Super Bowl LIX is set. The coaching carousel is spinning fast. And that gives us plenty to dive into in my 10 takeaways …

It’s no mistake this keeps happening. Game on the line. Ball in Patrick Mahomes’s hands. Helpless opponent on the other sideline, without much of a prayer of getting a different result than the rest of the Chiefs’ victims.

So it was Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills, 32–29. Mahomes outgunned Josh Allen, again, in the playoffs, and the Chiefs are going to their fifth Super Bowl in six years, which is a first. It also got them back to the biggest stage in sports after winning back-to-back Super Bowls, which is another first, and gives them a shot at an unprecedented three-peat in two weeks.

And yes, this one was about the transcendent greatness of Mahomes.

But to me, it was also about a team that’s come to handle the biggest moments, across the board, just like he does—without fear or any doubt that the right result is coming.

“No doubt,” says All-Pro corner Trent McDuffie, in a quiet moment by his locker. “Everybody around here will tell you when it’s a tie game, at the end of the game, if Pat has the ball, there’s nobody believing that he won’t get the job done. It’s been great to be on the opposite side and watch, but also learn about how they do their things. Being able to practice against Pat and Travis [Kelce] and pick their brain, it’s helped our defense so much.

“You can see the confidence flowing out of everybody.”

In the biggest moments Sunday, it was obvious, and it was more than just Mahomes.

It was George Karlaftis getting home on a blitz on fourth-and-5 to get the ball back right after the two-minute warning. It was Isiah Pacheco hauling in a Mahomes throw to the flat to move the sticks with 1:50 left. It was the receivers creating traffic in front of Terrel Bernard on the final significant play, so the Bills’ linebacker couldn’t get to the flat to cover Samaje Perine fast enough, carrying out the man-beating concept perfectly.

But more than just that, it was the Chiefs’ coaches having faith in the players to pull those things off. Make no mistake, the overload blitz call on fourth down, and then the two throws on the final possession, are gambles by coaches who are cool putting the game in their guys’ hands, worst-case-scenario be damned.

“[Andy Reid] trusts us,” Mahomes told me, an hour or so after the game, in a corner near the tunnel at Arrowhead. “That’s how we’ve built this thing that we’ve built. It’s all about trusting the players to go out and make the plays. We’re conservative in certain moments, we play by the tempo of the game and then we decide. It’s a lot of trust on offense, defense and special teams. That’s what makes us so great, is it’s not just one guy, it’s everybody.”

That may run contrary to how some—those people who assign everything, good or back, to the quarterback—see it. But Mahomes wasn’t just being self-deprecating. There’s a lot of truth in the idea that he’s far from the only player Reid and his staff have full faith in.

And that starts with the fourth down, on a call that required four-time champion defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to trust his pass rushers to get home. The idea was to show the pressure, and make Allen think the Chiefs were coming with a zero blitz and man coverage, then send a weak-wide overload blitz and drop into zone. The trouble was that Allen had a guy in motion, giving in the indicator the Chiefs were in zone, so if the rush didn’t arrive at Allen fast enough, the Chiefs may have been cooked.

But McDuffie and Justin Reid timed their blitz perfectly, sending the Bills’ line into chaos and freeing Karlaftis to force a fallaway throw that Allen nearly completed anyway. That he didn’t was a testament to the call, yes, and also the players who made it work.

“I say all the time, Spags is like a pitcher always setting up his curveball,” says linebacker Nick Bolton. “Throughout the game, we’re trying to present different things, see what they’re going to do. It was one of these critical downs, we dialed up the pressure and got home.”

Then, it was the offense’s turn. And just as the coaches put the game in the hands of Karlaftis, Reid and McDuffie on defense moments earlier, Reid and OC Matt Nagy were about to do the same sorts of things with their offense.

Going into the week, the coaches told Mahomes there’d be situations where he’d be best off running the ball, and to not be afraid to go that way on called pass plays that had a built-in run option. Sure enough, he wound up with, excluding kneeldowns, 45 yards rushing and two touchdowns on nine carries. “They play man a lot of the time,” Mahomes told me, “The quarterback can run, and I was able to see that.”

And they’d trust him to see it again—or not see it that way, as the case wound up being—when it mattered most.

The Chiefs got the ball back with 1:54 left after the turnover on downs. Conventional wisdom would tell a coach to run three straight times, make the defense burn its timeouts, and punt it away if you don’t get the yardage needed. But conventional wisdom doesn’t have Mahomes at quarterback.

So after some discussion on the sideline while the defense was getting the stop the Chiefs needed, Reid called a sprint right on second-and-9. Mahomes had the option to run. This time, instead, he threw the ball into the right flat, and Pacheco picked up the first down.

The problem? He went out of bounds, and that left the Bills with another glimmer of hope.

Which is when Mahomes said to his teammates in the huddle, per JuJu Smith-Schuster: “First down here, win the game.” Mahomes, clearly, had no interest in playing to milk the clock. And Reid showed he didn’t either. After consecutive runs stripped Buffalo of its timeouts, the Chiefs were in third-and-9. Reid and Nagy already had a third-down call ready, which they’d discussed early in the week. The ball would again be in Mahomes’s hands.

The Chiefs were counting on more man coverage, lining up three receivers to Mahomes’s left, then running them across to his right, which would force the linebacker (Bernard in this case) to sort through a mess of guys to get to the flat to cover the back, Perine, leaking out.

“We wanted to be a little closer [to the first down] to run that play, but I said, Let’s just run it,” Mahomes said. “If it’s not there, I’ll take the sack, punt and let the defense have it with about 25 seconds left. When you’ve been in a lot of games, you understand the process of it. That’s what winners do. We’re good about the time management and the clock management. That’s something we go over the night before the game.”

And just like they drew it up, Bernard got lost amid the three receivers and three guys covering them, was late to get to Perine, and Perine did the rest.

It sounds simple, of course, but it’s not. It’s the coaches not thinking, but knowing that their players aren’t going to foul things up and put the team in a bad spot. It’s Mahomes, for sure. “We put the ball in his hands at that moment,” Nagy told me. “You almost have to when you have a guy like that.” It’s also Perine, Pacheco and the line, just like it was Karflaftis, Reid and McDuffie a few minutes earlier on defense.

“There is a sense of, been there, done that,” GM Brett Veach says. “We’re going to be in those situations. You just feel confident that the guys are going to handle the situation. When it matters the most, our players come through. It’s the way we practice, the way we prepare. It’s what’s in the players’ DNA.”

But what really brings it to life is when Spagnuolo chooses not to play coverage on fourth-and-5, or when Reid and Nagy decide not to close down shop late and run the ball.

The players feel empowered by that. As they should, based on the results.

“There’s a ton of trust, the coaching staff to the players,” Mahomes says. “We prepare ourselves for these moments. Coach Reid, we go over these plays each week. We go over the plays we like and what we think we can go with in certain situations. … Coach Reid has a lot of trust in us, so if we’re going to go down, he’s going to go down fighting. That’s the mantra of our team.”

It’s more than a mantra, though. It’s really become who the Chiefs are.

And why, this time of year, they’re almost impossible to beat.

At some point, we have to give Nick Sirianni his due. The Eagles are going to another Super Bowl. The roster Howie Roseman put together shined Sunday. Saquon Barkley—who’s been a Reggie White–level signing for the franchise White started his career with—keyed a rushing attack that blew through the Commanders for 229 yards. Jalen Hurts was efficient. The defense forced four turnovers, with offseason additions Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean looming large all afternoon.

But you don’t win an NFC title game 55–23 without the head coach doing something right.

The reality is Nick Siranni has been doing plenty right over each of his four years in Philly.

The résumé speaks for itself. Sirianni was a surprise hire who inherited a four-win team that was offloading a quarterback it took with the No. 2 pick, and once made the highest-paid player in the history of the sport (Carson Wentz). He was succeeding the only Super Bowl–winning coach in the franchise’s existence (Doug Pederson). He was walking into a cauldron of a media market that’s legendary for the short leash it gives its star players and coaches.

In four years, in that environment, he’s 48–20, giving him a regular-season winning percentage of .706, which trails only Guy Chamberlin (look him up), John Madden, Vince Lombardi and George Allen. He’s made the playoffs four consecutive years and has now won two NFC titles.

Yet, if you turn on WIP the morning after a loss, you’d think he was Rich Kotite.

So I figured this would be the right place to reach out to a few people and give them anonymity to explain exactly what Sirianni’s brought to the table that has worked to a level where he’s going to another Super Bowl, just two years after falling excruciatingly short, and even though his staff has been almost completely turned over since.

“He’s a connector of people,” texted one staffer. “Culture is all about playing together. The entire group is bought in, and winning and maximizing the moment we are in.”

“He preaches detail, detail, detail to players to such an extent that it really gets through to them to live,” texted another, who pointed to the defense punching the ball out repeatedly Sunday, and the offense avoiding false starts on its infamous sneaks as evidence.

“Nick is just an incredible leader,” added one of his coaches. “It’s the way he connects everyone on an individual level. Love his team meetings, brings the energy and focus for our team.”

You’ll notice none of those answers are about offensive acumen or play-calling—he handed that part of his job over to OC Kellen Moore this season as part of a staff overhaul that also brought Vic Fangio into the fold as DC. It’s more about how ready, disciplined and unified his team is from a football standpoint.

So whereas everyone, rightfully, will ooh and ahh over Barkley’s big plays, the Eagles will quietly take pride in the fact that they had just 30 penalty yards Sunday. Where others will look at Jayden Daniels’s passer rating, which was 72.8, the Eagles will point to a 4–1 win in the turnover margin as the team’s x-factor.

And all that showed up Sunday. Philly’s first takeaway gave the offense the ball in plus territory, setting up Hurts & Co. to score again quickly, covering 48 yards in six plays, to push the Eagles’ early lead to 14–7. A Will Shipley punchout on a kickoff made a one-possession game 27–12 with 39 seconds left in the first half. And another forced fumble on the second-to-last play of the third quarter more or less ended it for Washington.

Meanwhile, a lack of turnovers or bad penalties on the other end kept the Commanders’ path to a comeback narrow until it was completely nonexistent.

That, of course, is a result of a hard-playing, disciplined, smart football team.

Sirianni proved again Sunday that he’s got one of those. Maybe at some point he’ll get some credit for it.

No one wants to fire a coach or general manager at midseason, but the New York Jets made the most of the advantage it gave them. It was, to be sure, a little weird to see a GM fired on Nov. 18—more than six weeks before the completion of the season. The dismissal of Joe Douglas sure looked, on the surface, like another illustration that the wayward franchise was in disarray, and the move was taken like one in many corners of the team’s own building.

But the reality was the timing gave the Jets a chance, a real one, to recalibrate priorities.

Co-owners Woody and Christopher Johnson, and team president Hymie Elhai moved quickly after letting Douglas go to bring ex-Jets and Miami Dolphins exec Mike Tannenbaum and ex-Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman aboard as consultants. From there, they dove in on background work and constructed a vision for what they would be looking for in their new leadership.

Without being under the gun to move fast, like they were in 2015, ’19 and ’21, they could have open conversations with people, field incoming calls on the job and start maneuvering toward the first of the year, when the market would be close to opening.

By the time they got there, they’d figured out what they were looking for—a leader, first and foremost, who really wanted the Jets’ job specifically. The brass tried to be honest with itself about the perception of the franchise, and the 14-year playoff drought the new leaders would inherit. And that’s what made finding someone with the makeup to not just take on that challenge, but embrace it, paramount.

In looking inward, the Jets found that too often in the past the franchise had put a coach’s accomplishments over his overall makeup for the job, which led to having coaches and execs leaving that place feeling like the environment did them in. So the idea here was, again, to find someone who wouldn’t chafe when the bright lights started to burn.

From there, they got started. And this week, they landed, ex-Detroit Lions DC Aaron Glenn as head coach and Darren Mougey as general manager. Here’s everything in between …

• The Jets didn’t wait until the season ended to start interviews—meeting with coach candidates Mike Vrabel and Ron Rivera, and GM candidate Thomas Dimitroff, before the regular season ended. Those were real interviews, yes, but also, in retrospect, allowed for the Johnsons to get a few reps interviewing candidates before the floodgates opened.

• All six teams that had openings the first week put in requests for Glenn. He turned down a request from the New England Patriots that came in late, and was believed to be a reaction to criticism New England took for making a mockery of the Rooney Rule. Glenn’s first interview was that Thursday night with the Jets. The connection was fast and obvious. He had a much clearer vision and plan than he’d presented to the team when he interviewed in 2021. More than just that, his presence over the Zoom blew the brass away—which is tough to show through a computer screen. Quietly, the Jets felt internally like, We’ve got our guy.

• Mougey’s first interview with the Jets was two days later, on Jan. 11, and he showed a similarly clear vision and plan for the team. The Jets had actually really liked what they’d heard on Mougey’s boss, George Paton, in previous searches—the timing just never matched up (they tried to interview him in 2015 and ’19). At the time, Paton was working for Spielman, and that connection didn’t hurt, either. Nor did the fact that Mougey brought experience working for Sean Payton, who’d been Aaron Glenn’s boss in New Orleans.

• The plan had been to go through a full set of second interviews, in person, once it was allowed, starting Jan. 20. Then, the Lions were upset by the Washington Commanders, and the timeline got flipped upside down. The Jets had worked with Glenn’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, ahead of that game to work on that contingency. They called Sexton back the night of the loss to the Commanders, telling the agent that they wanted to be Glenn’s first in-person visit. Glenn obliged, and was set up to interview last Tuesday, and go to the New Orleans Saints on Wednesday.

• Glenn had told the Jets he wanted the job because the franchise gave him his first shot as a player—as their first-round pick in 1994—and in an off-the-field role, as a scout in 2012. And by the weekend of the divisional round, the feeling was clearly mutual. So when Glenn got on the plane to go to New Jersey, he knew the Jets wanted him and the Jets knew he wanted the job. On Tuesday morning, Woody Johnson officially offered it to him.

• The weather in New Orleans delayed the Saints’ ability to get Glenn in for his second interview, which, ultimately, gave the Jets another day to hammer out the deal Wednesday after their future head coach traveled back to Detroit.

• The plan from the start was to pick either a GM or coach, based on wherever the process took them, and then pick a partner for that guy. So with Glenn hired, he dove in on second GM interviews with Mougey, Commanders assistant GM Lance Newmark and Cincinnati Bengals senior personnel exec Trey Brown. On Thursday afternoon, Glenn, Mougey and Elhai spent extended time together. Afterward, Glenn said to Elhai, “Man, that felt good.”

And so it was done.

The Jets did have backup plans if this all fell through. They obviously liked Newmark and Brown, and interim GM Phil Savage did a nice job in his meeting with Woody Johnson, too. On the coaching side, Denver Broncos DC Vance Joseph, Green Bay Packers DC Jeff Hafley and Pittsburgh Steelers OC Arthur Smith all impressed them. That, of course, is just history now, since the Jets were able to land their first choices on both sides of the ledger.

It’s hard to say where it’ll go from here—and that’s the case with all these hires. You really don’t know. But I do like the process the Jets went through to get here, and that they’re bringing in someone with experience both in a group that was rebuilding (Lions) and one that was sustaining success (Saints). I also think Mougey and Glenn will work well together.

Of course, they won’t have much time to celebrate. A big-box decision looms at quarterback, and it’s not totally within the Jets’ control. Both Glenn and Mougey said when interviewing that they weren’t going to look at handling Aaron Rodgers’s situation in a black-and-white way, rather saying it needed evaluation and discussion. All that stuff, both with Rodgers and among themselves, can start now.

And obviously that’ll affect how Glenn and Mougey map out their vision for next year and beyond. That said, how they, and the Jets, got here should give them a chance, whether Rodgers is there or not. Which, for a franchise that just went through a ridiculously tumultuous year, is a start.

The Jacksonville Jaguars’ trainwreck of a process might just produce the right result. You can go down the list of things Jacksonville did wrong here. They held on to their GM, Trent Baalke, which changed the complexion of their coaching search—and drove top candidates away. Their background work before the end of the regular season was, per industry sources, relatively minimal, given how clear it was they’d move on from Doug Pederson. Then, there was the mess of last week, with Liam Coen saying no, before covertly re-entering the fray.

Thing is, though, Coen’s a qualified candidate and will help pick his general manager.

If you want to boil this down, the real cost of the Jaguars’ handling of this situation is the guy who’s the head coach in Chicago now. My belief is that Ben Johnson was very high on the Jaguars’ job—high enough on it to have taken the interview with Jacksonville even before they let Baalke go. Jacksonville was high on Johnson, too, enough so to discuss making a big-money offer. But in the end, I’m not sure Johnson wanted to have to push Baalke out to go there. So Johnson chose the Chicago Bears over the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Jags moved on.

With that done, the Jaguars’ focus turned to Coen, who’d done well in the interview, satisfied owner Shad Khan’s leanings toward hiring an offensive coach and didn’t necessarily object to Baalke’s presence (at least outwardly).

We covered, chapter and verse, what happened from there on Friday (see the link above). Coen got an offer exceeding $5 million per year that would’ve made him the highest-paid coordinator in NFL history, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers set the condition that he not take a second interview in Jacksonville—after encouraging him to take the first—to complete the deal. Long story short, after getting that no from Coen, the Jags fired Baalke, circled back, and Coen wound up getting offered a deal well into eight figures annually to go.

So, obviously, Baalke’s presence was a factor. As I’d heard it, Johnson’s camp did get the impression, from Khan, that the Jaguars would consider moving on from Baalke to land Detroit’s offensive coordinator. Also, Glenn’s camp expressed some desire to bring a personnel guy along, if the Lions’ DC were to take the job, and Baalke balked at that because of how it’d affect his No. 2, Tom Gamble. After all that, one thing I did hear was that Baalke did have a real conversation, to his credit, with ownership, not wanting to be an impediment anymore.

By the time Coen backed out, it sure looked like it was too late.

And then it wasn’t. 

The bottom line, though, is if Coen can get Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars rolling, the rest of this will matter a lot less.

The Tennessee Titans held off a late surge to land assistant GM Dave Zielger over the weekend. For a while, amid all the moving parts that go into carousel season, Zielger’s name was attached to Mike Borgonzi’s candidacy for general manager jobs—these sorts of arrangements are pretty common among coaches and execs in planning for the possibility of landing jobs.

But at the 11th hour, Mougey, who spent four years with Ziegler in Denver during the Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning eras, checked in on his old buddy.

In the end, Ziegler decided to push his deal with the Titans over the goal line. In doing so, I think he affirmed some things that Tennessee tried to establish in introducing Borgonzi as GM last week.

First, while president of football operations Chad Brinker retains contractual final say over the 53-man roster, the Titans emphasized Borgonzi will run all facets of roster building. “I will pick the players,” he said. And Ziegler’s decision makes it two guys who know Brinker well, who trust it’ll be that way—since Ziegler chose not to pursue a No. 2 job in New York, presuming that’s what his job in Nashville will be.

Second, that a guy with options, who’d been a GM, joined up is, I think, an endorsement of the new-fangled model here. The idea is for Brinker to free guys such as Borgonzi and Ziegler up to be GM and assistant GM in a more traditional way, where they can focus on putting the team together, and Brinker can focus on the overall operation.

I like it, and really believe you have three guys there now capable of being GMs, with a promising young coach I think will grow with more support in 2025.

It’s time to take a real look at the Rooney Rule again. No fewer than three teams during this cycle didn’t just cross the line the rule sets—they laughed while dancing over it.

• The Patriots interviewed Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich on the same day, right after the season ended, to fast-track hiring Mike Vrabel. They picked Hamilton and Leftwich because they needed two in-person interviews with minority candidates, and those couldn’t be with guys currently on NFL coaching staffs at that time. Leftwich had done media expressing his desire to get back in the league. Hamilton shares an agent with Vrabel. I think Vrabel was probably the best hire of this cycle. Based on their actions, eschewing even a hint of a real search (which they’ve done repeatedly), the Patriots think so, too.

• The Jaguars kept their second pursuit of Coen quiet until late Thursday afternoon, largely to make sure their interview with Raiders DC Patrick Graham, which satisfied the Rooney Rule, went off without a hitch. Jacksonville had previously met Robert Saleh in-person, since Saleh was fired in October and, as such, didn’t have to wait until Jan. 20 to come in.

• The Dallas Cowboys did the bare minimum, bringing in Saleh and Seattle’s Leslie Frazier (who’d previously interviewed for their DC job), before expediting the hire of Brian Schottenheimer after meeting with just four candidates. Meanwhile, after elevating Schottenheimer, they interviewed Bears safeties coach Andre Curtis for their DC job, which satisfied the Rooney Rule on that search, even if it’s presumed he was really there to be a part of Matt Eberflus’s defensive staff.

So, as I see it, it’s time to put some real thought into how teams are using the Rooney Rule.

This all works great when teams are running a real search, I think. But it’s less practical when a team has a target and hustles guys in to grease the skids to hire that target. Maybe there’s an answer in giving teams a chance to identify a guy before a search starts, and then handing that team and coach an exclusive negotiating window to get a deal done. Maybe the rule’s just run its course in its current form.

Either way, the recent hiring cycle has certainly given well-meaning owners and folks at the league office something to talk about over the next few months.

The New Orleans Saints looming as the last job standing does give them flexibility. Obviously, having Glenn walk away from their search, and Joe Brady pull his name out, was not ideal for New Orleans. The job does come with challenges—the coach will inherit an aging roster and, if the team decides to pull the plug on that core, a cap problem that could take a year or two to reset. The future of the quarterback spot is uncertain. And the coach won’t get to bring in their own general manager, with a front office full of long-time Saints executive there.

But what the team does have now is time.

There are also a few things that could attract the right candidate. You may be inheriting a personnel staff, but Mickey Loomis’s group has good people—from Jeff Ireland leading the college side, to Michael Parenton captaining the pro side, to Khai Harley doing the job on the cap. There’s also an ownership group, led by Gayle Benson, that’s shown a total willingness to invest in the football operation (spending cash over cap constantly and renovating the practice facility a number of times), and let football folks do their jobs.

For my money, I think McCarthy, with his history in coaching quarterbacks, and developing young talent across the board, makes the most sense. They may not dominate social media the day they announce it, but for what the Saints need now, bringing aboard their offensive coordinator of yesteryear (2000 to ’04), would stabilize things.

That said, they should also use the edge of not having to rush anything now.

I like Brian Schottenheimer, but I’m not sure his hire is the best sign for where the Dallas Cowboys are right now. Yes, he’s 51, and has been an offensive coordinator for the Jets, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks and, of course, the Cowboys themselves, without getting this shot before now. He hasn’t called plays in Dallas, either.

But anyone who’s spent time around Schottenheimer knows the energy he has for the game and the teams he’s coached, and the quarterbacks he’s been around really like him.

So the hire isn’t as nonsensical as people are making it out to be.

How they got here, however, is another story.

Dallas waited over a week to fire McCarthy, holding him to his contract and keeping him from pursuing other jobs, while engaging in no real negotiation with his reps. That put the Cowboys behind everyone else, and without the chance to talk to the coaches who’d just come out of the first-round bye (from the Lions’ and Kansas City Chiefs’ staffs). Then, they interviewed Frazier, Saleh and two guys, Moore and Schottenheimer, they already knew well.

It looked like the Cowboys weren’t prepared for a coaching search. Even after taking McCarthy into a contract year, and hard-lining him for a week, which really only served to put them behind the other six teams looking for coaches.

Now, it sure seems like they’re doing the easiest thing and hiring the guy down the hall, which feels like a double down on a McCarthy era that they just pulled the plug on.

And, again, this has nothing to do with Schottenheimer, who’s a good guy and a good coach.

When I asked around during the search, about the different twists and turns, and which way it was going, the response I kept getting was that this one was “up to Jerry [Jones].” Based on the road he took to get to his new coach, I’m not really sure that was a good thing.

Tom Brady’s fingerprints are all over the Las Vegas Raiders’ hires. And that, I think, is a good thing.

GM John Spytek comes aboard from Tampa thoroughly prepared, and with three years of experience working with Brady. As we’ve mentioned before, he and Tampa pro director Rob McCartney (now the team’s director of player personnel) ran Brady’s scouting meetings on Tuesdays, which were the domain of Bill Belichick and Nick Caserio. Through those summits, which require high-level football IQ coming from the other side of the table, the rising young executive earned Brady’s respect and forged a strong bond with him.

Then, there’s Pete Carroll. One thing that a few connected people said to me early in the process was not to underestimate Brady’s own experiences in the search—and how the respect he had for Carroll had always been apparent. In Carroll, he and the Raiders saw someone who could energize the building and give the team an identity.

Now, the one caveat here would be that Carroll is 73, so this isn’t a forever hire for the Raiders. But one interesting nugget I was able to pick up on that front should ease the concerns a bit: In preparing to try to land a coaching job over the past year, Carroll talked a lot about finding an assistant or two to put on his staff whom he felt could succeed him (like Bruce Arians did with Todd Bowles and Leftwich in Tampa). I don’t know who those guys will be, but it does seem like that’ll be part of his plan.

And from here, Spytek and Carroll have a lot of work to do. Brady’s influence will be there, but his family is in Florida, so he won’t have a day-to-day presence in the organization, at least in the beginning. They’ll have to find a quarterback for now and, eventually, for the future. They have a few building blocks (Brock Bowers, Maxx Crosby, Kolton Miller), and a lot more holes than strengths.

But I do think this week was a good start.

Winding down championship Sunday after the AFC classic, and the NFC rout, we’ve got some quick-hitters for you …

• The respect between Allen and Mahomes is pretty obvious, and it was hard to miss when I asked Mahomes whether it made it any sweeter having gone through the Bills to get to the Super Bowl. “Not necessarily,” he answered. “I have so much respect for Josh. I feel like he’s a friend. You have to beat the best in order to get to the Super Bowl. He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He’s up there in the top four, five in quarterbacks. I know I was going to have to play one of these guys. The AFC’s loaded. And it’s not just me. He played his tail off today.”

• That one is going to leave a mark on Buffalo. That said, the Bills were actually pretty young this year, after cleaning out their cap and carrying dead money through the season. So they’re set up to get back here again.

• It goes without saying, but the Commanders have nothing to be ashamed of. The new brass turned over more than half the roster—only 19 guys from the 2023 team were left on the final 53-man—and somehow won 12 games in the regular season, then won two playoff games. There’s a lot of work to do still, which was apparent Sunday (tackle, edge rusher, etc.). But the future is bright, particularly with the Commanders’ supernova of a rookie quarterback in place.

• I’m headed to Mobile, Ala. from here for the Senior Bowl—which is always a great week. For now, here are a few things I’ll be looking at: Can QBs Jalen Milroe or Jaxson Dart sneak into the first-round discussion? … Could Josh Conerly Jr. or Jonah Savaiinaea emerge as the top lineman in the draft? … How will Marshall pass rusher Mike Green, who led the nation in sacks, match up with top-shelf competition? … Is Ollie Gordon II the Doak Walker winner from 2023, or the guy who dropped off this year?… We’ll flesh some of that stuff out in the Tuesday notes.

• Ben Johnson’s OC hire in Chicago is a fascinating pick: 28-year-old Broncos TEs coach Declan Doyle. Doyle got his NFL start in New Orleans, and caught Sean Payton’s eye to the point where he took him to Denver with him last year. He’s the son of former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle. And while we’re there, Dennis Allen’s a nice get for Johnson as DC. As a former head coach, he’ll give Johnson a sounding board. There’s scheme familiarity, too, with the new Bears coach having been with Glenn, one of Allen’s old position coaches from New Orleans, in Detroit.

• I like Seattle’s decision to hire Klint Kubiak as offensive coordinator. Here’s hoping they get him a little more staff help than he had in New Orleans. What folks who were there say is Kubiak might benefit from having an experienced play-caller on hand to help him, and more eyes up in the box to help him make adjustments as the game goes along.

• The Seahawks interviewed Baltimore Ravens run-game coordinator Travis Switzer for that OC job Saturday—after Switzer helped build a run game this year that broke the NFL record for yards-per-carry in a season. Switzer’s still young, just a decade out of college. And he’ll definitely be one to watch going forward, since it’s a pretty safe bet that Baltimore will stay good on offense.

• Here’s a cool fact that my buddy (and Aztec alum) Kirk Morrison gave me: The 2004 San Diego State quarterback room had Kevin O’Connell, Darren Mougey and Tanner Engstrand in it. They, 21 years later, are the Vikings’ head coach, the Jets’ GM and, perhaps, the Lions’ next offensive coordinator.

• I can’t imagine why anyone would do the offseason version of Hard Knocks ever again.

• Bobby Slowik’s firing in Houston is fascinating, in that so much of it relates back to where C.J. Stroud, who’d grown frustrated in the offense, was in his second year as a pro. The lesson I think Slowik will take from this (not that I’m telling him how to take it) is that a scheme can’t stay too static year-to-year. The league moves too fast for that.

• And, lastly, thank God the Super Bowl is back in New Orleans. That this will be just the second time it’s been there in 23 years, which, even while accounting for Katrina, is downright criminal.