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The Jaguars' coaching job is a historically great opening.
Mike Tannenbaum is optimistic about the future of the team as they prepare to find a new head coach. 0:40
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Go up the private jets.
The hiring of a new head-coaching in the National Football League is expected to get more intense next week. After firing Urban Meyer, the Jacksonville Jaguars started. Candidates will pack their best suits and criss-cross the country, meeting in conference rooms and private airports while trying to convince billionaires that they will be the greatest thing since their first shout-out in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.
Jerry Angelo, the former Chicago Bears general manager, said that teams often make franchise-changing decisions based on the outcome of these interviews.
If you want to be a football coach, you have to win the interview, land the job and get paid millions.
Talk about the consequences.
In the coming weeks, you'll get notifications on your social media feeds as more and more media tracks and chronicles the travel itineraries of top candidates. According to the data, seven teams submitted 59 interview requests for 27 individuals a year ago.
Who is ready for another round of musical candidates?
Better question: What happens in the room where it happens?
The coaching candidates, already known for fastidious game preparation, apply the same obsessiveness to interview prep as the rest of the team. Building relationships throughout the organization and in the locker room is important to teams. Some people think it's more important.
Bob LaMonte, who has represented 53 head coaches over the course of his career, said that it's not about the X's and O's, it's about the CEOs.
Let's take a look at head-coaching interviews.
The head-coaching candidates are expected to be busy.
A typical first interview is three to five hours. It usually means dinner when that happens.
Where do they occur? The answer is "Wherever is convenient".
Sometimes teams have to go on the road if they're meeting with a candidate still involved in the playoffs. A conference room at a five-star hotel is often what that means.
Or not.
Eric Bieniemy once met with a team at a less-than-swany hotel. The interested team had to settle for a middle-of-the-road property because all the good hotels in the area were booked.
Rex Ryan met with team officials at a small airport near the Baltimore Ravens' facility when he was interviewing for the New York Jets' head-coaching position in 2009. Ryan was preparing for a playoff game. The Jets met with Russ Grimm in an airplane hangar.
It's fitting, right? Jets for the Jets.
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Virtual interviews were used for the first round of interviews because of the COVID-19 restrictions. It was cost- and time-effective for teams, but the downside was the impersonal nature of having to talk through laptops.
LaMonte, whose clients include the Kansas City Chiefs' Andy Reid and the Los Angeles Rams' Sean McVay, said that last year's Zoom interviews were "absurd". You don't feel like a person in the interview. It's like watching a show on TV. If you don't like it, turn it off and get another one.
If they remain part of the process, it will be no surprise. The head-coaching job was vacant when teams were allowed to interview candidates virtually during the final two weeks of the season.
The owner, general manager, team president and sometimes the general counsel interview a candidate in a normal setting. Some teams use a head-hunting firm or a consultant to bring in more people. Ryan said there were nine people at his interview.
There are lots of questions. Angelo would email 10 questions to candidates before the event. They could give serious thought to the issues before they talked about them in the interview. How do you see your role in personnel, free agency and the draft? How are we going to make decisions?
"You want to make sure you see the same thing," he said. Things can get testy.
Teams have a few hours to figure out if the person across the table can lead a billion-dollar corporation. They are going to probe. People who have participated in the process say there are some typical questions.
What is your policy on discipline?
Do you want to have final say on personnel?
What happens if your star player skips voluntary workouts?
What is your opinion of our quarterbacks?
Former Jets and Dolphins executive Mike Tannenbaum asked offbeat questions to gauge the candidate's ability to solve problems. He hired professional firms to give him questions and advice. His questions were doozies.
What happens in a coaching interview?
Who do the Bucs turn to after a loss?
The Bills should be in the playoffs for a long time.
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This year is the best for the Saints.
Penny is being helped by Peterson.
What is your biggest pet peeve? Who would you invite to dinner, dead or alive?
Tannenbaum was so thorough that he sometimes questioned the limo drivers that transported the candidates. He hired three head coaches that made the playoffs in their first season.
The department heads were assigned to contact the person in the candidate's home organization to find out more about the candidate. The equipment manager questioned the candidate's work ethic, personality, etc.
"You want someone to come in and be your CEO in a very meaningful way," said Tannenbaum. They are the most important person in your organization. Regardless of the structure of your football team, the most important person you're going to hire is your head coach. They are the most important in terms of how everything is handled.
Their answers in the interview are important. It's important how they answer.
Brian Levy is an agent who has a client list that includes PittsburghSteelers coach Mike Tomlin. You have to command the room by walking in. If you can't command the room in an interview, you're not going to be able to do it in front of 53 guys all season. That's important. You have to sell your vision. What is your vision? Tell the truth about it.
Staffing is one of the key components. Teams want to know the names of the potential staff. They want to know if the candidate is willing to keep the previous staff. This could be a big problem. The Jets were interested in hiring Matt Rhule, but they didn't like his staff.
Ryan said the process is thorough. The head coach is the face of the franchise and it's important that you decide whether you want to be or not.
The Jets were interested in Matt Rhule, but not on his staff.
This might surprise some people, but usually there isn't much X's-and-O's talk. The candidate isn't going to use a whiteboard to break down third-down blitz packages, but they will touch on general philosophy. The focus is leadership and whether the candidate has the people skills to get the job done.
The interview isn't a one-way street and candidates have their own questions. They need to be aware of what they are getting into.
In 2009, Raheem Morris was hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, thinking he was taking over a veteran team. They dumped most of the veterans and started to rebuild with a new quarterback, which wasn't what Morris wanted. He was fired after three years.
How do you plan to get a proven quarterback if there's not one in the building? The quarterback instability has ruined many promising coaching careers.
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Candidates don't get surprised a lot because they are well prepared. Goal Line Football conducts an insturment workshop for its clients. He puts coaches through various exercises to prepare them for interviews. He hires former GMs to do mock interviews. He hires body-language specialists to critique them. No rocking back and forth.
Levy will give his clients detailed reports on the team's cap situation, team needs, scouting reports and an explanation on what went wrong with the previous coaching staff when they get to the interview. Levy's team uses its coach and player connections to find information for the reports. It's helpful for a candidate meeting with multiple teams who doesn't have time to do all the research on his own.
Levy said that you always have to know what's in the cupboard.
LaMonte's company, PSR Inc., has a handbook for its clients that is legendary in the industry. There are articles about how to handle the media. Some candidates bring a binder with them to the interview. Ryan had a resume, a day-by-day practice schedule, a plan for scouting reports and testimonials from players he had coached when he first started interviewing for head-coaching jobs.
This practice is no longer the same. Some of the information is proprietary and coaches don't want it to be in enemy hands. Candidates who are tech savvy include that material on computer tablets at the end of the interview. You can't be too careful.
Levy said that they are not leaving a book there with their recipes. It's similar to a chef leaving his recipe book for the restaurant to look through. Guys are keeping it close to the vest. They would rather show a PowerPoint than leave there.
Not every interview is a success. Sometimes there is no chemistry. Sometimes it's a bad fit. A candidate withdrew in the middle of an interview with the Jets. He told team officials that he wasn't ready to become an NFL head coach because he wasn't happy with his performance.
He told friends that his aborted interview with the Jets was a valuable learning experience. He is now a successful head coach.
