What Could A Potential Head Coaching Search Look Like For The Ravens?

It’s been since 2008 – the last time that the Baltimore Ravens had a head coaching search. Moving on from former head coach Brian Billick, general manager Ozzie Newsome and owner Steve Bisciotti hired John Harbaugh. 

The rest was written, as Harbaugh became the winningnest head coach in team history with a 178-108 record (.616 winning percentage) and a Super Bowl victory during the 2012 season. Years later, the Ravens, who now stand in at 1-4 this season, may be in the beginning stages of mulling over a potential coaching search. 

Harbaugh, 63, who made his mark as a defensive backs and special teams coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, has looked lost at times following a blown coverage, a missed sack or an overall negative play on the defensive side of the football. Baltimore has allowed a league-worst 177 points through five games this season. If the team goes into a complete tailspin, and it’s looking that way currently, there may be some wholesale changes to the coaching staff, the roster, etc. 

The question is: how would a coaching search go? Baltimore fans may need a refresher on the process.

1. According to The Athletic, here are a number of things that NFL teams will have to take into account before beginning the search process:
   • “Teams with open head-coaching positions were able to begin requesting interviews with candidates from other teams on Jan. 6,” The Athletic NFL staff wrote. “Those interviews must happen virtually before the end of divisional-round games.
   • “Last year, the NFL recommended that teams with open head-coaching positions used this “virtual interview window” to set up initial interviews so those teams would be eligible to request a second interview with a candidate from a Super Bowl team during the bye week.
   • “Note: Teams may not interview employees of other teams that didn’t make the postseason until the third day after the employer teams’ Week 18 game (for example, Jan. 7 for a game on Jan. 4, or Jan. 8 for a game on Jan. 5).”
2. The team would need to identify a list of candidates and it’ll probably be a ton of them. Baltimore may look in the direction of someone like Los Angeles Chargers Defensive Coordinator Jesse Minter, Minnesota Vikings Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores, collegiate names like Oregon Head Coach Dan Lanning and plenty of others. 
   • What the Ravens may specifically look for includes a person that doesn’t stick to simply one plan. They have to be adaptable according to The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia.
     • “During the week, coaches will work 20-hour days and brag about sleeping in their offices. Then game days roll around, and they turtle,” Kapadia wrote. “The NFL is designed for parity—135 games during the regular season were decided by seven points or fewer. Making optimal in-game decisions can have a big impact on winning and losing. This doesn’t mean that the coach needs to be a number cruncher who is constantly refreshing Ben Baldwin’s fourth-down bot. But ideally, they won’t be afraid of the data. They’ll embrace the idea of having someone in the booth during the game who can advise them when to go for it on fourth down, when to punt, when to use timeouts, when to challenge, and so on.
     • “You want someone aggressive who’s not always thinking about the worst-case scenario. If, during the interview, they say they’re just going to trust their gut with those decisions, that’s a red flag. If they utter phrases like “end every possession with a kick” or “flip the field,” go ahead and call them an Uber. That type of conservative approach is a death sentence.”
3. Typically, coaching candidates’ current teams would need to be contacted. Teams have a right to deny an interview, though that doesn’t often happen with head coaching searches.
4. Once candidates are identified, they are interviewed by teams – discussing their leadership skills, their vision for the team and coaching philosophies as a whole. 
   • According to Fox’s Greg Auman, the interview may be an all-day affair:
     • “With some teams, a candidate might be the focus of an entire day — fly in the night before, start the interview process at 8 a.m. and wrap just in time to make a 7 p.m. flight home,” he wrote. “Given the close relationship between a head coach and general manager, it’s common for them to get dinner together, allowing for a more laid-back, informal talk about the job and the dynamic between them. Other teams will have so many interviews that they overlap and delay others like dentist appointments, with candidates passing each other in the hallway, trading a nod and smile as they go from one room to the next.”
5. The team will narrow down the list, leading to a second interview.
   • Coaches may go more in-depth with how they look to build their program in terms of filling out their coaching staff, finding places where they’d improve the team, visions that they share of growth with the organization as a whole.
6. After Baltimore would make their decision, they’d offer the job to their no. 1 candidate, which would include reaching out to their current team to work out compensation to break their current contract. Then, the team would finally be announced and build out their coaching staff.

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Kyle Andrews

Kyle J. Andrews is a 2018 University of Baltimore and Mount Saint Joseph High School graduate, along with former sports reporter for the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., the Baltimore Sun Media Group, 105.7 The Fan, Baltimore Beatdown, and Fox Sports 1340 AM. He has covered the Orioles, Ravens, high school sports in the Baltimore area and Central Pennsylvania, minor league baseball, Penn State and Maryland athletics and more.