With a week left in the 2018 season, Mark Murphy and Brian Gutekunst have begun interviewing candidates to be the next head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
News broke on Wednesday that the team has already interviewed two candidates. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, reported that former Detroit and Indianapolis head coach Jim Caldwell recently interviewed. Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, then reported that former Indianapolis head coach Chuck Pagano also recently interviewed for the position.
Neither are currently coaching in the NFL at this time, so it makes sense that Murphy and Gutekunst spoke with them already. They can not interview anyone that is coaching in the NFL until after the season ends. If there is any one on a playoff team, like Vic Fangio, they have to wait until the team is eliminated from the playoffs to talk with them. The team is expected to be conducting an extensive search to find their next head coach, so this is just the beginning of many interviews that will be happening at 1265 Lombardi Avenue.
Caldwell spent four seasons in Detroit. He had a winning record in three of those seasons and went to the playoffs twice. The Lions relieved him of his duties after the 2017 season when he went 9-7. He is a disciple of the Tony Dungy coaching tree. He has experience coaching talented quarterbacks, as he spent 10 season in Indianapolis coaching Peyton Manning. He also spent one season in Baltimore. Caldwell has been to three Super Bowls, being on the winning side in two of them. He was an assistant coach in all three of those appearances.
Chuck Pagano also has experience coaching a talented quarterback. He spent six seasons in Indianapolis, succeeding Jim Caldwell as head coach. Pagano had the task of coaching rookie quarterback Andrew Luck. He was released by the Colts after the 2017 season. During his first season with the Colts, Pagano went underwent treatment for leukemia. He returned the final game of the season, leading the Colts to an emotional win. The team had 11 wins his first season and made the playoffs.
Both have their positives and could be serviceable options, but the Packers were probably just doing their due diligence and not leaving a stone unturned in finding their next head coach.
The players have also been dropping their support for interim head coach Joe Philbin. Davante Adams has said that he enjoys playing for Philbin and hopes he gets the job. Aaron Rodgers also said that he wouldn’t mind if Philbin got the job permanently, and that the team wants to give him the best possible opportunity for the job.
With the season finale only a few days away, there sure to be plenty of other candidates coming through doorways to interview to be the next head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
Anthony Haag is a writer for PackersTalk.com. He has been a Packers fan since the day he was born and truly bleeds green and gold. He makes annual visits to Lambeau Field and has attended his fair share of games. You can follow Anthony on Twitter at @anthony_haag
3 responses to “Packers start interviewing for their next head coach”
It’s nice that they have a process, but every day more signs point to it being Philbin.
Starting with Gutekunst becoming GM and Philbin returning. 40% of interims get the job on a permanent basis. If Philbin finishes 41, that jumps to over a 50% shot.
Then you had Rodgers coming out publicly in support of Philbin. Today Davante Adams does the same thing.
He has been an NFL head coach. He has substantial ties to the organization. He has the support of two of our highest profile veteran players……
Here’s the deal: When Gutekunst extended Rodgers when we still had effective control of him until age 38 it tipped his strategy: He’s going to take a shot with Rodgers, and that means a coach who can win with him, and not a coach to help the organization to transition to a post-Rodgers future.
So it’s going to be Rodgers, and a coach that can work with him to win now. He shouldn’t have any rookie receivers to contend with next year, a good pair of runners behind him…..all we need is to strengthen the protection.
My concern is that older QBs rarely win the Super Bowl. Yes, Brady. Brees is making a run at it. But both of these guys, and Manning as well, are QBs that stayed in the pocket and threw darts into tight windows. Rodgers does much of his damage outside the pocket, and his accuracy seemed off this year.
I think that it’s probably not a good strategy to plan to have Rodgers running around outside the pocket at his age because he’s going to get caught and hurt. We also don’t have anybody behind him that we think we can win with, so unless we change the way Rodgers plays…and improve the protection….I’m not sure this plan is going to work.
But it’ll be Philbin trying to make this work.
They can roll the dice, but if Philbin fails in two years Rodgers and the Packers will be done with this experiment. End of HOF QB. Miserable drought time…
Old school doesnt cut it plain and simple. Need fresh ideas on the offense, not coaches who have failed. There is a reason they fail. I’m sure Murphy will surprise us?