Coaching Carousel: The open jobs begin to fill

Posted on January 9th, 2008 in NFL by coachroth

Another exiting day on the Coaching Carousel:

After the retirement of head Strength and Conditioning coach Johnny Parker, the 49ers promoted his assistant Duane Carlisle to take over the job.

But let’s start when I left with my last post:

Shortly after I published my last blog, the 49ers announced Mike Martz as their new OC. Read here 49ers HC Mike Nolan’s statement about hiring Mike Martz as the new OC without interviewing all the other candidates on his list in person, even though Martz admits that in the long run he wants to be a NFL head coach again.

The Baltimore Ravens interviewed Tuesday another candidate: John Harbaugh, secondary coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, but remain otherwise silent about their HC search… but Stephen from Ravens Touchdown has a nice article about who has been already interviewed for the Ravens new head coaching job and who is scheduled or rumored to be scheduled to be interviewed - this is actually the first time that a coach currently coaching in the college ranks is at least to be rumored about… The Steve Spurrier (Washington, 2 seasons: 7-9, 5-11), Nick Saban (Miami, 2 seasons: 9-7, 6-10) and this season’s Bobby Petrino (Atlanta, left after 13 games into his first season with a record of 3-10) failed experiments seem to be worse enough to have the teams shy away from thinking about hiring a current college coach as a NFL head coach.

The Dolphins confirmed inviewing former Ravens DC Rex Ryan.

Another OL coaching job got open as Jim McNally of the Buffalo Bills retires after a 43 year long career (15 years at the college level and an astounding 28 years in the NFL)… he also suggests to let his assistant Sean Kugler to succeed him as the head OL coach.

The Chicago Bears loose linebacker coach Hardy Nickerson, who surprisingly resigned after only one year with the Bears, which seems to be totally privately motivated, since the Bears Linebackers were prospering under his reign.

While the Cleveland Browns work on keeping the current successful coaching staff together: After signing Rob Chudzinski to a two year extension, they also try to work out an extension with Romeo Crennel, who still has 2 years on his current contract.