Hop aboard the 2026 Coaching Carousel
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The teams heading to the playoffs and putting themselves in the Super Bowl discussion are, understandably, in the NFL spotlight right now. Before long, however, the teams at the opposite end of the spectrum will steal that spotlight for a couple of days when they hire their new head coaches. Robert Mays and Conor Orr from Sports Illustrated and The MMQB get you ready for those couple of days on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
4:00 Why this will be a unique carousel
7:09 The top candidates
30:02 The second rung
1:04:20 The rest
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
Follow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.social
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Theme song: Haunted
Written by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love Songs
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Got a fun one, a familiar one on the feed |
| 0:09.1 | today. Our buddy Connor Orr from Sports Illustrated in the MMQB is somebody who does more and better work |
| 0:14.9 | in the coaching space than I think anybody else who covers the NFL, he has his annual list of potential head coaching |
| 0:21.5 | candidates dropping today. That is a coincidence, by the way. We just did we not know that |
| 0:26.2 | was happening when we asked him to come on the show, but it is coming out today. And so that's |
| 0:30.5 | what we spent today doing. We dug into 12 to 15 or so names of head coaching candidates that are |
| 0:36.7 | going to be sought after in this cycle, |
| 0:38.5 | starting with the guys we think are going to be at the top and then just kind of going down |
| 0:41.6 | the rungs as we went. I love doing the show every single year with Connor. It's something that |
| 0:46.7 | I have a ton of interest in and he does it in a way that really no one else does. And so |
| 0:51.0 | always enjoy doing it. Today was no exception. Let's get to that |
| 0:54.5 | conversation with me and Connor right now. |
| 1:02.4 | Joining us today for what has become, I think, an annual podcast. I think we've done this like |
| 1:07.8 | at least two or three years in a row. And I don't think we could go a regular season without doing it. Here to break down the coaching carousel that is to come over the next couple months. It is our old buddy from the MMQB and Sports Illustrated. Connor Orr, how you doing, man? I'm doing well, thanks. This is like pre-Christmas. I'm very, very excited. This is my time of year. |
| 1:29.1 | We were talking last night over text, and I think both of us acknowledged, this is one of the |
| 1:34.4 | weirder head coaching carousels and pool of candidates that I can remember since I started |
| 1:39.8 | paying attention to this stuff. And you had a similar thought. And so I want to, before we dive |
| 1:44.9 | into the actual people, I want to talk about the dynamics at play and why this feels like |
| 1:51.9 | the strangest year in a while, because I really do think it's a little bit different. |
| 1:56.2 | So I think that there's three main factors that are occurring here. One is that offensive play callers |
| 2:03.2 | have been stripped mined like precious metal, and there is just nothing left. We have overfished |
| 2:09.2 | the pool. We have overfished the pool. And so there's maybe one or two candidates, but with |
... |
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