New Kids on the Block
What do the new head coaches for the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, and Pittsburgh Steelers have in common? Their both below the age of 35. Both coaches were introduced as the new head coaches of their respective teams yesterday.
Mike Tomlin, the 34 year old defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings is going to suceed Bill Cowher who was also a 34 year old coordinator when he became head coach of the Steelers in 1992. Tomlin will be the 16th head coach in the history of the Steelers franchise.
USC’s offensive coordinator, Lane Kiffin accepted the head coaching position of the Oakland Raiders. Kiffin is 31, which is 3 years younger than Mike Tomlin who was the youngest head coach of the NFL for just a few hours. Kiffin takes over a Raiders team that went 2-14, one of the perks of taking this job however is that he will get the #1 overall pick in this spring’s NFL draft.
After the sucess of Sean Payton with the Saints this year, NFL teams have turned to younger less seasoned guys to take over their jobs this year. There are not too many veteran candidates around this season, and Sean Payton showed than an inexperienced coach can have sucess right away. Both coaches have been sucessful at their previous jobs, and they also won out due to other coaches choosing different jobs.
The Steelers originally intended to hire their own offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt. He chose to go coach the Arizona Cardinals, and replace Denny Green instead. The Raiders expressed interested in a different USC coach, assistant and QB coach Steve Sakarsian first but settled on Kiffin after Sakarsian’s pullout.
Both coaches have a good chance at suceeding though. Kiffin’s expectations wont be all too high with the Raiders, getting around .500 would suffice for next year and he’ll get some pretty good draft picks so he’ll have a chance to build some talent. Tomlin on the otherhand inherits a team that was thriving under Bill Cowher and had won the Super Bowl 2 seasons ago. This year the team got off to a slow start but was hot at the end of the year, and will likely be picked to win the AFC North next year.
It will be interesting to see how both of these young coaches fare in their first tours of NFL head coaching.
