Carolina Panthers: Will the Coordinators Stay?
The Carolina Panthers will not be firing their coach after the year is over. That makes them one of the happier teams in the NFL as coaches are already starting to be let go. The Philadelphia Eagles did not even let Chip Kelly finish out the final game. The Miami Dolphins have been working with an interim coach since much earlier in the year and so have the Tennessee Titans.
Reports are now flying that the San Francisco 49ers will make a change and that the Cleveland Browns may also be looking to change their head man. The Colts are apparently going to dump Chuck Pagano. There are going to be many head coaching vacancies in the league this off season.
With that in mind, there are going to be new NFL head coaches this off season. People will be looking the successful coordinators of winning NFL teams as possible next hires. With that in mind the 14-1 Carolina Panthers have two men who may get some looks by teams. They would be defensive coordinator Sean McDermott and offensive coordinator Mike Shula.
While no landing spot is impossible for either man, there are two that have some attraction and both have to do with the past. For Shula, it is the Miami Dolphins where his father was a legend and where Ryan Tannehill needs some of the same coaching that Cam Newton received. However Miami may look defensively for its next coach to sort out issues on that side of the ball. They were also speculated as a landing spot for Sean Payton (if fired), who has a little more resume than Shula does.
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For McDermott, the team to watch out for is the Eagles. McDermott was the successor to Jim Johnson in Philly at defensive coordinator, but was dumped in a move for Coach Andy Reid to save his job. McDermott came to the Panthers and has thrived here.
The Eagles departed from Reid three years ago. While they ran out of patience with the Chip Kelly experiment, Reid has been winning games with the Kansas City Chiefs. Therefore the Eagles may want to go back to the Reid model, just without Reid. One of their first interview requests was Chiefs offensive coordinator and former Brett Favre/Donovan McNabb backup Doug Pederson. Another place they go to get some familiarity is McDermott.
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McDermott’s Panther experience would likely look to maximize DeMarco Murray on offense to keep the defense off the field so that it could attack when called upon. That would likely make a disgruntled Murray happy and prevent weird meetings between him and owner Jeffrey Lurie.
For the Panthers they would be best off losing neither man if they could. If Shula left, then there’s a chance the Panthers might reach out to Rob Chudzinki assuming he is let go from the Colts when Pagano is supposed to be fired. On the defensive side of the ball, replacing McDermott would be more difficult. Although one guy who does not have a job right now is former Rivera teammate Mike Singletary.
Losing assistants happens, but you would like to have your assistants long enough for the team to peak. Jack Del Rio left the Panthers too soon for my taste back in the early 2000s. Dan Henning was the wrong sacrifice to make to save John Fox several years later. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
The Panthers kick off their season finale against Tampa at 4:25 PM.