The coaching carousel took another spin this off-season with five teams hiring new head coaches. This year’s cycle actually produced a 10-year low for turnover at the 32 head coaching spots — the league averaged 7.1 head-coaching changes/year in 2011-19. In this article, I broke down every new NFC head-coaching hire as well as the new offensive and defensive coordinators to see how the changes in scheme and strategy will affect fantasy for the 2020 season. Be sure to also check out my AFC Coaching Changes article.
Carolina Panthers
HC: Matt Rhule
OC: Joe Brady
DC: Phil Snow
Meet Matt Rhule
Rhule has quickly become known as a program rebuilder after turning around two floundering FBS programs over the last seven years. He’ll now take on his highest-profile rebuild at the top level of his profession with a Panthers organization that’s slipped into mediocrity since their Super Bowl loss to the Broncos — they have just one winning season and they’re 29-35 over the last four years. The 45-year-old Rhule grew up in New York City and his first and only other NFL job came in 2012 with the Giants as an assistant offensive line coach. It came as a bit of a surprise when he turned down the Giants’ head coaching position for the Panthers, but relatively new Panthers’ owner David Tepper made him an offer he couldn’t refuse with a seven-year, $62 million contract.
Rhule has a tough act to follow after the Panthers parted ways with popular HC Ron Rivera, who racked up a 79-67-1 record with a Super Bowl appearance in nine years with Carolina. Based on his contract, Rhule will be given enough time to try to turn the Panthers around, which suddenly has one of the league’s worst rosters — could a rebuild involve Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence starting in 2021? Rhule has gained a reputation as being flexible and adaptable to his personnel. He went from a power-rushing attack at Temple to a system that heavily featured RPOs at Baylor. Rhule recruited the highly sought after Joe Brady to run his offense so I’d expect them to spread teams out and air it out as he did with LSU’s potent offense last season.
Stat to know: Rhule has a proven track record of turning around programs, starting with Temple in 2013 before jumping to Baylor in 2017. Temple finished 2-10 in Year One under Rhule before they reeled off back-to-back 10-win seasons in Years Three and Four. The Owls had just one previous 10+ win campaign in their 72-year history back in 1979. If rebuilding Temple wasn’t a tough enough task, he decided to take on the mess at Baylor University later in 2017. A sexual assault scandal rocked the football program and the athletic department, which resulted in the dismissal of head coach Art Briles as well as the university’s president and athletic director in 2015. Rhule won just a single game in Year One at Baylor before winning 11 games and appearing in the Sugar Bowl in his third and final year in Waco, Texas.
Meet Joe Brady
Brady was working at Penn State as a 26-year-old graduate assistant just five short years ago. This fall, he’ll be the youngest NFL coordinator at just 31 years old. Matt Rhule pried one of the the hottest young offensive minds away from LSU after their stunning march to the national championship this past season. Brady spent two seasons as an offensive assistant under Sean Payton from 2017-18 before heading to LSU last year to become their passing-game coordinator. LSU’s offense was simply unstoppable last season and Brady’s work helped a relative unknown win the Heisman Trophy and to be the #1 overall pick in Joe Burrow. Brady and LSU OC Steve Ensminger built their offense around the strengths of the roster using spread concepts and RPOs with an uptempo pace to dismantle opposing defenses. Brady is actually a full-time play-caller for the first time this season, but he did call plays on third downs, in the red zone, and in empty sets for the Tigers last season.
Brady helped orchestrate the nation’s best vertical passing attack in 2019, and he’s bringing that model to the NFL. Brady and Rhule are building their offense like the Chiefs and the Seahawks with an emphasis on skill-player speed. The Panthers already had top-end athletes in Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, D.J. Moore, and Ian Thomas in place before the start of the new year. They then added one of the league’s premier deep threats in Robby Anderson during free agency. Samuel was absolutely crushed by terrible downfield passing from his quarterbacks last season, and the Panthers still might not have the right quarterback to orchestrate this offense.
The Panthers cleared out the 2019 QB room by cutting Cam Newton and trading away Kyle Allen. They brought in Teddy Bridgewater, who worked under Brady in New Orleans, and Rhule’s former Temple QB and XFL star P.J. Walker. Bridgewater appears to be ill-equipped to operate this vertical offense based on his reluctance to throw downfield throughout his career. Teddy ranked dead last in air yards per attempt (6.1) last season, and he attempted deep passes at the second-lowest rate (7.1%, 14-of-196) — he never averaged more than an 11% downfield rate in a season with the Vikings either. I’m skeptical that Bridgewater can change his stripes in his seventh year, but it’s looking like Brady is going to try anyway, making Teddy an interesting dart-throw late in drafts.
Moore appears to be a much better fit for Bridgewater and Brady’s offense — McCaffrey is a great option in any offense. LSU’s offense emphasized in-breaking routes like slants and digs last season, which is clearly a strength of Moore’s route running. It also wouldn’t be shocking if the Panthers are near the league leaders in plays per game this season, which means more opportunities for fantasy production. LSU finished 25th in plays per game last season (74.3) despite finishing second in yards/play (7.6). Alabama, Oklahoma, and Clemson were the only other teams to average more than 7.0 yards/play last season, but they finished 113th, 81st, and 40th in plays per game, respectively.
Stat to know: Brady helped orchestrate one of the all-time best single-season offenses in the history of college football last season. They easily led the FBS in total offense with 568.5 yards per game — UCF was a distant 28.0 yards per game behind them — and they also paced the FBS division in scoring offense with 48.4 points per game. Brady’s quarterback and future #1 overall pick by the Bengals, Joe Burrow, also had arguably the best single-season quarterback performance in the history of college football. He completed a ludicrous 76.3% of his passes and he averaged a silly 10.8 YPA for 5671 yards, which helped him throw for an FBS record 60 TDs with just six INTs.
Meet Phil Snow
HC Matt Rhule went for the young genius for his offensive coordinator position in Joe Brady, but he stuck with his old reliable defensive coordinator in Snow. The 64-year-old Snow has been Rhule’s defensive coordinator in his last two stops with Temple (2013-16) and Baylor (2017-19). A much younger Rhule initially worked under Snow at UCLA in 2001, serving as a D-line coach in Snow’s defense. Snow has worked in Division I football since 1982 and he’s held seven different defensive coordinator jobs in his career. He also spent four seasons with the Lions as a defensive assistant and as a linebackers coach from 2005-08, and he primarily worked with defensive backs before his many stints as a defensive coordinator.
Snow is facing an uphill battle turning this Panthers defense around after they got battered on the ground in 2019, and he’ll be forced to do it without Luke Kuechly, who retired in January. The Panthers defense got absolutely battered on the ground last season, and they could be the worst run defense once again this season after DT Gerald McCoy, DT Dontari Poe, DT Vernon Butler, DE Mario Addison, and DE Bruce Irvin each left in free agency. The Panthers used all seven of their picks to repair a dreadful 2019 unit. The Panthers became the first team to use all seven picks on defense since the AFL-NFL merger (1967) — the 1985 Browns used all seven picks on offense. They specifically attacked their D-line with three picks, including selecting Derrick Brown with the seventh overall pick. The Panthers switched to a primary 3-4 base defense last season, and Snow said this year’s edition will use multiple fronts. He wants his defenses to play fast and aggressive, and he’s looking for safeties that can play all over the field and for athleticism at linebacker and on the edge.
Stat to know: With mass departures along this defensive front, Snow could be in over his head as he tries to turn around this bad Panthers run defense from last season. Carolina allowed a league-high 5.2 YPC and 1.9 rushing TDs per game last season, and they gave up the fourth-most rushing yards per game (143.5). The Panthers did have one of the league’s best pass-rushing units last season, but even that group is no longer a strength for Snow. The Panthers finished with the second-most sacks in the league with 53, and they did it without an individual pass rusher reaching double-digit sacks. However, their two leading pass-rushers from last season, Mario Addison and Bruce Irvin, departed in free agency, leaving last year’s first-round pick Brian Burns to do the heavy lifting this season.
Chicago Bears
OC: Bill Lazor
Meet Bill Lazor
The Bears are in the middle of a quarterback competition between Nick Foles and Mitch Trubisky in training camp, and they’ve beefed up their offensive coaching staff to get the most out of the position. Lazor replaced Mark Helfrich as the team’s offensive coordinator. The Bears also hired former Vikings and Jags OC John DeFilippo to be the QB coach, and they promoted QB Dave Ragone to pass-game coordinator. If you include HC Matt Nagy in the mix, the Bears essentially have four coaches working to salvage one of the league’s worst QB situations. Nagy is expected to keep calling plays as he has in his first two seasons. Lazor’s main job is to get Trubisky to take a massive step forward in his development after he took steps backward last season, and to get Foles back on the right path after a lost season in his only year in Jacksonville.
The 48-year-old Lazor was out of the league last season — he volunteered as a consultant for Penn State — but this is his third offensive coordinator gig since 2014. He worked with Ryan Tannehill in Miami from 2014-15 and with Andy Dalton in Cincinnati from 2016-18 — he served as the Bengals OC for 30 games in 2017-18. Nagy studied in Andy Reid’s West Coast offense, and the plan should be to get Trubisky back on the move as a passer after they tried to make him more of a pocket quarterback in the first half of 2019. Trubisky averaged just 12.9 rushing yards per game and his YPA plummeted to just 6.1 after averaging 30.1 rushing yards per game and 7.4 YPA back in 2018. The Bears also invested a lot into David Montgomery after trading up to draft him in the third round last year. Lazor, who worked with RPO-maestro Chip Kelly in Philadelphia in 2013, implemented more run-pass options during his time in Cincinnati to help Joe Mixon, Dalton, and a struggling offensive line. It wouldn’t be shocking if RPOs become more of a staple in Bears’ gameplans this season.
Stat to know: QB Andy Dalton averaged 3364.0 yards, 21.3 TDs, and 10.3 INTs per season while averaging 7.1 YPA while playing under Lazor in Cincinnati from 2016-18. Ryan Tannehill threw a career-high 27 TDs on his way to a career-best 278.5 fantasy points with Lazor in the fold with the Dolphins in 2014.
Dallas Cowboys
HC: Mike McCarthy
DC: Mike Nolan
Meet Mike McCarthy
The Jason Garrett Era in Dallas got stale after nine seasons of mild but rarely wild success in the NFC. Enter McCarthy this off-season, who lost his old job at the end of the 2018 season after his tenure got stale in Green Bay. The 56-year-old McCarthy spent last season out of the league, but he spent his time away from the NFL trying to freshen up his coaching. He turned the barn at his Green Bay home into a football lab where he studied film, and he learned how to incorporate analytics into his coaching processes. We’ll see if he truly is a different coach this season, but he did take a very different approach when he announced that last year’s offensive coordinator Kellen Moore would stay on staff and call plays this season. McCarthy previously called plays during his 13-year run in Green Bay in which he racked up a 135-85-2 record that included a 2010 Super Bowl title.
He built a perennial title contender in Green Bay with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. McCarthy is looking to do the same thing with Dak Prescott as his new QB, but McCarthy is more of a CEO this time around by delegating play-calling duties to the 32-year-old Moore. McCarthy said he’ll collaborate with Moore on the offense, but they’ll keep Moore’s offensive verbiage from last season, which is a strong vote of confidence for the former Boise State quarterback and six-year NFL backup. We’ll see if McCarthy sticks by Moore if the offense would happen to get off to a slow start this season. McCarthy’s offenses in Green Bay naturally revolved around his two Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks, and Dak is certainly no Rodgers or Favre just yet (no offense, Mr. Prescott).
McCarthy never did have a running back and O-line combo as he has in Dallas with Ezekiel Elliott and company. However, he’s still expected to ramp up the aggressiveness with this passing game, especially on early downs. The Cowboys will be also using a ton of 11 personnel this season after they drafted CeeDee Lamb in the first round to play with studs Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup. McCarthy used 11 personnel (three-WRs) heavily in Green Bay, including at the second-highest rate (77%) in his final season with the Packers, behind only Sean McVay’s Rams at 89% in 2018 (per Sharp Football). The Cowboys used 11 personnel 67% of the time last season so Lamb could see a slight uptick in playing time compared to Randall Cobb’s 69% snap rate from last season.
Stat to know: The Cowboys’ offense can’t get much better than they were last season. They led the league in total offense by averaging 431.5 yards per game, and they finished sixth in scoring offense by averaging 27.1 points per game. Kellen Moore also had the Cowboys running their offense at the second-fastest pace (25.54 seconds per play) in the league after they routinely finished near the bottom of the league earlier in Jason Garrett’s tenure. Mike McCarthy’s offenses finished in the top-10 in both yards and points per game eight different times in his 13 seasons in Green Bay, but they did it just once in his final four years with the Pack. Green Bay also finished eighth in pace (27.16 second per play) in McCarthy’s final season.
Meet Mike Nolan
It feels like Nolan has been a defensive coordinator or a head coach for every team in the league at this point in his career. He’s now been a defensive coordinator or a head coach for more than a quarter of the league (9-of-32 teams) after Mike McCarthy hired him for his Cowboys’ staff. Nolan, 61, is back in the defensive coordinator ranks after spending the last three seasons coaching linebackers in New Orleans. He’s previously been a head coach for the 49ers (2005-08) and a defensive coordinator for the Giants (1993-96), the Football Team (1997-99), the Jets (2000), the Ravens (2002-04), the Broncos (2009), the Dolphins (2010-11), and the Falcons (2012-14). The Cowboys also brought in George Edwards to be a senior defensive assistant with Nolan after he served as the Vikings’ DC under Mike Zimmer in the last six years. A big complaint about recent editions of the Cowboys’ defense has been the predictable schemes and coverages from week to week. McCarthy said they’ll use a base four down linemen, but the plan is to mix up their defensive fronts and to disguise their coverages to create more havoc for opposing offenses compared to recent years.
Stat to know: The top objective for Nolan and the Cowboys’ defense this season is to create more turnovers than Dallas has in the past couple years. The Cowboys have ranked in the top-10 in yards allowed the last three seasons, and they’ve finished in the top half of the league in points allowed. However, they consistently struggled to create turnovers during Jason Garrett’s tenure, finishing in the bottom half of the league in takeaways in five straight seasons. The Cowboys intercepted a pass on just 1.23% of the passes they faced last season (third-lowest), and they averaged just 1.1 takeaways per game (tied eighth-lowest).
Detroit Lions
DC: Cory Undlin
Meet Cory Undlin
Lions HC Matt Patricia and Undlin each broke into the NFL coaching ranks back in 2004 with the New England Patriots under legendary coach Bill Belichick. Patricia initially worked as an offensive assistant while Undlin was a defensive assistant. Patricia and Undlin spent just one season together in New England, but they struck up a relationship that eventually resulted in a reunion 16 years later in Detroit. After his one-year stop with the Patriots, Undlin eventually moved onto Cleveland (2005-08), Jacksonville (2009-11), Denver (2012-14), and most recently Philadelphia (2015-19). The 49-year-old Undlin worked the last five years as a defensive backs coach with the Eagles after previously working with the likes of Aqib Talib and Chris Harris in Denver. The Eagles secondary certainly struggled plenty the last couple of years, which wasn’t helped by injuries, but Undlin has a reputation for being a detail-oriented coach, with a strong emphasis on teaching technique. The Lions secondary did get significantly weaker when they traded CB Darius Slay to the Eagles in March, but they replaced him by drafting Jeff Okudah with the third overall pick and by signing Desmond Trufant. This is Undlin’s first defensive coordinator job since he ran the defense at NAIA California Lutheran two decades ago. Patricia is expected to continue to call plays for the defense this season while Undlin will help with game planning, but his biggest focus will be on drastically improving a bad 2019 Lions secondary.
Stat to know: The Lions defense finished dead last in passing yards allowed per game (284.4), tied for last in interceptions (seven), and ranked 27th in YPA allowed (7.4) last season. The 2019 Eagles secondary, under Undlin, ranked 22nd in passing yards allowed per game (246.1), tied for 22nd in interceptions (11), and 21st in YPA allowed (7.0).
Los Angeles Rams
OC: Kevin O’Connell (Sean McVay play-caller)
DC: Brandon Staley
Meet Kevin O’Connell
Tom Brady has had so many backup quarterbacks during his decorated 20-year career that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Jimmy Garoppolo is arguably the most famous now off of his Super Bowl appearance, and Kliff Kingsbury is certainly making a name for himself with his meteoric rise to head coach at the highest level (those two also gace TB12 a run for his money in the looks department). O’Connell is looking to add his name to that list of successful former Brady backups as he continues to generate buzz in coaching circles (he might need some help to catch up in the looks department). The Patriots cut O’Connell one season after they drafted him in the third round (#94 overall in 2008), and he never made an NFL start in his five-year career (2008-12), having attempted just six career passes. He quickly broke into the NFL coaching ranks after his playing career wrapped up, starting as the Browns QB coach in 2015 (Johnny Manziel) before becoming a 49ers offensive assistant in 2016 (Colin Kaepernick). His profile really started to rise the last three years in Washington as the team’s QB/passing-game coordinator in 2017-18 (Kirk Cousins and Alex Smith) before becoming the offensive coordinator in 2019 (Dwayne Haskins).
The 35-year-old O’Connell got his first real chance to call plays after the Football Team fired Jay Gruden five games into the 2019 season. First-round pick Dwayne Haskins initially looked like a lost cause, but the rookie incrementally improved as the season went along under O’Connell. He appeased run-game-minded interim HC Bill Callahan while also working in more play-action and quick-passing-game concepts for Haskins as the season progressed. O’Connell turned enough heads that new Football Team HC Ron Rivera briefly considered retaining O’Connell before going with a familiar face in Scott Turner. O’Connell is bringing what he’s learned in Gruden’s West Coast offense and Brady’s quick-passing game to assist Sean McVay, primarily in game-planning since McVay will continue to call plays.
McVay and O’Connell didn’t work at the same time while in the nation’s capital, but they both worked under Gruden at different times. If McVay starts taking on more responsibilities with the defense and special teams, he could eventually cede play-calling duties in the future if McConnell isn’t snatched up as a play-caller or as a head coach in next season’s hiring cycle. O’Connell is helping McVay to revamp their offense to more two-TE sets with Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett after trading away WR Brandin Cooks. The Rams led the league in 11-personnel usage (three-WRs) just two short years ago, running the personnel grouping a whopping 90% of the time in 2018 (per Sharp Stats). McVay didn’t employ an offensive coordinator the last two seasons after current Packers’ coach Matt LaFleur left for Tennessee. O’Connell is hoping his career has a similar trajectory to LaFleur’s as he took the Packers to the NFC Championship Game just two years after coaching under McVay.
Stat to know: Once O’Connell had more confidence in Dwayne Haskins later in the season, the young coach started dialing up more quick-passing-game concepts to get his rookie QB in a rhythm. Haskins completed 31-of-43 passes (72.1%) for 394 yards (9.2 YPA), four TDs, and no interceptions in his final two games of the season against the Eagles and the Giants (add those grains of salt if you like). Haskins completed 88/160 passes (55.0%) for 971 yards (6.1 YPA), three TDs, and six INTs in his first seven games last season.
Meet Brandon Staley
Back in 2017, a then 30-year-old Sean McVay hired a then 69-year-old Wade Phillips to be his eyes and ears on defense while he learned on the job. Phillips emphasized sound fundamentals, and he relied on his players winning in one-on-one matchups, which was successful until the Rams sunk to a 9-7 mark this season — the Rams were the only team to miss the playoffs with a winning record. Phillips was never going to coach forever in Los Angeles because of his advanced-coaching age, and McVay likely had an idea of the type of defensive coordinator he wanted next after Bill Belichick humbled him in Super Bowl LIII. The high-flying Rams offense mustered just three points in their eye-opening loss to the Patriots. The Rams never had an answer for all the different personnel looks, schemes, and coverages thrown at them in the Super Bowl.
In the present, a now 34-year-old McVay turned to a coach that is nearly half the age of his former defensive coordinator by hiring the 37-year-old Staley — Phillips has been coaching longer (50 years) than Staley has been alive. Staley’s rapid ascension to an NFL defensive coordinator position was nearly improbable given his background. He played quarterback at FCS Dayton and Division II Mercyhurst before getting his first taste as a defensive coordinator at the community college level just a decade ago. He actually was a defensive coordinator at Division III John Carroll just four years ago, and he’s now coordinating at the highest level of football. He got his big break working under Vic Fangio the last three seasons as his outside linebackers coach, first with the Bears in 2017-18 and most recently with the Broncos in 2019.
Staley blew McVay away in the interview process because he’s likely the chameleon that McVay was looking for after their loss to the Patriots. Staley is expected to use a 3-4 base defense while throwing multiple looks at opponents like his mentor Fangio taught him. Staley is certainly in a tough spot taking over for a beloved coach that produced results. But opposing offensive coaches will have a little more work to do to prepare for the Rams defense this season.
Stat to know: A loaded Rams defense inexplicably allowed 40+ points in three losses to the Buccaneers, Ravens, and Cowboys last season. With Staley following Vic Fangio to Denver last season, the Broncos allowed 19.8 points per game (8th-fewest) and 337.0 yards per game (12th-fewest) last season after allowing 21.8 points per game (12th-fewest) and 365.1 yards per game (11th-most) in 2018.
Minnesota Vikings
OC: Gary Kubiak
Co-DC: Andre Patterson/Adam Zimmer
Meet Gary Kubiak
The 58-year-old Kubiak is the fifth different play-caller the Vikings have employed over the last five seasons (Norv Turner, Pat Shurmur, John DeFilippo, Kevin Stefanski, and Kubiak). HC Mike Zimmer went with continuity over new ideas for the 2020 offense even though the Vikings have a new face in Kubiak as their offensive coordinator. He spent two seasons (2017-18) out of the league because of health issues, but he joined the Vikings staff last season as an assistant head coach/offensive advisor. His main job was to be a mentor for first-time play-caller Kevin Stefanski, who did well enough in his first season as the OC to get the Browns’ head-coaching position. The Vikings are going from two green play-callers in Stefanski and DeFilippo the last two seasons to one of the most experienced play-callers in the entire league. He won a Super Bowl as a head coach with the 2015 Broncos, and he’s appeared in seven Super Bowls overall as a player and coach — winning three other titles as an assistant coach.
The Vikings are once again deploying Kubiak’s wide-zone rushing scheme that helped Dalvin Cook to rack up 1135 rushing yards, 13 rushing TDs, and 292.4 FP last season. The offense will continue to run through Cook and this rushing attack, with explosive-play opportunities coming off the run action. Kirk Cousins finished sixth in play-action percentage (31.4%) last season, and Adam Thielen should be well fed on deep-crossing patterns. Thielen is the clear top receiving option after the team traded away Stefon Diggs this off-season. Andre Johnson feasted in Houston in 2006-13 when he was the far-and-away top receiving option in Kubiak’s offense. Youngsters Justin Jefferson and Irv Smith are battling for the #2 receiver role for Cousins. Kubiak has been flexing Smith out wide more during his second training camp, and Jefferson is out to prove he can work on the perimeter after working exclusively out of the slot at LSU last season.
The big question is whether Zimmer will put enough faith in the well-respected Kubiak to let him be a little more aggressive than Stefanski was able to be in 2019. The Vikings passed on just 51.7% of their plays (29th), and Zimmer is a defensive-minded coach who’s had some run-ins with his OCs in Minnesota, including with another well-respected coach in Turner.
Stat to know: Kubiak’s offenses have consistently performed at an extremely high level throughout his career. According to The Athletic, Kubiak’s offenses have finished in the top-10 in points scored in 11 of his 12 seasons as an offensive coordinator. Overall, his offenses have finished in the top-10 in points scored in 15 of his 22 seasons as a primary offensive play-caller.
Meet Andre Patterson and Adam Zimmer
HC Mike Zimmer not only went for continuity on offense but also with his defense after George Edwards bolted for Dallas after six seasons as the Vikings defensive coordinator. Mike Zimmer is expected to call the shots on defense again this season, but he elevated one of his most trusted assistants, Patterson, and his son, Adam Zimmer, to co-defensive coordinator roles. Patterson, 60, has been in charge of the defensive line since Mike Zimmer came to Minnesota in 2014. He’s been instrumental in developing one of the league’s best D-lines in that time, specifically Danielle Hunter. Patterson pushed to draft Hunter in the third round in 2015, and he’s helped to develop him into one of the league’s best pass rushers. Adam Zimmer, 36, followed his dad from Cincinnati and he’s been the team’s linebackers coach the last six seasons before his promotion — Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks have developed into one of the better duos at the position. Mike Zimmer could give each of his co-defensive coordinators a chance to call plays in the preseason, but he’ll likely resume those duties once the season starts.
Stat to know: The Vikings have finished as a top-10 defense in points allowed for five straight seasons, but they finished 14th in yards allowed last season, snapping a three year-run in the top-10. The Vikings have some major concerns in their secondary heading into 2020 after they finished 15th in passing yards allowed. They let CBs Xavier Rhodes and Trae Waynes leave this off-season, and they’re going with a youth movement with rookies Jeff Gladney and Cameron Dantzler. Zimmer’s defenses have finished inside the top-10 in passing yards allowed in eight of his previous 10 seasons (five with Minnesota and five with Cincinnati) prior to 2019.
New York Giants
HC: Joe Judge
OC: Jason Garrett
DC: Patrick Graham
Meet Joe Judge
Judge went from relative obscurity as the Patriots’ special teams coordinator the past five seasons to holding one of the league’s highest-profile head coaching positions in just a matter of days to start this off-season. The Giants inked Judge to a five-year contract after Matt Rhule decided to become the Panthers head coach, and Judge became the third Giants HC in the last five seasons. Pat Shurmur (2018-19) and Ben McAdoo (2016-17) each lasted just two seasons before being fired by the Giants. Judge, 38, took a rare path to become a head coach because of his background as a special teams coordinator. That background, though, could help since a special teams coordinator is the most like a head-coaching position since it required him to work with players from both sides of the ball.
Judge is trying to follow in the steps of John Harbaugh. He went from being a longtime Eagles special teams coordinator to being one of the league’s best head coaches with the Ravens. Judge’s mentor Bill Belichick also knows a little about going from working as a special teams coordinator to being an extremely successful head coach. Bellichick also had a stint as a defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells (1985-90) before getting his first head coaching job with the Browns (1991-95). There’s no doubt that Judge’s association with Belichick helped him land the coveted position, but he also had a three-year stint working with another legendary coach that helped. He bolstered his resume under Nick Saban at Alabama as a special teams assistant (2009-11), which helped him land a job with Belichick.
Judge had been with the Patriots since 2012, and he added wide receivers coach to his duties last season, which didn’t exactly go as planned. The Patriots cut both Antonio Brown and Josh Gordon during the season while Day One draft pick N’Keal Harry was a first-year dud after he missed the first nine games of the season. Although the Patriots WRs were a huge disappointment in 2019, Judge has earned a reputation for being an intense, detail-oriented coach who will get on his players for mistakes. He’s living up to that reputation in his first training camp by making his players and coaches run laps for mistakes in practice. QB Daniel Jones and the entire Giants offense have a lot of mistakes to clean up after turning the ball over the third-most times last season (33) — Jones was responsible for 69.7% of those turnovers (23).
Stat to know: The Patriots ranked inside the top-10 of PFF’s special teams grades in every one of Judge’s five seasons as special teams coordinator. The Patriots led the league in 2016, and they finished behind only the Chiefs in Judge’s final year in New England last season. Judge’s special teams unit came up with a blocked punt return touchdown when they played the Giants on Thursday Night Football in 2019.
Meet Jason Garrett
It didn’t take long for Garrett to land on his feet after the Cowboys let his contract expire at the end of the 2019 season. The 54-year-old Garrett is with a new organization for the first time since 2006, but he is quite familiar with the Giants franchise. Garrett spent part of his childhood in New Jersey, he played quarterback at Princeton, and he eventually backed up Kerry Collins with the Giants in 2000-03. Garrett never worked with Joe Judge, but they both have a common connection in Nick Saban. Judge worked with Saban at Alabama from 2009-11, and Garrett served as Saban’s quarterbacks coach during his brief stop as the Dolphins HC in 2005-06. The Giants clearly wanted to hire someone with plenty of coaching experience to help Judge with his transition to head coach at 38 years old, and Garrett certainly brings many years of wisdom to the Giants staff.
Garrett started his career with the Cowboys as an offensive coordinator in 2007 before eventually becoming the full-time head coach in 2011 — he was the interim HC for the second half of 2010 after Jerry Jones fired Wade Phillips. The Cowboys ran his version of the Air Coryell offense during his 13 seasons, which blends a power-rushing game with a deep-passing attack. That combination has produced big seasons for his previous X receivers Michael Gallup, Dez Bryant, and Terrell Owens so there’s hope for a second-year leap for Darius Slayton. Garrett gave up play-calling duties starting in 2012 — a combination of Bill Callahan, Scott Linehan, and Kellen Moore called plays in his final eight seasons with the Cowboys — but he remained heavily involved in game planning and with in-game offensive decisions.
Garrett’s top task in his first season (and only???) with Giants is to take second-year QB Daniel Jones to the next level after a promising but mistake-prone rookie campaign. Garrett had two primary signal-callers during his time in Dallas in Tony Romo and Dak Prescott. Both Romo (UDFA in 2004) and Prescott (135th overall in 2016) went from unheralded prospects to top fantasy QBs in short order under Garrett’s watch. Garrett also traded in Ezekiel Elliott for another bell-cow back in Saquon Barkley, and the Giants certainly aren’t devoid of receiving talent either. Garret has to adjust to a Giants offensive line that’s not in the same stratosphere as the Cowboys O-line right now, but they did at least draft a potential franchise LT in Andrew Thomas with the fourth overall pick.
If Garrett is successful in his first season calling plays in eight years, there’s a good chance he would get another chance to be a head coach somewhere, which would give Jones three different OCs in his first three seasons. Ultimately, that would be a good problem for the Giants and Jones to have next off-season because that would mean Garrett would’ve done his job and the offense would make a leap in 2020.
Stat to know: Garrett regularly fielded one of the league’s best offenses during his 13 years as an offensive coordinator and as the head coach in Dallas. The Cowboys finished in the top-10 in yards per game eight times and in points per game seven times from 2007-19. Dallas easily paced the league with 431.5 yards per game last season — the Ravens were the only other team to average more than 400 yards per game — and they finished sixth in points per game with 27.1.
Meet Patrick Graham
Graham jumped from one defensive coordinator job to another after just one season in Miami. He worked with Brian Flores in New England from 2009-15 before following him to Miami last season. Graham followed another one of his former Patriots co-workers to New York in Joe Judge this season. Graham and Judge worked under Bill Belichick from 2012-15, and Graham actually moved to the Giants to coach their D-line from 2016-17 under Ben McAdoo. Somewhat surprisingly, the 41-year-old Yale grad actually called plays under Flores last season, and Belichick’s influence on both Graham and Flores was noticeable. The Dolphins primarily played a base 3-4 scheme, but they weren’t afraid to use multiple fronts and to drastically change their gameplans from week-to-week based on their opponents. Graham said he wants his defenses to be versatile and to be able to attack their opponent’s weaknesses on a weekly basis. The Dolphins primarily played man coverage last season, and they were one of the most aggressive teams when it came to blitzing opponents. According to Giants.com, the Dolphins blitzed at the seventh-highest rate overall (35% of their snaps) and the third-most on third downs (41%).
Stat to know: Graham’s Dolphins defense was, by any measure, one of the league’s worst defenses in 2019. They allowed the most points per game (30.9) and the third-most yards per game (397.8), and the Dolphins finished 32nd in pass defense DVOA and 27th in run defense DVOA (per Football Outsiders). However, his undermanned defense incrementally improved and played better as the season went along even after they lost their two best defenders in Minkah Fitzpatrick (trade) and Xavien Howard (knee injury). The Dolphins allowed 133 points (44.3 points per game) and 1,498 yards (499.3 yards per game) during an 0-3 start to the season. After that ugly stretch at the beginning of the season, the Dolphins allowed 361 points (374.3 yards per game) and 4,866 yards (27.8 points per game) to help them to a 5-8 finish in their final 13 games.
Washington Football Team
HC: Ron Rivera
OC: Scott Turner
DC: Jack Del Rio
Meet Ron Rivera
The Football Team cleaned house this off-season, inking Rivera to a five-year deal while also firing president Bruce Allen after a disappointing 10-year run making personnel decisions for the organization. Rivera certainly has his work cut out for him lifting this team back to relevance with the franchise totaling just six winning seasons since Daniel Snyder became the owner in 1999. The franchise has lacked direction for much of Snyder’s tenure as owner, and the 58-year-old Rivera is the eighth head coach in just over two decades under Snyder. Rivera quickly built a winner during his nine seasons in Carolina, making the playoffs in four of his final seven seasons with the Panthers. He won the NFL Coach of the Year honors twice in nine years, and he racked up a 79-67-1 overall record (.541, 3-4 postseason), which included a loss to Peyton Manning and the Broncos in Super Bowl 50.
Rivera is expected to take on a CEO-type role with the Football Team, delegating play-calling duties Scott Turner on offense and to Jack Del Rio on defense. Rivera said they’ll run a base 4-3 scheme on defense this year despite the Football Team running a 3-4 base under Greg Manusky the previous three seasons. Rivera has favored a 4-3 base for most of his career, but the Panthers switched to a 3-4 base last season, which produced mostly poor results. The Panthers allowed a league-high 5.2 YPC and 1.9 rushing TDs per game last season, but they also finished with the second-most sacks with 53. Both Rivera and Del Rio prefer to use basic coverages while rarely blitzing, but Del Rio prefers to use more man coverage compared to Rivera’s affinity for more zone concepts. Second overall pick Chase Young is going to help Washington pressure the QB without having to blitz this season.
Stat to know: The Panthers ranked in the top-10 in points allowed per game in four straight seasons from 2012-15, but Rivera’s defense fell off a cliff over the back half of his tenure in Carolina, which culminated in his firing in December 2019. According to ESPN Stats and Information, the Panthers ranked 19th in yards per game (348.0), 24th in points per game (23.9), and 27th in yards/rush (4.4) from 2016 through his firing in 2019. Rivera notably lost his longtime DC Sean McDermott to the Bills during his last three seasons with the Panthers.
Meet Scott Turner
Turner is following in his father Norv’s steps as he takes on his first full-time offensive coordinator gig at 38 years old. Turner took over for his father as the Panthers’ interim offensive coordinator in the final four games of last season after Ron Rivera’s dismissal in early December — Norv moved to an assistant coaching role for interim HC Perry Fewell. Turner is taking over an offense that skewed run-heavy in situation-neutral spots last season under interim HC Bill Callahan and with rookie QB Dwayne Haskins under center. Turner used a variety of run types in his brief stint as OC last season, but he primarily used zone runs. He also used more shifts, motion, and jet action to create more confusion for opposing defenses.
The Panthers also had major issues getting Curtis Samuel going last season because their three quarterbacks struggled throwing downfield — Kyle Allen finished with a league-worst 35.0 passer rating on passes 20+ yards downfield (per PFF). Turner remedied Samuel’s lack of involvement as a receiver to an extent by getting creative with more backfield touches in the final month of the season. That’s at least a little reassuring for Terry McLaurin owners this season if Haskins has some sophomore struggles. Cam Newton had a propensity to always look for the home-run throws early in his career, and the Turners worked hard with him to take open throws underneath in their final couple of seasons in Carolina. Turner will likely do the same with Haskins this season.
The second-year QB showed the ability to push the ball downfield in the pocket last season, and Turner is planning on getting him on the move more this season. In January, Turner said of Haskins, “We’re going to want to use a lot of play-action pass, and then something also he's done a good job of in his past and in college, too, is just being able to get the ball out quickly and kind of distribute the football to the playmakers and let them make the plays for him.” Haskins dropped from 231 pounds down to 218 pounds while shedding seven percent body fat to move better this season.
Stat to know: Play-action passes have long been a staple of Norv Turner’s offenses, and they’ll likely be a heavy feature for Scott Turner’s offenses in Washington. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the Panthers finished second in play-action pass attempts last season while the Football Team finished 29th. Haskins completed just 16/30 play-action passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns last season, but most of his play-action production came in the final two games of the season — he completed 6/9 play-action passes for 163 yards and two scores in that span.
Meet Jack Del Rio
Del Rio and Ron Rivera have traveled very similar career paths as former standout NFL linebackers who rose the coaching ranks to become head coaches at the highest level. They each broke into the NFL as assistants in 1997, but they’ve never actually been on the same coaching staff over the last 23 years until 2020. Del Rio, 56, spent the last two seasons out of coaching after a three-year stint with the Raiders (2015-17) in which he went 25-24 overall with one postseason appearance. Rivera is leaning on Del Rio to handle the play-calling duties this season, and he’s looking to recreate the success he had at the start of his Panthers’ tenure with Sean McDermott in charge of his defense from 2011-16.
Both Rivera and Del Rio prefer to use basic coverages while rarely blitzing, relying on their front four linemen to create pressure while emphasizing winning in one-on-one matchups. Del Rio has the horses up front to carry out the plan as Washington has spent first-round picks on D-linemen in each of the last four drafts in Chase Young, Montez Sweat, Da’Ron Payne, and Jonathan Allen. Young, the second overall pick in April, gives Del Rio two young pass-rushing studs with Sweat lining up across from the Ohio State product. Del Rio does prefer to use more man coverage compared to Rivera’s affinity for more zone coverage concepts. The Football Team is primarily using a 4-3 under with four down linemen and a stand-up linebacker on the strong side of the formation this season.
Stat to know: Del Rio has been running defenses as a coordinator or as a head coach for 16 seasons. His units finished in the top-10 in yards allowed per game in seven of his first 13 seasons and in the top-10 in points allowed per game five times. However, in his last stop with the Raiders, his teams managed a winning record over three seasons despite below-average play from his defenses. His defensive units finished 20th or worse in both yards and points allowed per game in each of his three seasons with the Raiders.
