Jack Del Rio is on the Oakland Raiders’ sideline wearing dark sunglasses, hands tucked inside the pockets of his black leather jacket.
He is standing stoically, jaw line chiseled in masculine proportion while an East Bay breeze flicks his light brown hair ever so gently.
Easy as it is to picture this image, it may never become anything more than an illusion because of the NFL’s head coach- hiring arrangement.
As the rules are constructed, the further the Broncos go in the playoffs, the less chance their coordinators, Del Rio on defense and Adam Gase on offense, have of landing a head coaching job.
Furthermore, teams that need a head coach are at a distinct disadvantage because their pool of candidates usually doesn’t include assistant coaches employed by teams that reach the league’s equivalent of the final four.
And forget about the coordinators from the Super Bowl teams. The best of the best candidates, in other words. Desperate teams simply can’t wait until early February to fill such an important position.
“I’m not sure how much a priority this would be for the league because you’re talking about a small percentage of coaches who are affected,” Del Rio said Thursday after his weekly news conference. “But you are taking about an arrangement where in theory, anyway, some of the best people aren’t available. I think it is something that probably needs to be discussed. I’m just not the guy to lead the discussion.”
No wonder Bill Belichick wins the AFC East every year. Every two or three years, he keeps coaching against new coaches.
The Buffalo Bills are looking for their seventh coach in the 17 years since Marv Levy retired. Or one every 2.4 years. The Miami Dolphins have had four coaches in the 10 years since Dave Wannstedt was fired. Or one every 2.5 years.
Even with Rex Ryan hanging in there for a relatively lengthy six-season stay with the New York Jets, Joe Namath’s former team is looking for its 10th head coach in 25 years, or one every 2.5 years.
Belichick ain’t great. He’s just stable.
The problem isn’t with interviewing good men. The NFL did tweak the process so that all hot candidates get interviewed. Gase sat down with four teams last week. Del Rio met with Raiders owner Mark Davis.
The problem is, the best candidates can’t be hired until their teams are finished with the playoffs. That often means they don’t get hired.
Mike McCoy winces at this, but the heartbreaking truth is that his personal coaching career got a huge break when the Broncos were stunned by the Baltimore Ravens in a second-round playoff game two years ago. Had the Broncos won that game, and won the following week against Belichick and the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game, McCoy might still be the Broncos’ offensive coordinator. Instead, the upset allowed the San Diego Chargers to fly into Centennial Airport the Tuesday after Denver lost to the Ravens and pick up their new head coach.
There are two better options. One, allow teams to hire the man they want soon after the season (so long as they’re in compliance with the Rooney Rule, of course) even if that man is still coaching a playoff team.
“Will never happen,” said Broncos coach John Fox. “It’s not fair to the owners of the playoff teams.”
No doubt, it would be awkward in the upstairs offices at Dove Valley if, say, the Raiders hired Del Rio on Monday while the San Francisco 49ers held a major news conference to introduce Gase — only to have Del Rio and Gase return Tuesday to game plan for Denver’s playoff game Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts.
But it didn’t hurt the Patriots in 2004 when, with three games remaining in the regular season, offensive coordinator Charlie Weis was announced as Notre Dame’s head coach. Weis worked the next eight weeks for both teams, yet the Patriots won the Super Bowl anyway.
The other option is to hold off all head coaching interviews and hirings until the day after the Super Bowl. Give the coaches a free agency period that opens the first Monday in February just like the players have in mid-March.
This may propagate rampant tampering, but even if there is no perfect system, the current arrangement means any team looking to hire a head coach this week more often than not will be looking to hire another head coach in 2.5 years.
Mike Klis: mklis@denverpost.com or
