Not every NFL team that’s looking for a new head coach will hit a home run in this cycle. They’re all hoping for a Ben Johnson, Mike Vrabel or Liam Coen and the immediate turnaround those coaches brought to their franchises. It’s far from a guarantee.
We won’t know for a while how each of the nine teams that were looking for a head coach did with their new hires, but we can assign grades based on how each hire looks in the moment. Here are the grades for the head-coaching hires.
Advertisement
This post will be updated for each new hire.
Let’s be clear: Getting Harbaugh was as good as the Giants could have done. It’s their best hire since landing Tom Coughlin in 2004. The Giants can only hope for similar results from Harbaugh.
Harbaugh comes in with a 61.4% career win percentage and a Super Bowl ring. He hasn’t had a ton of playoff success lately, but neither have the Giants. They haven’t even been reaching the playoffs most seasons, as they stumbled through hires like Ben McAdoo, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll.
Harbaugh immediately raises expectations in New York. There is a good, young core here. Harbaugh had only three losing seasons in his 18 years with Baltimore, and while there might not be that level of success right away with the Giants, this is the best coach they have had since the end of the Coughlin era, and it’s not close. Harbaugh was the best coach on the market (unless you prefer Mike Tomlin, who seems set on sitting out at least a season), the Giants were quickly identified as the favorite to land him and they got it done before any other team swooped in. For a franchise that has gotten a lot wrong lately, this was a major win.
Advertisement
Grade: A+
NFL Coach of the Year might be a flawed award, but Stefanski has two of them. It’s rare that a coach like that is available, and the Falcons saw an opportunity.
It’s easy to like this hire. Stefanski and the Falcons still has a quarterback situation to work through, but he’s used to that after his seasons with the Browns. Stefanski steps into a situation with a talented team in a bad division. And he should be able to elevate the Falcons right away. This seemed like a great fit, with a coach who succeeded at times in a tough situation in Cleveland with a team that underachieved last season and could make a big improvement right away. It’s easy to be impressed with this hire.
Grade: A