Who would you want running your offense? That is, setting aside personnel, which coaches are the best at manufacturing yards and points with formations and play-calling? I see six that I like and six that I don’t care for, with not much separation between the remaining 20.
For each team, I zeroed in on the person most responsible for the offense. For 18 teams, that’s the offensive coordinator; for the remaining 14, it’s the head coach. Then I tried to rank them based on how they might fare with different personnel. That is, if an offense lost five of its starters or had to turn to a new, average-type quarterback, what kind of production could we expect? If it had to go with a new pair of wide receivers or a new starting running back, what kind of production might we expect from those guys?
I see six coaches that I really like. With these guys, I don’t really care so much about the players. If they lose a key piece or two, I think they’ll continue to put together offenses that finish with above-average numbers. They’re just better coaches than most of the defensive coordinators they’re going up against.
THE TOP HALF DOZEN
Sean McVay, I think, belongs at the top of the list. He’s not nearly as experienced as the others in the top 5, but he was pretty remarkable in his first year with the Rams. I don’t know that Jared Goff is actually that good; on a different team, Goff might be a first-round bust (he was historically bad as a rookie). But McVay was able to draw up an offense that lifted the team from last to first in scoring.
Kyle Shanahan has been successful, and he’s done it with different teams and with different quarterbacks. The Falcons ranked first in scoring with Shanahan in 2016, then scored 25 fewer touchdowns without him last year. The 49ers ranked last and 27th in scoring in the two seasons prior to last year, and Shanahan helped them ranked 12th in scoring in the second half of last season. That looks like a team that’s headed up.
Rounding out the top 5, I’ve got three long-time vets: Sean Payton, Andy Reid and Josh McDaniels. Payton arguably should be No. 1; he’s been doing it for a lot of years. But he’s always had the benefit of working with Drew Brees. When Brees retires, leaving the Saints with lesser quarterbacking, then we’ll get a truer sense of just how good Payton is. Similarly, McDaniels needs to show he can be great without Tom Brady.
The Eagles were impressive offensively last year, doing some innovative things (especially with the run-pass option in the playoffs). They successfully developed Carson Wentz, then were able to re-work the offense and continue to be successful with Nick Foles. So I will put Doug Pederson in the top group. But he’s not as proven as the guys in the top 5. Philadelphia also had Frank Reich and John DeFilippo working on its offense last year, and I’m not sure how the work was split up between those guys.
| FAVORITE OFFENSIVE MINDS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rk | Team | Coach or coordinator |
| 1. | LA Rams | Sean McVay (HC) |
| 2. | San Francisco | Kyle Shanahan (HC) |
| 3. | New Orleans | Sean Payton (HC) |
| 4. | Kansas City | Andy Reid (HC) |
| 5. | New England | Josh McDaniels |
| 6. | Philadelphia | Doug Pederson (HC) |
| 7. | Washington | Jay Gruden (HC) |
| 8. | Green Bay | Mike McCarthy (HC) |
| 9. | NY Giants | Pat Shurmur (HC) |
| 10. | LA Chargers | Ken Whisenhunt |
| 11. | Houston | Bill O'Brien (HC) |
| 12. | Indianapolis | Frank Reich (HC) |
| 13. | Chicago | Matt Nagy (HC) |
| 14. | Cleveland | Todd Haley |
| 15. | Arizona | Mike McCoy |
| 16. | Oakland | Jon Gruden (HC) |
| 17. | Detroit | Jim Bob Cooter |
| 18. | Tennessee | Matt LaFleur |
| 19. | Pittsburgh | Randy Fichtner |
| 20. | Minnesota | John DeFilippo |
| 21. | Dallas | Scott Linehan |
| 22. | Baltimore | Marty Mornhinweg |
| 23. | Denver | Bill Musgrave |
| 24. | Jacksonville | Nathaniel Hackett |
| 25. | Tampa Bay | Dirk Koetter (HC) |
| 26. | Miami | Adam Gase (HC) |
| 27. | Buffalo | Brian Daboll |
| 28. | Cincinnati | Bill Lazor |
| 29. | Carolina | Norv Turner |
| 30. | Seattle | Brian Schottenheimer |
| 31. | NY Jets | Jeremy Bates |
| 32. | Atlanta | Steve Sarkisian |
THE BOTTOM HALF DOZEN
I’m putting Steve Sarkisian down at No. 32, and I think everyone would agree he at least belongs in the bottom 5. The Falcons led the league in scoring two years ago. Sarkisian took over, and with the same personnel they dropped to 15th, scoring 12 fewer points per game. They didn’t any notable injuries; he just wasn’t as good as Kyle Shanahan at figuring out how to attack defenses.
The Jets are handing their offense over to Jeremy Bates, and that one’s hard for me to figure. He was a coordinator for the Seahawks in 2010, and they fired him after one year. Then he was out of football for a year. He was a quarterbacks coach in Chicago for one year; fired again. Bates was out of football entirely from 2013-16 spending that time hiking the 3,100-mile long Continental Divide Trail, among other things. He re-surfaced last year as the quarterbacks coach for the Jets. Now he’s ready to be a coordinator? What am I missing?
Another coach’s son, Brian Schottenheimer, has nine seasons of offensive coordinator work on his resume, but without much success. I don’t expect him to spark Seattle’s offense. I discussed him in more detail yesterday.
Norv Turner would have been in my top half dozen 20 years ago, but the game has changed. He’s long been a proponent of deep drops and vertical passes, but I’m not sure that system works anymore. His last five offenses have all been prone to allowing too many sacks. We last saw Turner in the league in 2016, when the Vikings sputtered before he quit halfway through the season.
The Bills are letting Brian Daboll take over their offense. He’s been the coordinator for four other NFL teams (Browns twice, Kansas City, Miami), and they’ve all ranked last in their division in scoring. And I will put Bill Lazor in the bottom group. The Bengals got a little better after elevating him to coordinator in September last year, but Lazor was underwhelming with the Dolphins a few years back.
This is a subjective exercise. If there’s a coach/coordinator that you think is ranked way too high or way too low, we can discuss in the comments field below.
—Ian Allan