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Mark Long/Associated Press
The coaching carousel spun rapidly at the end of the 2021 NFL season, with nine franchises hiring new head coaches by late February. Eight teams let go of their head coaches during or after the regular season, while Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints decided to step away.
All nine teams have their new head coaches in place, and with free agency roughly two weeks away, there’s significant work to be done by each of them.
However, the expectations won’t be the same for every new head coach in 2022. While the NFL is a bottom-line business, wins are not the only measure of success. The three-win Jacksonville Jaguars, for example, cannot approach the coming season with the same goals as the Las Vegas Raiders, who were a playoff team in 2021.
Here, we’ll take a look at each new head coach, his team’s situation and the biggest goal each should hope to accomplish—aside from winning games—in 2022.
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Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press
Set a Standard for Success
Quarterback is the most important position in the NFL, and a lot of what we’ll discuss here will revolve around signal-callers. The Chicago Bears believe they have a franchise quarterback in Justin Fields, but the Ohio State product was woefully unsupported as a rookie.
Former head coach Matt Nagy insisted on leaning on Fields behind a problematic offensive line. He too often tried forcing Fields to play as a pocket passer instead of relying on his natural dual-threat ability. As a result, Fields was sacked 36 times in 12 games, was under pressure on 27.3 percent of his dropbacks and missed time with an ankle injury.
New head coach Matt Eberflus will need to take a different approach to game-planning while surrounding Fields with better protection. Much of the challenge will lie with new general manager Ryan Poles and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. However, it will be up to Eberflus to get the most out of his players.
Longtime NFL general manager Bill Polian believes that Eberflus is suited to do exactly that.
“There isn’t a soul who has worked with him who doesn’t tell you that he’s dedicated, hardworking, confident, enthusiastic, disciplined and a great communicator. And that’s what you need in a head coach,” Polian said, per The Athletic’s Adam Jahns.
Poles will find the talent, while Getsy will install the system, but Eberflus can ensure that the pieces fit by instilling a winning culture and setting a standard for maximum effort.
“People will look at schemes and the offense and motions, and there’s a lot of things that come and go in the league. But you still win by not beating yourself,” former NFL coach Tony Dungy said, per Jahns.
Chicago often felt like a team going through the motions in 2021, and that cannot continue if Fields is going to develop into a high-level NFL quarterback.
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David Zalubowski/Associated Press
Find a Reliable Starting Quarterback
New Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett spent the last three seasons as the Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator. He oversaw reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers and one of the NFL’s most potent offenses and is looking t bring a similar attack to Denver.
“You want to make the defense cover the entire field, and you want to take shots down the field,” Hackett said at his introductory press conference.
The problem is that Denver doesn’t have a quarterback like Rodgers under center. It hasn’t had a reliable above-average starter since Peyton Manning retired following the 2015 season. Hackett and general manager George Paton have to change this.
Whether it’s by swinging a trade for a veteran like Rodgers, taking a signal-caller early in the draft or by getting more out of 2019 second-round pick Drew Lock, the Broncos have to find their starter this offseason.
According to Benjamin Allbright of KOA Colorado, the Broncos view Rodgers and Russell Wilson as their top potential trade targets.
Once the Broncos have a quarterback in place, though, it will be up to Hackett to create a successful scheme. That means playing to the quarterbacks’ strengths, which is what Hackett plans to do.
“I’ve been with a lot of different quarterbacks, and they always know I’ll put them in position to excel, and I’ll always have their backs,” Hackett told NBC Sports’ Peter King.
If the Broncos can find their signal-caller and allow him to excel, the wins will come. However, Denver will be an also-ran in the AFC West until that happens.
Identifying, coaching up and supporting a long-term answer at quarterback is the most important thing Hackett can accomplish this season.
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Matt Patterson/Associated Press
Erase the Stink of Houston’s Losing Ways
The Houston Texans may have found their next quarterback in Davis Mills. The third-round pick out of Stanford played respectably as a rookie despite having a poor supporting cast, finishing with an 88.8 passer rating.
What the Texans don’t have is a winning culture. Houston has endured back-to-back four-win seasons and the off-field questions surrounding quarterback Deshaun Watson.
Watson didn’t play at all in 2021 and faces 22 civil lawsuits and 10 criminal complaints from women who have accused him of sexual assault or misconduct. Presumably, the Texans will trade Watson as soon as they can do so. According to ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio, teams could be willing to make a deal if the criminal complaints are resolved.
Smith’s job this season will be to usher Houston into a new era. A winning record would be nice, but the Texans must first start with a winning culture. Safety and pending free agent Justin Reid believes that Smith can help build that.
“He’s done it before, he’s been to a Super Bowl, and he gets his guys to play hard for him,” Reid told SiriusXM NFL Radio (h/t Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk). “I don’t have anything against any of the other candidates, but I actually have a deep love and respect for coach Lovie Smith, his coaching philosophy, the way he’s able to get the best out of his players.”
Smith has spearheaded a culture change before. With the Chicago Bears, he snapped an 11-year stretch without a playoff victory and reached the Super Bowl in only his third season at the helm. That sort of turnaround in Houston won’t be easy, but Smith can start by altering Houston’s reputation.
Over the past two seasons, the Texans have been viewed as one of the league’s least-talented teams. They also drew internal criticism for a lack of overall discipline.
“We’re an undisciplined team,” receiver Brandin Cooks said, per Aaron Wilson of Texans Wire.
It will be up to Smith to provide discipline, inspire effort and instill a belief in his players that they can win.
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Michael Ainsworth/Associated Press
Be a Mentor to Trevor Lawrence
The Jacksonville Jaguars do have their quarterback in Trevor Lawrence. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft had a rocky rookie season—he posted a passer rating of just 71.9—but his talent has never been in question.
Like just about every other team on this list, Jacksonville needs to improve the supporting cast around Lawrence. The Jags, after all, “earned” the first pick in the draft again this year.
New head coach Doug Pederson, though, should have a bigger goal. While Jacksonville continues its rebuilding process, Pederson must teach Lawrence what it takes to be an elite quarterback in the NFL.
Pederson has won a Super Bowl as a head coach and as a backup quarterback behind Hall of Famer Brett Favre with the Packers. He can serve as a mentor to Lawrence both on and off the field.
“What I understand of Trevor is his mindset, how he thinks,” Pederson said, per ESPN’s Michael DiRocco. “He’s eager to learn. He wants to grow. I’ve got great teachers in the room that can help him and help him be successful. That’s not only on the field, but I think off the field, as well, and that’s what I’m looking forward to in April when we get the guys in here.”
The Jaguars aren’t likely to build an elite roster in one offseason, though the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2021 run suggests that it’s not impossible.
“It’s not an overnight fix,” Pederson said, per John Oehser of the team’s official website. “It’s going to be a fix that we’ve got to do one player at a time, one coach at a time, and get it turned around.”
In the meantime, Pederson can help Lawrence mature as a signal-caller. If Lawrence can become the sort of generational quarterback he was hyped as coming out of Clemson, success for the Jaguars should soon follow.
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Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
Transform Las Vegas into a Perennial Contender
The Las Vegas Raiders were one of the NFL’s surprise teams in 2021. Despite plenty of off-field turmoil, the Raiders gelled down the stretch and emerged as a playoff team.
Las Vegas navigated the resignation of head coach Jon Gruden and the release of wide receiver Henry Ruggs III after he was was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor and four felonies, including reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol resulting in death, after a car crash that killed 23-year-old Las Vegas resident Tina Tintor.
However, the Raiders united under interim coach Rich Bisaccia, won their final four games and stormed into the playoffs with a 10-7 record.
The Raiders replaced Bisaccia with Josh McDaniels, though, leaving the new head coach with a tough challenge. McDaniels and new general manager Dave Ziegler must turn Las Vegas from a surprise playoff team into a perennial contender.
This starts with getting back to the playoffs in 2022. However, McDaniels’ main focus shouldn’t be limited to that. The longtime New England Patriots assistant must instill the same culture and confidence that has allowed New England to enjoy sustained success for roughly two decades.
This is where McDaniels failed in his last head-coaching stint with the Broncos. He won eight games in his first season in Denver but went just 3-9 before being fired in Year 2.
“I didn’t really know people and how important that aspect of this process, and maintaining the culture and building the team was,” McDaniels said in his introductory press conference. “And I failed, and I didn’t succeed at it. Looking at that experience has been one of the best things in my life in terms of my overall growth as a person, as a coach.”
Building a winning culture around franchise cornerstones like Derek Carr and Maxx Crosby will be critical to turning Las Vegas into a regular postseason fixture. Carr is eager to make that happen.
“We’re doing the whole business relationship thing, but hopefully, we can get our families together and start getting to know each other and start building that unity that we had last year,” Carr said per Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
McDaniels has seen what it takes to build a dynasty. If he’s going to build one with the Raiders, he must get them back to the postseason and notch a playoff victory this season.
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Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
Get Greatness out of Tua Tagovailoa
Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has been good but not great since being drafted fifth overall in 2020. He was in and out of the lineup as a rookie and missed time with a finger injury in 2021. However, he has posted a respectable 88.8 passer rating in two seasons and has gone 13-8 as a starter.
The Dolphins haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 but are coming off of back-to-back winning seasons.
If Miami hopes to get over the proverbial hump and make the postseason, they need to get just a little more out of Tagovailoa. The best teams in the AFC—the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs and the Bengals—don’t just have good-enough quarterbacks, they have great ones.
Taking Tagovailoa’s development another step will be the most important goal for new head coach Mike McDaniel.
“One thing I know about you is you have the ambition to be great. My job is to coach you to get all that greatness out of you,” McDaniel told Tagovailoa. “I’m gonna make sure that when you look back at this day, you’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, that was one of the best days of my career, too.'”
This will be about more than Xs and Os, though McDaniel will be tasked with providing a potent offense too.
The former San Francisco 49ers run-game coordinator and offensive coordinator will have to install a scheme that plays to Tagovailoa’s strengths. However, he must also help put the right pieces around Tagovailoa to aid his development.
“I’m not sitting here concerned with how good Tua can be; I’m concerned with, as a collective unit, what we can grow together because that’s what wins football games,” McDaniel said during his first news conference as the Dolphins head coach.
Miami has a quality overall roster. If McDaniel can get more consistent play out of Tagovailoa, the Dolphins will be in the playoff mix this season.
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Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
Improve Minnesota’s 30th-ranked defense
The Minnesota Vikings may have a quarterback conundrum in 2023 when Kirk Cousins’ contract expires. For now, though, new Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell believes that he is set at the game’s most important position.
“Well, I think Kirk has played at a very high level, and he’s done a lot of really good things throughout his career,” Connell said during his introductory press conference. “I know who he is as a player, and I know what he’s capable of, and part of our job as coaches is maximizing a player’s ability to go out every single Sunday and have success.”
With the quarterback position set for the time being, O’Connell’s focus should be on improving what was a disastrous defense in 2021. Minnesota finished the year ranked 30th in total defense and frequently blew second-half leads.
O’Connell must work with new general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to improve the team’s defensive talent and with defensive coordinator Ed Donatell to install a successful system.
“I could not be more excited to add a guy that’s coached Hall of Famers, been to the playoffs a ton of times, won Super Bowls,” O’Connell said of Donatell, per Lindsey Young of the team’s official website. “He knows what it’s like to play really good defense, and he knows what it’s like to have success in this league. It’s a huge part of why he’s here.”
O’Connell inherits plenty of offensive talent in Minnesota. Along with Cousins, he’ll get to work with Pro Bowl weapons like running back Dalvin Cook and wideout Justin Jefferson. However, the Vikings can’t win consistently if they can’t stop opposing teams from accumulating points in a hurry.
Minnesota went 8-9 this past season and lost four games by a field goal or less. With even marginal improvements on defense, the Vikings should be a 10-win team in 2022 and back in the playoff mix.
While O’Connell is an offensive head coach, finding those improvements should be his biggest priority in the coming months.
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Derick Hingle/Associated Press
Show that New Orleans Can Be Successful in the Post-Payton Era
The Saints narrowly missed the playoffs in 2021 despite losing Drew Brees to retirement in the offseason and Jameis Winston to a torn ACL seven games into the year.
Taysom Hill showed that he could be a serviceable starter, and he might be the best option New Orleans has in 2022.
He went 4-1 as a starter last season and has gone 7-2 with the Saints in two years. The Saints know they can win games with Hill under center. What they don’t know is whether they can win games without Payton on the sideline.
The last time New Orleans had a winning record without Payton was during the 2002 season. When Payton was suspended for the 2012 season due to his role in the franchise’s bounty scandal, the Saints went just 7-9.
New head coach Dennis Allen, who has been with the organization since 2015, will have to show that the Saints can still be NFC South contenders in the post-Payton and post-Brees era. For Allen, the opportunity is a dream come true.
“To me, this is the perfect fit,” Allen said in his introductory press conference. “If I could’ve laid at home at night and dreamt about the one place I would want to be the head coach, it would be the head coach of the New Orleans Saints.”
It’s not an unrealistic goal either. The Saints won nine games this past season while leaning heavily on their fourth-ranked scoring defense—a unit that Allen oversaw. New Orleans can again depend on its defense in 2022 while relying on offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael for a 14th season. Aside from the change at head coach, New Orleans should largely be the same team it was in 2021.
Another winning season would be ideal, but if Allen can keep New Orleans in the playoff mix for most of the season, the Saints should feel good about their decision to promote from within instead of hiring an external candidate like Eric Bieniemy or Brian Flores.
If the Saints flop and only win a handful of games, however, New Orleans will be forced to consider blowing up the staff and starting over.
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John Minchillo/Associated Press
Tailor the Offense to Daniel Jones’ Skill Set
The New York Giants are one of the NFL’s most woebegone franchises. At no point in the last five years have the Giants held a winning record. While new head coach Brian Daboll may hope for a winning record in 2022, steady growth will be more important than wins and losses.
Most importantly, Daboll needs to get growth out of quarterback Daniel Jones.
The sixth-overall pick in the 2019 draft, Jones has shown flashes of promise as New York’s starting quarterback but has not yet established himself as a true franchise quarterback. According to ESPN’s Jordan Raanan, the Giants are unlikely to pick up the fifth-year option on Jones’ deal because of this.
“It seems likely they will pass since he’s yet to show any real consistency in his first three seasons as a starting quarterback, and it would mean guaranteeing him $20-plus million for 2023,” Raanan wrote.
This doesn’t mean that Jones cannot still become “the guy” in New York, though. Daboll’s primary goal should be to build an offense that plays to Jones’ strengths—notably, his arm strength and scrambling ability—and allow him to grow in that system.
This is the approach Daboll took with Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who is now considered one of the best in the league. It appears to be the approach that Daboll will take with Jones. According to the quarterback, Daboll has already asked for his input.
“Him asking for my ideas and some of the things that I’ve liked to run … was cool,” Jones said, per Raanan. “It will be an ongoing process to get a feel for what those things are—what I like, what he likes. And we’ll do it.”
This may (and should) mean using Jones as more of a dual-threat than a pure pocket passer. Jones has averaged 5.8 yards as a runner but has never had more than 65 carries in a season. Allen has averaged 5.5 yards per rush for his career and has topped 100 carries in each of the past three seasons.
Jones is still the physically talented but raw passer Allen was a few years ago. If Daboll can work with what Jones does well instead of trying to fit Jones into a system, Jones could become closer to what Allen is today. That would give the Giants a tremendous foundation heading into 2023.
*Advanced statistics from Pro Football Reference.
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