Ranking NFL head coach hires; Vikings fire GM, sparking debates; NBA updates

TRENDING FAN CONVERSATIONS FROM THE WEEKEND IN SPORTS

JANUARY 30 - FEBRUARY 1, 2026

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Stack ranking the 10 NFL head coaching hires made this cycle as fans debate the future of their teams under new leadership.

1) Raiders: Klint Kubiak

• Best of the Shanahan coaching tree since McDaniel’s ascent to head coach

• Seattle displayed the full package of his schematic and coaching prowess

  • JSN is an otherworldly weapon, but outside of him, it’s truly impressive that Seattle managed to be a top passing offense all season

• Tons of success with QBs (Cousins in Minnesota + Darnold in Seattle) and now getting one of the most fundamentally sound 1st overall pick QBs in Fernando Mendoza

• Inheriting elite playmakers on offense who will thrive in his offense (Jeanty & Bowers)

• $90 million in cap space available to make this hire stick

2) Ravens: Jesse Minter

• Returns to Baltimore, where he coached potent defenses alongside Harbaugh and Mike Macdonald

• Coming off coaching two of the Chargers’ best franchise defenses; made great players better and turned role players into impact contributors

  • Derwin James returned to an All-Pro in both years with Minter, making this an extremely exciting hire for Ravens’ star safety Kyle Hamilton

• Baltimore likely to allocate top draft capital on defense through draft

• Immediately made what appears to be great coordinator hires

3) Falcons: Kevin Stefanski

• Winningest coach for the Browns since 1984 (this has to mean something)

• Inherits the best roster in his head coaching tenure

• Great RB talent to handle his run-first & play action scheme + a great O-line (last great O-line + great RB play he had in Cleveland went to the playoffs)

• Has had to manage through 13 QB starters with the Browns and the Falcons find themselves needing to make a decision at QB

• Added a ton of QB forward brain power to his staff to develop Penix

4) Giants: John Harbaugh

• Will stabilize a rocky culture and help carry a team full of potential to its ceiling

• Let Lamar be Lamar when coming into the league, which should have great payoffs for developing Jaxson Dart

• Playoff + Super Bowl + MVP QB successes, albeit not much lately, that far outweigh anything the Giants have done recently

5) Bills: Joe Brady

• Seven top 5 scoring offenses in nine years as an offensive coach and/or play caller

• Two of the last three seasons as top 5 in rushing yards per game (1st in 2025)

• Josh Allen’s dominance in his system

  • Neither Brady’s nor McDermott’s fault for what we now know to be a poor front office culture with continued roster construction failures (this is the biggest issue the Bills face)

• Immediately made what appears to be great coordinator hires

6) Titans: Robert Saleh

• Just coached a 49ers defense that was one of the most injured in NFL history into one that held the reigning Super Bowl champs to 19 points in a playoff win

• Jets defense was dominant with Saleh, everything else was an entire mess that was primarily front office driven

• Will elevate an ascending Titans defense coming off a strong season and bring a culture boost throughout the entire organization

• Immediately made a home run hire to land Brian Daboll as his OC to call plays and help develop Cam Ward

  • Daboll + Josh Allen was electric, and Dart played his best football under Daboll in a brief stretch before he was fired

• $100 million in cap space will allow Tennessee to build to Saleh’s defensive strengths and put pieces around Cam Ward for Daboll to work with

7) Steelers: Mike McCarthy

• Best QB developer available this coach hiring cycle, and it’s not close

• As much playoff & Super Bowl success as John Harbaugh

• Three straight 12-win seasons with the Cowboys and stabilized the franchise throughout toxic front office/Jerry Jones meddlings

• Great option to bridge the franchise into the future by developing their next face of the franchise QB and turning over an aging, expensive, underperforming defense

  • All tasks that are huge lifts for a first-year coach, especially one who hasn’t run the whole show before

• Stability hire who will keep the Steelers at or near the top of the AFC North while also transitioning the roster and QB to attract the next top coaching candidate in 2-3 years

8) Cardinals: Mike LaFleur

• Each OC who left McVay to become a head coach has had tremendous success (Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell, Liam Coen), so there’s obvious upside

  • Has also been on an a Shanahan staff

• Big reason for the Rams’ run game success in recent years

• Called the best Jets offense in recent history, but ultimately incompetent Jets’ leadership passed on him as head coach and they’ve been in offensive freefall ever since

• Knows how to scheme the ball to top WRs and often leans on them; this is a great hire for Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson

• Immediate offensive play caller upgrade over Drew Petzing

9) Browns: Todd Monken

• Led the Ravens offense during Lamar’s most recent MVP season; known for creativity and effectively leveraging different personnel grouping in his passing attack

• The front office seems set on letting Shedeur win the QB1 job, and Monken is bought into coaching to that vision

• Ravens had three top 2 rushing offenses under Monken, and believe they have their RB of the future in Quinshon Judkins

• Has led as many, if not more, highly successful offenses as the most qualified offensive coaches on the open market

10) Dolphins: Jeff Hafley

• Turned in a top 10 defense in his first year as an NFL DC and had the Packers as a top 5 defense before Parsons’ injury + personnel failures due to poor defensive roster construction

  • First DC to actually bring a competent run defense to Green Bay in 10+ years

• Has previously head coaching experience and will instill a level of grit and accountability not seen in Miami under McDaniels

• Elite podium guy. Every time he talks, you like him more

• Long track record of success as a DB coach, which has increasingly become one of the toughest positions in a pass-dominant NFL

NFL

Vikings fire GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, hinged on internal disagreements and outcomes around Sam Darnold and JJ McCarthy. News then hit that Kwesi went against the grain of his NFL norms and took PTO to spend time with his family after the birth of his child, sparking controversy online around severely unhealthy work-life balance for coaches, scouts, and front office staff.

First of all. If you’re going to win 14 games with Sam Darnold, then your head coach and team want to keep him, but you overrule them because your “analytics” said take the risky bet on a raw JJ McCarthy instead, who proceeded to look years away from NFL-ready after his first year starting (second year in the league), and Darnold immediately makes a Super Bowl next season, yeah, you can expect to lose your job over that when you’re also the worst team in your division.

Add in very mid drafts, a confusing outlook for roster construction, losing key vets, and still no franchise QB since taking over in 2022. For context, his very first pick, Lewis Cine, was just recently released from a UFL roster without playing a snap…

Kwesi’s firing was a big L for the “analytics” junkies and will be a stain on any future GM candidate who also has not spent time leading player personnel or scouting. Kwesi’s career in front offices has almost exclusively been R&D, and as much as it seemed like the “ahead of trend” hire at the time, nothing has yet to outweigh knowing what you’re watching on the field. Not just what’s in the spreadsheets.

As for the personal life debate that has struck a chord online. It’s pathetic that the NFL has reached a point where Mike Macdonald is saying that he sees his kid for 30 minutes a week and Joe Brady is saying he missed the birth of his child. Don’t even get started with the life of an NFL scout!

But for people around the NFL to be “in disbelief” that Kwesi took two weeks off to be with his newborn child is a dark cloud over the state of the league. For the other side of that coin to be normalized is a league-wide problem. Yes, the NFL is a league of hustle junkies and psychopaths who are all better off not having families at all, given the commitment being asked of them. It’s also reasonable to say that the livelihoods of 90 other individuals on a team are dependent on the GM being actively present and doing his job at a high level. But even the highest-level execs across public companies in corporate America, many with far greater staffing numbers underneath their purview than an NFL GM, are granted months of leave to be with a newborn. So why is that okay then? For anyone out there shaming the man for not being a soulless corporate robot in favor of taking time with a newborn child that he’ll never get again, look in the mirror for where the real shame lies.

NBA

As the NBA trade deadline approaches and teams begin to make their playoff pushes, here’s the current state of the NBA and key statistics that have fans talking

• NBA facing “lack of effort” backlash making the sport less interesting to fans

• Pistons and Thunder continue to pull away as 1 seeds in each conference as Milwaukee has fallen from perennial contender to back to irrelevance under Doc Rivers

• Luka Doncic now hold the record for most 30/5/5 games in a single season in Lakers history

• Victor Wembanyama somehow has more career blocks than 94% of all players in NBA history

  • Already 10th in history in games with 25+ points and 5+ blocks

• Dylan Harper has become a teenage star for the Spurs; only Kobe has more 15/5 games off the bench as a teenager in history

• The Heat took out the Bulls to win the in-season play-in tournament 134-91 for their 3rd largest win in franchise history

• Pistons’ Jalen Duran continues to be the most efficient producer of 20+ points & 10+ rebound games this season while teammate Cade Cunningham leads in points + assists double doubles

• Celtics Anfernee Simons continues to make a case for Sixth Man of the Year with most 3 pointers made + most points off the bench this season

• Cooper Flagg joined LeBron, Durant, and Luca as only teenagers ever with a 30/10/5 game

• Healthy Joel Embiid still putting in work with 5 games of 32+ points since January 16th

• The Cleveland Cavaliers traded De'Andre Hunter to the Sacramento Kings for Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis. The three-team deal includes the Chicago Bulls acquiring Kings forward Dario Saric and two future second-round picks