Mike Pettine a victim of circumstance
This is the time of year for hot guys in the NFL. The names and faces change annually, but by now, with the regular season having concluded Sunday, everyone knows this year's hot guys, the trendy candidates to fill the head coaching vacancies around the league, including the Eagles'. We could run a photo
This is the time of year for hot guys in the NFL.
The names and faces change annually, but by now, with the regular season having concluded Sunday, everyone knows this year's hot guys, the trendy candidates to fill the head coaching vacancies around the league, including the Eagles'. We could run a photo spread of them in The Inquirer and on Philly.com, and every football fan in the region would have an opinion about at least one of them: Hey, there's Adam Gase, the Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator, the guy who apparently made Jay Cutler a better quarterback. . . . Check out Hue Jackson, the Cincinnati Bengals' offensive coordinator. He was a head coach once, in Oakland, and he survived. . . . And ooooh, there's Sean McDermott - Philadelphia native, former Eagles defensive coordinator, current Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator. He's fine.
Mike Pettine was never a hot guy. He was not a hot guy in 2002 when, as the head coach at North Penn High School in Montgomery County, he clawed his way into the NFL through an apprenticeship with the Baltimore Ravens. He wasn't really a hot guy even when he was the defensive coordinator for the New York Jets for four years or for the Buffalo Bills for one. He wasn't a hot guy when the Cleveland Browns hired him in January 2014 to be their head coach - the Browns pretty much settled for him - and he's certainly not a hot guy now that the Browns have fired him after going 10-22 while he was there. It's unlikely that an NFL team will hire him to be its head coach before next season begins, and it's possible that he'll never get another shot at all.
That tracing of Pettine's backstory is not intended to elicit sympathy for him, and it's not necessarily to suggest that the Eagles should consider him as a viable candidate to replace Chip Kelly. But it is an instructive example of the oft-arbitrary process and serendipitous circumstances that go into hiring an NFL head coach - and, more important, hiring a successful one. People in Philadelphia and in other cities around the league - New York, Cleveland, Miami, Nashville, San Francisco - are titillated over the names that have been and will be bandied about, and owners, executives, and search firms are digging deep into candidates' backgrounds for glimmers of insight. But the truth is that these decisions and their results frequently come down to simpler factors: perception and timing.
Consider the Eagles' vacancy, and consider McDermott, who is a hot guy, and Pettine, who isn't. In the broadest strokes, they're pretty similar, almost mirror images of each other. Both are relatively young; Pettine is 49, and McDermott turns 42 in March. Both have strong local ties. Both are oriented toward defense. Both have overseen defenses that have performed well relative to the rest of the league's units. And both have had mentors/supervisors in the NFL who have helped them develop - and who even, in some eyes, deserve more of the credit for their achievements. Pettine was long considered merely Rex Ryan's understudy in New York, and McDermott isn't always given carte blanche to run the Panthers' defense under head coach Ron Rivera, who is a former defensive coordinator himself. Again, perceptions.
Now, on to each one's respective timing and circumstances. McDermott has emerged as a popular head coaching candidate on the strength of the Panthers' 15-1 season and his contributions to it. Carolina ranks sixth in the NFL in total defense, second in yards per play, and first in scoring percentage (that is, the number of opponents' possessions that result in scores). He is also, as a head coach, a tabula rasa. He has no history. He is fresh, new, interesting.
Pettine has a history as a head coach, but it didn't come with the Panthers - a franchise with a respected owner in Jerry Richardson, a relatively forgiving fan base, and a bona fide franchise quarterback in Cam Newton. It came with the Browns - a franchise with a tradition of incompetence, with a meddling and mercurial owner in Jimmy Haslam, and with Johnny Manziel, who seemed more interested in becoming a full-time talk-show discussion topic than in becoming a solid NFL quarterback. Put Sean McDermott, Bill Belichick, or the ghost of Paul Brown in that same spot, and see if he fares much better. Again, circumstances.
But in Pettine's four years as the Jets' defensive coordinator, from 2009 through 2012, the team never finished worse than eighth in overall defense, sixth in yards per play, or ninth in scoring percentage. He was Sean McDermott before Sean McDermott was Sean McDermott, and he left New York just as the Andy Reid era was ending with the Eagles in 2012. But in spite of their defense, the Jets went 6-10. Again, timing.
"You know Philadelphia, and that's a tough sell," former Ravens coach Brian Billick, who hired Pettine, said in late 2012. "That would take some real [guts] for a general manager to plunk Mike into that situation in a place like Philadelphia."
It would take more now, of course, because Mike Pettine isn't a hot guy. He won't be one again for a while, and I imagine he's like a lot of not-hot guys out there, knowing deep down how good they really are, wondering if anyone will ever see what's inside them and give them a real chance.
@MikeSielski
