Pro Football History.com Blog

By Wyatt Taylor and Stephen Juza

Since 2005, the NFL has continued to go through an offensive explosion across the league. In the last 13 seasons, we have seen the eight highest scoring seasons since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970. Beyond the high-scoring games, the passing game has flourished under relaxed rules.

During the 1970s, the average team passed for 156 yards per game. Between 2010 and 2017, this increased to 233 yards per game. This has come at the expense of the running game—the average rushing yards per game has decreased from 138 to 112 since the NFL merger. With the increase in offense, how has this altered the careers of head coaches on that side of the ball?

Overall, head coaching hires come from offensive backgrounds 53% of the time. This trend continued this latest offseason with four of the seven head coaching hires spending time as an offensive coordinator: Frank Reich, Jon Gruden, Matt Nagy, and Pat Shurmur.

Has the percent of offensive coaches increased over time?

Despite the increased offensive output, the percentage of offensive head coaches has stayed consistent between 1990 and 2017.


The percentage of offensive hires was virtually identical in our two time periods (1990-2004 and 2005-2017), showing no increasing preference in offensive coaches as the leader of the team. However, teams are willing to take a risk with less experienced coaches if they are offensive-minded.

Are offensive coaches hired quicker as head coaches?

Yes, offensive coaches have less coaching experience when they are hired. While the least tenured coaching hire was previously a defensive coordinator, offensive coaches typically are less tenured in the league.

Since 1990, offensive coaches average three fewer seasons of experience than other head coaching hires. Offensive head coaches are typically hired after 12 seasons of NFL coaching experience while other head coaches are just shy of 15 seasons.

Is an offensive head coach a quick route to victory?

No, new offensive head coaches see a similar increase in record in their first season at the helm when compared to other head coaches. Teams win a game and a half more in the first year of a head coach’s tenure than the previous year despite their background.

What does that mean for the latest round of new head coaches? The Titans are the only team with a new head coach that made the playoffs in 2017, finishing first in the AFC South with a record of 9-7. If the Titans win one more game in 2018 than the previous season, the Titans will be in a strong position to return to the playoffs.

On the other end of the spectrum, it could be a long season for the New York Giants under the guidance of Shurmur. Finishing 2017 with a 3-13 record, it may be a long climb back up to contention. Their best case scenario is replicating the 2008 Miami Dolphins, improving 10 wins and winning the AFE East after hiring Tony Sparano.

As we continue to investigate emerging trends with head coach hiring in the NFL, there are still many questions yet to answer:



Methods: We used t-tests to confirm that each of the findings we discuss above to be statistically significant (p < .1).

By Stephen Juza and Wyatt Taylor

After firing veteran head coach Jeff Fisher after the 2016 season, the Los Angeles Rams made 30-year-old Sean McVay the youngest head coach in NFL history. After a single season, McVay proved to be worth the risk, leading the Rams to the playoffs and was named the Pro Football Writers coach of the year. McVay is the most recent and most successful result of NFL teams searching for such a head coaching wunderkind.

While previous-such hirings infamously failed (e.g., Lane Kiffin’s time with the Las Vegas Raiders starting in 2007), the accepted narrative is that NFL head coaching hires have begun to trend younger and less experienced in recent years, away from the veteran coaches with experience in the top position. Is this simply narrative? We set out to understand the phenomenon.


Do NFL teams now prefer new Head Coaches to those with prior head coaching experience?

Yes. Between 1990 and 2004, 39% of head coaching hires had prior experience as a head coach in the NFL.

Between 2005 and the present, only 29% of the coaching hires had head coaching experience in the NFL. This decrease highlights a significant shift in hiring strategy by the NFL front offices. Having prior experience as an NFL head coach is less of a benefit to candidates than it was before.

Do NFL teams prefer Head Coaches with less overall coaching experience?

No. NFL teams have begun to prefer hiring coaches with more NFL coaching experience. Given our previous result, this is perhaps surprising.

Between 1990 and 2004, a head coaching hire had, on average, 12 seasons of NFL coaching experience. Since 2004, that number has increased to 14 seasons.

These two results lead us to an interesting conclusion: NFL teams appear to have begun to value coaching experience more, just not experience as a head coach.

The suggestion is here of a new type of preferred NFL head coach - that of an experienced assistant coach who has yet to been given a shot at the top spot. This sort of hire might represent a cautious step outside of the box. Perhaps teams are willing to hire untested candidates, as long as the candidate makes up for it with other experiences.


Experience, but not Head Coaching Experience

The data support this idea. There have been 124 first-time head coaches in the NFL since 1990 - 62 between 1990-2004 and 62 since then.

Between 1990 and 2004, first-time head coaches averaged 10 years of NFL coaching experience before landing the top spot. Since 2004, first-time head coaching hires have had an additional year of experience prior to their promotion. Our series of examining the NFL’s “Youth Movement” has provided an intriguing look at the criteria that NFL franchises use in making their coaching decisions.


The last 12 seasons have seen a strong movement in favor of inexperienced head coaches, a trend which has been noticed by the media. However, our examination here shows that NFL teams appear to remain hesitant to fully embrace the unknown, preferring to hire candidates with longer coaching tenures in the assistant ranks. This finding deserves further study, and we will continue our examination in later posts, examining such questions as:

Methods We used t-tests to confirm that each of the findings we discuss above to be statistically significant (p < .1).

Thank you for finding your way to our site. The site is still under construction, but we are constantly adding more information, so please come back to check out the updates. I started this project during the fall of 2011 in an attempt to fill some time during the semester and to answer one question: "Who has the most successful coaching tree?". While the answer proved to be much more time consuming than I ever imagined, it has been a fun project to work on. The coaching tree is the product of most of the work, and while we haven't answered that question , you can make that decision for yourself after looking through the site. Please look around the site and let us know what you think at feedback@pro-football-history.com.