Betting

Leonhard, a former Bills safety, has spoken to Buffalo about the team’s defensive coordinator opening. Now he’s getting interest from Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers, who lost defensive coordinator Jesse Minter to the Ravens this month. In LA, Leonhard would take over a stellar defensive group that last year allowed the league’s seventh lowest yards per play and the fifth lowest offensive success rate. Only three defenses allowed a lower EPA per rushing attempt than the Bolts.

Webb has been interviewing around the head coaching circuit this cycle and is now getting offensive coordinator requests with head coaching jobs filling up. The Ravens interviewed him for head coach and are now interested in bringing him back in to call plays for Lamar Jackson’s offense. John Harbaugh’s Giants may pivot from Todd Monken at offensive coordinator if Monken takes the Browns’ head coaching job, while the Eagles have yet to fill their offensive coordinator position. With the Broncos parting ways with Joe Lombardi, Webb is a candidate for his current employer’s offensive coordinator role as well. Webb is a highly coveted offensive mind who will likely find an offensive coordinator role this offseason and will be a name we hear again in future coaching cycles.

Gruden, however, “wasn’t interested in the job.” Jets head coach Aaron Glenn is turning over much of his coaching staff after a less-than-ideal first year on the job. Rosenblatt reports the team apparently contacted Gruden, who did not have interest in taking on a role under Glenn. Gruden has not coached since resigning from the Raiders after a scandal involving emails using bigoted language during the 2021 season. He consulted with the Saints in 2023 but has been out of the league since. The Jets’ staff turnover will decidedly not include Gruden.

Rivera, 64, is currently the general manager for the University of California’s football program. He was head coach of the Panthers from 2011-2019, leading the team to a Super Bowl appearance and winning NFL Coach of the Year twice. Rivera then coached the Commanders form 2020-2023 to more lackluster results, failing to finish with a winning record across four seasons. The Cardinals are continuing to search for the right head coaching candidate and Rivera, who has been out of the NFL for two years, is the latest on the interview list.

The Pro Football Hall Of Fame voting process is an annual disaster, so this qualifies as disappointing but not all that surprising. ESPN’s column refers to former Colts general manager Bill Polian as a cheerleader for having Belichick “wait a year” before induction on account of the Spygate and Deflategate scandals. There’s not really a way to tell the story of the modern NFL without the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach who won 333 games over the course of his career, of course. There’s little doubt that he will eventually be a Hall of Famer. (The actual HOF announcements are coming next week.) Because of the way voting is grouped, Belichick was up against Robert Kraft, Ken Anderson, Roger Craig, and I.C. Greenwood. It’s unknown whether any of the members of that group got 80 percent of the vote.

Are we finally out of road here for Joe Lombardi? It’s the third OC job he hasn’t been able to keep for longer than three years, and not even buddy Sean Payton could keep riding this train. It’s possible the Broncos elevate Davis Webb, who has garnered head-coaching interviews, to their offensive coordinator position. Lombardi has plenty of experience as a quarterbacks coach and, despite working as an NFL coach since 2006, is only 55. He should at least be able to find NFL work elsewhere as a lower-rung assistant.

McDaniel was scarce on details — not surprising — but promised to rein in the signal-caller a bit. McDaniel added “I think not relying too heavily on Justin’s ability to do above and beyond I think is critical. ... That’ll be one of the first things that we’ll try to do is take a little off his plate.” Reading between the lines, it’s possible that Herbert will be instructed to run a little less in 2026. He took off a career-high 83 times for 498 yards and two touchdowns. His overall fantasy value will probably remain as it was in 2025 — or improve — due to improved schematics. But we’re hoping the Chargers keep the running plays on the table for fantasy purposes and this does not sound like a team that plans to do that after watching him play the final six weeks of the season with a left hand that was recovering from surgery to repair a fracture.

Campanile was the only one of the two that was still up for a head-coaching gig after the Bills picking Joe Brady sealed off Udinski’s final interview opportunity. Campanile will apparently say no to the Cardinals and move ahead with the Jaguars for another season. Jacksonville’s first-place schedule and sudden improvements will make them a target for regression, but keeping coaching staff continuity should help ward some of it off.

Removing the part of our brain that understands what this really means is six more months of daily speculation about Aaron Rodgers coming back, it does make sense that win-now hire Mike McCarthy would want the best quarterback he could have. He has a pre-existing relationship with Rodgers, and Rodgers — clearly flawed at this point — is probably as good as the Steelers could hope to do at the position next year. Anyway, here’s to another offseason of this.

Well, it really made no sense to keep Engstrand and find a new playcaller, so we guess from that point of view it makes sense. Engstrand’s run game was versatile and varied and he probably deserves a role as someone’s run game coordinator at the very worst next year — perhaps he’ll head back to Detroit. The Jets will do whatever it is the Jets do from here, which from the looks of their defensive coordinator search probably means they’ll wind up paralyzed by overanalyzing 10 different candidates. Frank Reich has been the rumored playcaller replacement for the Jets in recent days.