The gymnastics being done in this thread are pretty funny. Everyone saying the staff will be key for these first time HCs and then Gannon brings in a bunch of dudes who have very little expertise in doing the jobs they had and no experience in the job they will be doing. GM, HC, OC, and DC all in their roles for the first time. We think they are going to have time to teach when they are trying to figure their own stuff out? Kyler struggled with Kliff’s play calling and Kliff called plays his entire coaching career. We think Kyler is going to have no issues here? We will see but seems silly to think this group is not going to have some major growing pains.
Well, let's be fair, Petzing isn't going to have any time to teach to Kyler because Kyler's not even going to see the practice field before the season starts. We're looking at a Brissett, Minshew, or McCoy kind of player out there while Petzing "figures it out."
Every OC has to start somewhere... I doubt you're going to find many first time OCs with previous playcalling experience. So unless your argument is that you were only okay with a former OC at the position, or someone who called plays coaching in college ball, I don't get it.
I've got some time on my hands, so let me deep dive on how many current OCs called plays somewhere before they got the OC role, and how many did it before becoming a first-time OC...
...And done. Give me a grain of salt here - I didn't double and triple check to see if a guy called plays in the preseason, or stood in as an interim play caller during Covid. Obviously, there's teams that haven't locked in their OC yet.
- 17 teams have or will be hiring new OCs this cycle (or pushing the responsibility onto their HC).
- Of those, only 8 currently have been OCs for another team in the NFL before.
- Of the 17, only 6 had play-calling experience from college when receiving their first job as an NFL OC. One has been an OC in high school.
- Interestingly, only 9/32 current OCs have been so for another team in the NFL, with Alex Van Pelt of the Browns being the only incumbent hat has done so for another NFL team. The remainder of the league is comprised of OCs getting their first chance at this level.
- Of current incumbents, only 3 were offensive coordinators at the collegiate level, for a total of 9 coaches that held that role before ascending to it at the NFL level.
At the end of the day, that means
there's only 12 teams employing Offensive Coordinators with previous play calling experience before being promoted, less than half of the league. So, color me not all that concerned.
Edit: I do want to note that the waters get muddied if we start looking at guys who were "run game coordinator" or "pass game coordinator," but at the end of the day I considered them not the ones calling plays.
