As Super Bowl LX approaches, it will feature two head coaches who embody one of the NFL’s defining trends of the past half decade: rapid organizational turnarounds driven by relatively new leadership.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald and New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel were both hired within the last two seasons, underscoring how quickly franchises can pivot when the right coach is in place.
Macdonald, who took over in Seattle in 2024 after coordinating elite defenses in Baltimore, led the Seahawks to a 10–7 record in his first season before breaking through with a 14–3 campaign in 2025 and an NFC title.
Vrabel’s path to Super Bowl LX was even more abrupt. After being hired by New England in January 2025 following back-to-back 4–13 seasons, Vrabel immediately stabilized the franchise, guiding the Patriots to a 14–3 record, an AFC championship, and a Super Bowl appearance in his first year.
On Thursday, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell revisited the best NFL head coaching hires since 2021, and while Macdonald and Vrabel both ranked highly, the No. 1 spot went to Dan Campbell, whose work in Detroit represents the most complete transformation among recent hires.
“It’s worth noting just how low the Lions were before Campbell arrived,” Barnwell wrote. “This has been a complete rebuild in Detroit. It took a year and a half of frustrating losses, but Campbell turned the Lions into one of the league’s model organizations.”
“They came within a drop or two of making it to the Super Bowl in 2023, and they overachieved in 2024 by winning 15 games despite being down to third-stringers on defense. Put it this way: If you had to predict a single hire from the past five years to still be in his current job 15 years from now, whom would you pick? My choice would be Campbell, who has become the face of the franchise in Detroit.”
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When Campbell was hired in January 2021, the Detroit Lions were coming off a 14–33–1 stretch under Matt Patricia and interim coach Darrell Bevell and hadn’t won a playoff game since 1991.
General manager Brad Holmes soon traded Matthew Stafford for draft capital and Jared Goff, signaling a full teardown, and of the players Campbell inherited, Taylor Decker remains the lone significant holdover.
The rebuild was painful early. Detroit went 3–13–1 in 2021, followed by steady progress in 2022 (9–8) before the 2023 breakthrough, when the Lions went 12–5, won the NFC North for the first time since 1993, and advanced to the NFC Championship Game.
However, Campbell’s true peak came in 2024, when Detroit posted a 15–2 record, the most wins in franchise history, firmly establishing the Lions as an NFC power even while falling short of a Super Bowl appearance.
Even a step back to 9–8 in 2025, following the loss of offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and several key injuries, did little to diminish the perception that Detroit now possesses one of the league’s strongest rosters and most stable foundations.
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