guys and really elevate it and bring it to the top six, five in the NFL. And I think that's what they're getting right away. It's still TBD on what he's going to be everywhere else, like hiring an offensive play caller. How is he going to be as a head coach and splitting those responsibilities? That's always TBD with first year head coaches.

4:07But in terms of who they're getting as a defensive play caller and a defensive schemer, I think he's one of the top guys in the league.

4:13Austin Gayle:It's hard to look at this under any other lens, for me at least, and be like, they are trying to find their version of Mike McDonald. McDonald was in the building. McDonald left. McDonald's been awesome. McDonald's in the Super Bowl. They fired John Harbaugh. And they're like, hmm, is there another one of those out there? Let's go try Jesse Minter. And they might have got it right. I like this hire makes a lot of sense to me for what you laid out partially. They're familiar with him. He knows the culture. He knows the GM. He knows the owner. He's been in the building. They know his work ethic.

4:44Austin Gayle:They know his personality. They know his collaboration with other people. So it takes out some of that uncertainty with hiring a new head coach. I like that. I like the defensive acumen. Like you said, he's pretty proven in that respect. And the Ravens defense has been up and down. I think the other stuff I look at when I look at, is a guy going to be a good head coach or not? Obviously, there's the leadership. How do they connect with players, which is hard to predict, but it feels like he's pretty good there. And then I think the big one where if you're not an offensive head coach and specifically with this quarterback, with this team's window is who are you bringing to the table as an offensive coordinator?

5:24Austin Gayle:What are your ideas? And it's very tricky here, Austin, with the Ravens because the Athletics reporting that Lamar Jackson kind of likes a Cliff Kingsbury. They're also reporting that, you know what? The Ravens had Joe Brady in as a potential head coach. And while they didn't hire him there, they were impressed. Could he be an offensive coordinator? Does Jesse Minter have someone else? So there's all these things at play. It's not just one thing that makes up a great head coach. But I do think that's the next big domino to fall, specifically when you have Lamar Jackson and you have this window, is who are you going to bring in to run the offense?

5:57I think there are good signs already with the kind of coaching talent he's going to be able to bring in. There are reports that the Atlanta Falcons offensive line coach could be joining Jesse Minter. And I think he's done a really good job in Atlanta helping Bijan have all the success that he did there. And I think the other piece of this too is who is making this decision for Minter, right? That's very interesting. Is it who the ownership and leadership liked in the head coaching interviews, like a Joe Brady? Is it who Lamar Jackson wants with Cliff Kingsbury? Or is it going to be someone that Minter wants to bring in, right?

6:28There's been some reporting that maybe it's Marcus Brady, one of the offensive assistant coaches with the Los Angeles Charger. I think that's really going to dictate how we view the Minter hiring right out of the gate, right? If they bring in Brady or Kingsbury and the reporting is that's who Jackson wants or that's who Pashadi wanted, then it kind of shifts gears in terms of like, okay, Minter, control your side of the ball, control the team, set the culture. And if this offensive play caller doesn't work out, we're going to roll the dice again. I think the worst case scenario when you're hiring a, I think it's been kind of made too black and white with like, are you hiring an offensive-minded coach or a defensive-minded coach?

7:00You know what the worst case scenario is? you hire Jonathan Gannon and then the defense in Arizona every year he's been there was in the bottom three pretty much by every metric. I'm glad someone noticed, Austin, because all I see,

7:10Austin Gayle:Jonathan Gannon must have the best PR in the NFL where it's like, oh, I'm like, has no one been paying attention to that defense for three years? Thank you. It's been terrible. That kind of thought is welcome here with me, Austin. If you hire Minter and then he's the defensive-minded head coach and the defense sucks, that's the worst case scenario. I don't think it's if he doesn't figure out offensive play caller right away or you know obviously they want to maximize this window this kind of shrinking window with Lamar Jackson as he gets older and now 29 years old but I think the first offensive play caller hire it's going to be kind of determined by ownership or leadership it seems and then after that it's are you re-rolling the dice like D 'Amico Ryan's it took time or um Mike McDonald didn't hire Clint Kubiak right away right it was uh who was that guy they were making fun of a while ago yeah Ryan Grubb right yeah right it's okay right if you do one or two swings of the bat and offensive play caller if your defense is top of the line.

8:00And that's what we've immediately seen with Mike McDonald and didn't immediately see with a guy like Jonathan Gannon.

8:04Austin Gayle:They immediately have a very high ceiling. If he can, if that defense is playing well next year and that offense can get back to it, which just, it wasn't this year, but the year before, remember, the best offense in the NFL. Like I do my rankings at the beginning of every year and I was like, well, Ravens, are they going to be one or two? There was a high expectation for that offense and we've seen the ceiling with Lamar Jackson before. So it is an attractive job for an offensive coordinator. And I don't want to underrate the culture aspect of this, which we never, it's hard to define. We know that, but I was reading Jeff Zriebeck, longtime Ravens beat writer in The Athletic Austin.

8:41Austin Gayle:He wrote, Steve Bishotti may not have acknowledged this publicly, but the tepid support for Harbaugh from several key players in the locker room surely factored into the longtime head coach's dismissal, which I thought was very, very interesting. So part of the reason why they bring in a new coach, and by all accounts, again, this is kind of a crapshoot. We are dealing with uncertainty when we say, this guy's going to be a great head coach, but Minter has that going for him. It seemed like the players with the Chargers, players who have played under him previously, really like him, his personality, and play for him.

9:17Austin Gayle:So I think you're excited if you're a Ravens fan. You never know, but if you're going to change things up and you said, what's the best case scenario? I think this is pretty close to a best case scenario hiring Jesse Minter and a guy who could be there for a long time. Not saying as long as John Harbaugh, but he's a guy who you could see really being there for a long time with one of the more stable organizations in the NFL. All right, next guy, Austin. I don't know that we're going to be quite as positive about this, but maybe you'll surprise me and I'll be wrong. The Pittsburgh Steelers, you and I have spent about 17 hours on this podcast talking about Now, will the Steelers fire Mike Tomlin this year?

9:53Austin Gayle:Will he be gone? He is gone. And they hire Mike McCarthy. I'm not going to influence the voter here and say, you just tell me, how do you think Steelers fans should feel about Mike McCarthy as their new head coach? I'm going to start with the facts. Okay. Mike McCarthy is the third oldest coach in the NFL. Wow. I had no idea. Is that true? Is that fact-checked? That's true. And Andy Reid is the oldest. John Harbaugh is the second oldest. And then now here comes Mike McCarthy. as these... Here's a fact that might blow you as well. He's five years younger than Bill Cower. He's five years... He's five years younger than Bill Cower, who retired as a Steelers head coach 20 years ago.

10:36And now, I feel like making this too much about age, but it just feels very... Why age, I think, is important with this hire specifically. It feels very opposite to the philosophy that the Steelers have approached hiring head coaches the previous three or four times that they've done it in their franchise history. They've always gone after the younger guy that can rebuild, reset, and own this thing moving forward. And when you look at some of the owners' comments, they made this hire 11 days after Mike Tomlin chose to step down, which it doesn't feel like was something they were expecting. There was some other reporting that said that they were ready to go again at least one more year with Mike Tomlin, assuming that Rodgers would come back and you just re-rolled the dice.

11:14How are you making this hire 11 days after it happens and not even entertaining the opportunity to take a Clint Kubiak or Chris Shula, you know, further in the interview process or like really kick the tires on some of these younger guys that are getting love, Sheil Hossi and Udinski. Like it just doesn't make sense for me to settle for Mike McCarthy so early, just 11 days again, after Mike Tomlin stepped down when yes, the owner's like, we don't want to rebuild. We want to reload. We want to win now. That's the expectation. You're bringing up Mike McCarthy's record, comparing it to John Harbaugh.

11:43Steelers fans don't want to be in the same situation they were in before where a coach that can come in, kind of do okay, and do well in the regular season, win 10 plus games in the regular season, potentially, and then peter out in the playoffs. And it just doesn't make sense for what the franchise, I think, needs after such a long Mike Tomlin tenure. And I don't think it really makes sense for the current roster that they have. They don't have an answer at quarterback, something that Mike McCarthy has had every year he's coaching the NFL. It really shocked me. It didn't shock me, though, when I found out he was from Pittsburgh.

12:13Yinzers are Yinzers, man. They stay with their crew.

12:17Austin Gayle:I find this to be such an uninspired hire with the caveat that we'll be wrong about a lot of this stuff, but I'm with you, man. If it's like Steelers fans have been clamoring, all right, maybe the end of the Tomlin era, let's start fresh, let's build this thing the right way. You just hired someone who just kind of entrenches you in mediocrity. Like I'm not saying he's a horrible coach. He's not the worst coach in the, but this keeps you stuck. This is a high floor, low ceiling. I don't understand the vision. I don't understand the process. The process, you know, smells a little bit funny to me if I'm being honest, because he worked with GM Omar Khan in New Orleans.

12:57Austin Gayle:He worked with their personnel guy, Andy Weidel in New Orleans. So there's obviously a connection there. You mentioned it. He's from Pittsburgh. He's got great PR. If nothing else, I will give Mike McCarthy credit. Whoever's doing his PR over the years, it is unprecedented what I see about him online. Now I will say this because I know some of you are yelling at me right now saying, Sheila, you must have not seen that, you know, that graphic, that Austin referenced going around comparing John Harbaugh. Why does he get so much credit? And Mike McCarthy doesn't. So the pro football reference case, Austin, for Mike McCarthy is that he's won 61 % of his games over 18 years, not easy to do.

13:35Austin Gayle:13 with the Packers, five with the Cowboys. And so there you go. He's won a lot of games. But did you hear what Austin said about the quarterbacks? because that is something we cannot just sweep under the rugs. He had Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott, and Brett Favre for 244 of 288 of the games that he coached. That's 85 % of his games. He's had one of those three quarterbacks. And you could say, all right, so he coached him up. Well, not really because Aaron Rodgers, after McCarthy left, won back-to-back MVPs. Dak Prescott, this last year, might have been his best season in the NFL after Mike McCarthy left.

14:16Austin Gayle:And so I don't think Mike McCarthy was the one making those quarterbacks great. And when you look at his record with the other quarterbacks he worked with, it's not very impressive. And to your point, what have we been talking about with the Steelers since the end of Ben Roethlisberger? They cannot find a quarterback. They don't have a path to a quarterback this year. And I think you're going to see the results here. And why did they take such a swing so quickly, Austin? That's what I don't get. The process feels rushed. It feels kind of so narrow-minded. And like, so again, I can't just get out of the way of like, the previous coaches that they've hired had zero head coaching experience before.

14:52Like they brought in guys that were going to start... They thought outside the box. Exactly. They brought in guys that were going to start new, play the young man's game. And like, I feel like really grab control of the locker room. Like they have one of the oldest defenses in the league, the highest paid defense in the league. And you're bringing him in with a quarterback problem that he's either going to solve with the oldest band-aid in the league with Aaron Rodgers, or you're going to trust him to develop Will Howard, draft a Ty Simpson or whoever. It just didn't make sense to me. It does not make sense for their timeline.

15:20It doesn't make sense given where they've been with Mike Tomlin the last 18 years. And you bring up the hardball stuff, and it's like, oh, he's comparable to hardball. It's not what have you done. It's what have you done for me lately? And a lot of that is because the league changes every five years. I don't care what Mike McCarthy did 10, 15 years ago. Like the league has changed fundamentally over the last five to 10 years. And it changes again and again, every two to three years with under center stuff, running RPOs, the play action game, all these defenses now with McDonald and Minter, like running more two high shells.

15:50Like the D the game has changed so much that where like your previous success as a head coach with MVP hall of fame caliber quarterbacks does not excite me. I'm sorry. It's, it's ridiculous. I think that every Steelers fan would have been a lot more inspired, even just taking a blind shot on one of these young guys that hasn't had coached before, but does have a scheming advantage on either the offensive or defensive side of the ball. I think it's a shocking hire, a rushed hire, and if it works out, I'll be absolutely shocked. What does that even look like?

16:18Austin Gayle:I can't even picture it, honestly. I can't picture it. The ceiling feels like you win one playoff game. Which was kind of the ceiling with Tomlin for the last five years. And I don't think he provides the same floor as Mike Tomlin. Maybe we're being harsh. It's honestly how I feel. It's how Austin feels. I don't feel guilty about it. I'm wrong about stuff all the time. I don't think I'm going to be wrong about this one. I would be so bummed if I were a Steelers fan. We go through the entire Mike Tomlin era. He hangs it up. To your point, we've been an organization that has only had three head coaches since 1969.

16:55Austin Gayle:That's our calling card. We're going to find the young guy outside the box that people aren't ready for yet. And we're going identify that guy. I wish they, even if they struck out, that would have been a good process. This is not a good process to me. All right, let's take a break. We will get to the next guy on our list. Who's not a head coach, but a very interesting coordinator hire. This episode is brought to you by Marvel television's daredevil born again, season two streaming March 24th on Disney plus Charlie Cox at Vincent D 'Onofrio back and Kristen Ritter makes her highly anticipated to return as Jessica Jones in an all-new season.

17:31Austin Gayle:As Mayor Fisk tightens his grip on New York City, he makes Daredevil as his top target. Matt Murdock fights from the shadows, hoping to bring down Fisk's corrupt empire and reclaim his city. Don't miss Daredevil Born Again Season 2, streaming March 24th, only on Disney+. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. The Los Angeles Chargers. So this, again, not a head coach hire. We got to the two new head coaching hires, but a big time offensive coordinator hire. They hire Mike McDaniel from the Miami Dolphins. And oh, baby, it is Christmas for the hipsters. Austin, I mean, Mike McDaniel, just it's Christmas in January, not Christmas in July.

18:14Austin Gayle:Mike McDaniel, Justin Herbert, the rest of the NFL might as well forfeit. Actually, I'm being facetious. I do like the higher Chargers fans. Don't get mad at me. But yes, there's a lot of buzz around this. to your point, it feels like this is universally praised that finally they get out of the Greg Roman business. They get a legit offensive coordinator there and that this offense is going to take off. You seem at least a little bit skeptical on your previous comments. Maybe not, or are you just a little bit nervous that everyone likes this hire? I think the only reason I'm skeptical is because everyone likes this hire.

18:47Right. And like, I think the more interesting conversation is like the fact that they did hire Mike McDaniel. If this doesn't work out, it might be the one OC hire they make where if Herbert is struggling, Chargers fans might be ready to say this is Herbert's fault. Right now, I don't think that's going to happen. I'm not predicting that. But like the Mike McDaniel name value, the brand value, like if things aren't panning out and Herbert is struggling in this offense, I don't know if Chargers fans are going to... I think it's more likely Chargers fans are split or even leaning toward like, oh man, this Herbert thing's not working out or whatever.

19:18I don't think that's necessarily going to happen. I think Herbert is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, one of the best five, six quarterbacks in the league. And with Mike McDaniel coming in, I think the run game is going to dramatically improve over what Greg Roman had. And then I think it's TBD, right, what this passing game is going to look like.

19:30Austin Gayle:The most interesting part is what you said there about we're going to see a Mike McDaniels offense. Because I think you look at it and you saw in Miami, to your point, his biggest strength was building a scheme around his personnel and a quarterback that had limitations. And so now for whatever you think about Justin Herbert, I do think everyone would agree that from a physical talent tools perspective, there is nothing you cannot do with Justin Herbert. I should have said there's you can do everything. Double negative. I know. Bad job by me. But yes, the arm, the athleticism, the smarts, the toughness.

20:07Austin Gayle:You can build any kind of offense you want with Justin Herbert at quarterback. And I think you're right that if this doesn't work, if we're a year from now, say, because I'll tell you what, you look at Justin Herbert. and I like Justin Herbert a lot. I agree with most of what you said there. He's been in the NFL six seasons and the Chargers have had a top 10 offense one time in six seasons. That's under four different offensive coordinators, Shane Steichen, Joe Lombardi, Kellen Moore, Greg Roman. This will be his fifth offensive coordinator in seven seasons. You know, you look at someone, I don't agree when like people are like, oh, you know, there's not that much different between him and Josh Allen from a tools perspective.

20:46Austin Gayle:I'm like, Josh Allen, you could put, you could put any supporting cast, any coach around him, and it has been a top five offense year in and year out. So that is a big, big difference when the quarterback can just elevate all the circumstances around him. They're going to be growing pains, right? Like, I don't think we should be grading this higher after week four or week six. But I think if, you know, by week 10, week 12, you're looking at this offense, it's middle of the pack. There's a lot of turnovers from Herber and somehow they're able to run the ball really well, but the passing game hasn't clicked yet.