Chicago, New England and Jacksonville were all fighting for draft positioning at this time a year ago, with the three teams finishing off seasons that left them at the bottom of the NFL standings.
The disappointing 2024 season led to coaching changes that have paid immediate dividends, with the Bears, Patriots and Jaguars all clinching playoff berths this week in the first year of the new regimes.
The work done by Ben Johnson in Chicago, Mike Vrabel in New England and Liam Coen in Jacksonville is impressive but far from unprecedented. This marked the 20th straight season that at least one team made the playoffs with a coach in his first year on the job, according to Sportradar.
In that span, there has been an average of just over two first-year coaches who have led their teams to the postseason each year, with the three this season tied for the second most.
There were an NFL-record five first-year coaches who made the playoffs in 2022 when Minnesota’s Kevin O’Connell, Miami’s Mike McDaniel, the New York Giants’ Brian Daboll, Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles and Jacksonville’s Doug Pederson all did it.
Johnson, Vrabel and Coen will try to join some more elite company: Eight coaches have made it to the Super Bowl in their first full season with a team. Four of those coaches won it all, with Denver the last to do it in the 2015 season under Gary Kubiak. The others were Jon Gruden in 2002 with Tampa Bay, George Seifert in 1989 with San Francisco and Don McCafferty in 1970 with the Baltimore Colts.
Gruden and Kubiak had coached other teams, meaning Johnson and Coen will try to join McCafferty and Seifert as the only coaches to win a Super Bowl in their first year as an NFL head coach.
While Chicago, New England and Jacksonville are having noteworthy turnarounds, the two No. 1 seeds from a year ago have fallen flat and both could miss the playoffs.
Kansas City already has been eliminated and Detroit needs to win two games and hope Green Bay loses twice to get in.
The Lions and Chiefs both won 15 games last season. Only two of the previous seven teams to win at least that many games missed the playoffs the following season, with Carolina doing it in 2016 after going 15-1 and New England in 2008 following a 16-0 regular season when Tom Brady injured his knee in the opener.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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