Author: James Bailey

jamesbailey2027@u.northwestern.edu

This article will explore the impact of coaching trees across the National Football League. More specifically, it will go into detail about how coaches across the league, and in college, control a large majority of the head coaching/managing positions. There will be both similarities and distinctions between each assistant and their former coaches. The job of this article is ultimately to answer the question: Why do NFL franchises actively and consecutively hunt out assistants from a select few coaches?

Twenty percent of all head coaches in the National Football League can be traced back to one hiring decision in 1975 when Barry Switzer hired Mike Shanahan for an offensive assistant role at the University of Oklahoma for just one year. That year, the Sooners won a national championship scoring 26.5 points per game. Shanahan had worked his way up to be a receivers coach for the Denver Broncos in 1984. It took him another 11 years before he would be their Head Coach. He won back-to-back Super Bowls in Denver in 1998 and 1999.

Shannahan was the only head coach in the league, besides Bill Belichick, who also held General Manager powers during his tenure in Washington. It was a peculiar move by the organization to give a coach with just a .552 win percentage such power. Several prominent coaches in the league have a higher career winning percentage, including Mike Tomlin, Andy Reid, and John Harbaugh. On the surface, it makes little sense why so many of Shanahan’s future assistants, and his assistants’ assistants, currently hold head coaching or coordinator positions. Where is Tomlin’s coaching tree, or Harbaugh’s, or any of these coaches with a higher winning percentage? There is very little success that stems from Shanahan’s tree. 

The most recognized name in Mike Shanahan’s tree just might be his son, Kyle. The younger Shanahan has been to one Super Bowl as an offensive coordinator and two as a head coach in the last eight years. However, he has yet to win one. Still, his offenses have been a thing of brilliance and have inspired coordinators around the league to implement his principles into their own offenses. Kyle’s San Francisco 49ers finished second in points per game this season and have consistently ranked in the top ten in offensive production since he took the job in 2017. Similar to his father, his win percentage is .557. 

Kyle Shanahan was nearly hired by the Dolphins in 2016, so it was unsurprising to see them go after one of his longtime assistants when they hired Mike McDaniel in 2022. A history student at Yale, McDaniel does not necessarily fit the model of a typical head coach. He was hired by Mike Shanahan in Denver in 2005 fresh out of college. He was also a part of Shanahan’s staff in Washington as a receivers coach. McDaniel excelled as a run-game coordinator with Kyle in San Francisco before Miami poached him to be their next head coach. It paid off, as Miami had a top-five offense in overall yards and was second in passing yards in 2023. Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill led the league in yards as well, accumulating nine plays of over 40 yards, more than any other receiver in the league – a testament to McDaniel’s thrilling and schematically-savvy play-calling ability. However, he has yet to win a playoff game in Miami, and boasts a .588 win percentage. 

Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams is currently the most successful product of the Shanahan tree. McVay was also part of Mike’s staff in Washington that included Kyle, McDaniel, and other offensive geniuses of today’s NFL. He became the youngest head coach ever when the Rams hired him in 2017 at just 30 years of age. McVay became the youngest to reach the Super Bowl when he led the Rams to Super Bowl LIII in 2018. In 2021, he became the youngest coach ever to win a Lombardi Trophy when the Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. McVay has a slightly higher winning percentage than his former colleagues, has a .611 win percentage

It seemed that Kevin O’Connell would follow McVay wherever he went. That changed in 2022 when he became Minnesota’s head coach just three days after winning a Super Bowl with the Rams as their offensive coordinator. In 2021 and 2022, O’Connell was the play-caller for back-to-back offensive players of the year – receivers Cooper Kupp and Justin Jefferson. His Vikings finished 13-4 in his first season with an offense that placed sixth in overall yards. This past season was supposed to be a promising one, but O’Connell and the Vikings lost their starting quarterback Kirk Cousins to an Achilles injury, and Justin Jefferson was forced to miss seven games of the season. He has a .588 win percentage as a head coach, but there are indications that this will only go higher.

Current Packers head coach Matt Lafleur also served as Kyle Shanahan’s assistant in Washington and McVay’s assistant in Los Angeles before taking the job in Green Bay. He inherited one of the greatest quarterbacks of this generation: Aaron Rodgers. LaFleur’s teams were a regular-season powerhouse. He is the first coach in history to lead a team to three consecutive seasons with 13 or more wins. However, this success has yet to lead to a Super Bowl. There is little to complain about for an offense that went to an NFC championship in 2019 and 2020.  Jordan Love’s first full year as the Packer’s quarterback in 2023 was meant to be an off-year, but it instead highlighted LaFleur’s ability to overperform. Green Bay went 9-8 and surprised Dallas in the Wild Card round, scoring 48 points. He has a .675 win percentage. 

From that decorated 2013 Washington coaches’ room, there are a couple of unsung heroes that an average fan would not know. Offensive line coach Chris Foerster reunited with Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco in 2019. As the current run-game coordinator and offensive line coach, the 49ers have ranked in the top ten in rushing yards in four of the last five seasons. It is also reported that Foerster’s salary is between $2.5–$3 million. The average salary for an NFL assistant is between $100k-500k.

Bobby Slowik differs slightly from every other coach from Washington in 2013. He was a defensive assistant. It is rare to see an assistant or coordinator switch sides of the ball. However, when he followed Kyle Shanahan to San Francisco, he became an Offensive assistant. In 2023, Slowik found himself a role as Houston’s offensive coordinator. His first test was navigating a 3-13 Texans team that was 30th in rushing yards and 25th in passing yards the year before. They also tied for second to worst in total touchdowns in 2022. It seemed like a rookie quarterback was not going to help the situation either. But Houston went past defying the odds, finishing with a 10-7 record, an NFC South title, and a playoff appearance. They finished fifth in passing yards with rookie C.J. Stroud, who also became the youngest quarterback to win a playoff game, and only the tenth rookie to do so.

It is evident that Mike Shanahan’s coaching tree has had an insurmountable impact on the National Football League and the development of the next generation of football minds. It will be interesting to see who’s coaching tree emerges next as the most prominent and successful.