After canning Joe Brady late in his second season as Panthers OC, Matt Rhule said he sought an experienced play-caller to replace him. Two former head coaches are now officially in the running.
Jay Gruden loomed on Carolina’s wish list for over a week, but the former Washington HC has since spoken with Rhule about the job, Joe Person of The Athletic tweets. Former Giants HC Ben McAdoo also met with the Panthers about the job, doing so Tuesday, per Person (on Twitter).
Gruden, 54, did not coach in 2021, with the Jaguars moving on from him as OC after hiring Urban Meyer. But the six-season Washington HC spent 10 seasons as an NFL play-caller, initially running the Bengals’ offense in the early 2010s. Four of those produced playoff berths, while Kirk Cousins set franchise single-season records under Gruden as well.
McAdoo, 44, worked under Gruden with the Jaguars in 2020, coaching quarterbacks for that 1-15 team. He is obviously better known for his two-season stint as Giants head coach. That ended badly, with an in-season firing, but McAdoo did coach the 2016 Giants to an 11-5 record and the team’s first playoff berth in five years. McAdoo spent the previous two years as Giants OC under Tom Coughlin.
Additionally, Chip Kelly resurfaced as a potential option. Rhule sought to see if the current UCLA coach was interested, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets, but Kelly instead signed an extension to stay with the Bruins. Kelly has not coached in the NFL since his one-and-done 2016 season in San Francisco.
The Panthers have now interviewed seven coaches — Gruden, McAdoo, Luke Getsy, Tim Kelly, Mike Groh, Scottie Montgomery and Klint Kubiak — f0r their OC job.
lol. Tell me your head coach is getting fired after one more season without telling me your head coach is getting fired after one more season.
Yeah, as I read the title it somehow actually got progressively worse with each additional name
well if Chip Kelly signed an extension, he’s definitely staying because college coaches always honor their contracts /s
Jay Gruden knows offense, but shouldn’t be a HC.
I tend to agree with that. He actually did a respectable job coaching up Dalton, Cousins, and Minshew
they really just looked at the NFC East All-Rejects team and said “yeah, these guys are OC material”
Chip Kelly being a part of this list makes no sense to me. You’re going to tell me that someone who has gotten comfortable (regardless of whether he was actually good in the NFL or not) with the HC job for his last four teams would just come back as an OC under another former college HC? Nope!
I understand that this is a route some people do take, but I don’t think Chip is the type of person to do this sort of thing. He’s going to have to suck at UCLA before this sort of thing happens in his career.