2020 NFL Draft Guide: Meet the New Boss

While we try to freshen up the fantasy football lessons each year, there are some points which need to be hammered home each and every season. Earlier, in the Strategy Sessions section of the Draft Guide, we expressed just how important it is for you to Learn Every Team’s System. Well, that lesson continues here as identifying all the offseason coaching movement is a major part of that. If there is a new head coach, you are going to have to identify what that coach’s preferred scheme might be and how it will affect the personnel, both incumbents and new arrivals.

Every coach has their preferred base-offense, but as the years pass and the game of football evolves, each coach tends to put their own spin on things in the hopes of out-smarting their opponents. Knowledge of coaching trees is helpful as each coach’s history usually leads you to their base, but they must still be studied individually to reach a full understanding of what to expect on the field.

This year we have five new head coaches, 12 new offensive coordinators, 11 new defensive coordinators and four new coaches running special teams. We are already familiar with most, if not all, of the names, but their impact on their new teams is likely to cause some serious ripple effects on the personnel and therefore change how you should be viewing a number of players.

As we get closer to training camps being open, we will be diving much deeper into the specific offensive and defensive systems each team will run, but it doesn’t hurt to take a preliminary look at the list of new coaches and coordinators and speculate on what we expect to see from the new bosses and their teams this season.

New Head Coaches

Kevin Stefanski, CLE – This is going to be the first season Stefanski steps out of Minnesota and officially branches out on his own. His NFL coaching career began in 2006 when he worked as an assistant to Brad Childress and he remained through each head coaching change, gradually climbing up the ladder. He became the interim OC in 2018 and was given the full title last season, but with Gary Kubiak in as the assistant head coach, Stefanski was never really able to insert his full offensive scheme. However, that was probably one of his best learning experiences as he learned from Kubiak just how to establish a strong ground presence even in the wake of a pass-happy league. Now in Cleveland, he will be able to insert his version of the West Coast offense, while asserting with a power-run to help open things up. A former QB coach himself, Stefanski also brought in Alex Van Pelt and together, the two should have a very positive impact on the development of Baker Mayfield . They’ll utilize both Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt well which should open the passing game nicely. That, in turn, should help Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry downfield. There are high expectations in Cleveland this year and Stefanski has a chance to really entrench himself in Browns coaching lore if he does it right.

Mike McCarthy, DAL – Forever to be known for ultimately losing the battle in Green Bay to Aaron Rodgers , McCarthy gets a fantastic opportunity at redemption with a Cowboys team loaded with talent. McCarthy comes from the OG West Coast offense tree of Bill Walsh and while he’s made some adjustments to his personnel over the years, he prefers the power-run and short, quick passes to set up the downfield work. Not only was he fought by his quarterback every step of the way in his final years with the Packers, but he also never had the full confidence in his running back as Aaron Jones was still developing. Now he gets Ezekiel Elliott in an established offense what had been a top-5 unit over the past couple of seasons. He doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel here which is one of the reasons he retained OC Kellen Moore and that should help make for an easy transition. Elliott will continue see an abundance of work, while Dak Prescott will learn to spread the ball around to this elite group of wide receivers.     

Joe Judge, NYG – An interesting transition here as Judge, a former special teams coordinator with the New England Patriots, lands his first head coaching job. We should expect to see a heavy influence from Bill Belichick, but Judge was smart in understanding some of his limitations and brought in Jason Garrett as his new OC in New York. Say what you want about Garrett’s coaching missteps in Dallas, his offense was certainly not the problem. In fact, last season, Garrett’s offense ranked first overall in total yards per game, second in passing yards, fifth in rushing yards and sixth in total points scored. Is the scheme a little vanilla? Maybe. But it was certainly effective. The weapons he has to work with in New York are just as strong and the offense will be high-octane as well. The defense has its concerns and Judge will likely spend a lot of his time with new DC Patrick Graham, but you can expect to see him throw some suggestions he picked up from the mad genius in New England, to give Garrett an alternate perspective.  

Ron Rivera, WAS – Riverboat Ron takes his game from Carolina to Washington and boy does he have his hands full. Always more of a defensive-minded coach, Rivera brought OC Scott Turner with him and will look to install a very similar scheme they used together for the Panthers. However, there is no Christian McCaffrey in Washington and while they have some hopefuls in Derrius Guice and Antonio Gibson, they are going to have to either rotate backs in feverishly or they are going to have to change up the ground game a little. Guice can handle the between-the-tackles stuff, but he’s never really been tested as a pass-catcher at this level. Gibson is definitely more versatile, but with limited training camps in this Era of COVID, he may be behind in his learning curve. The one thing Turner is really good at, something his father seemed to struggle with at times, is adapting to his personnel. Turner got the most out of his receivers last year with a few alterations, so you can expect them to try and do more things than just air it out to Terry McLaurin . This is going to be a work in progress from Day 1 so expect to see some stumbles, but as the season rolls on, players like Gibson, Steven Sims and Kelvin Harmon could thrive in a high-energy passing attack.

Matt Rhule, CAR – This is going to be a huge test, not just for Rhule, the former head coach at Baylor University, but also for his OC Joe Brady, who left the same job at LSU to join the NFL ranks. Coming from college to the pros is usually a tough transition for a coach as he no longer has the benefit of recruiting the best players in the country. True, even the lowliest NFL player is light years ahead of the college game, but adjustments are still necessary. Brady says he doesn’t want to get pigeon-holed into one style of offense so don’t label his scheme as West Coast or Spread just yet. He designs around the strengths of his players, so obviously we’re looking at plenty of Christian McCaffrey once again. But the passing game should be a high-caliber, up-tempo scheme based on the speed he has between D.J. Moore , Robby Anderson and Curtis Samuel . You’ll also see more RPO this year with Teddy Bridgewater under center. Rhule liked using the up-tempo offense at Baylor and we saw some high-flying aerial use as well, so look for him to let Brady do his thing. If it isn’t working early on, Rhule may get more heavily involved, but for now, he likes what he’s hearing from his OC.

Here's a complete look at every team’s primary coaching staff:

**names in RED denote coaches/coordinators in their first year with the team.