Ben Johnson is out, as he's staying in Detroit - and if you ask NFL insider Albert Breer, as Grant & Danny did Tuesday, the fact he's NOT going to be Commanders head coach is not as much of a surprise as it might seem.
“I don’t know that he was ever as strong a favorite as people thought,” Breer said. “Number one, the feel I got coming into this week was that the Commanders were hitting almost like a hard reset, and not saying that the information they had gathered already wasn't important or valuable or was gonna be used, but they really wanted to kind of take a fresh set of eyes as they went out and met with all of these guys this week. They just had a very open mind about it, and I don't think Ben Johnson has interviewed great over the last couple of years, so where he was in the search, I think could be a factor.”
Indeed, the brass has said they want someone who can be a leader of men, and, perhaps, Johnson bombed the interview, and that, along with his reported salary demands, maybe made him decide to stay put rather than risk not getting a job?
“Last year, I know Detroit knew that Ben was a little, let's just say, insecure about where he was, and whether or not he was ready, and he's pretty self-aware,” Breer said. “I think at that point, Detroit made it worth his while to say, hey, if you wanna take that extra year, we'll do our best to make you whole financially and we'll give you a good option right here where you are, and he wound up taking it. I don't know if that happened again, but I can tell you Detroit really values him, so if there was an opening there for them to take him off the market, I could see where they would maybe try to do that, too.”
Danny thinks it’s ‘crazy’ to this far in the process to just back out, although to be fair, Johnson couldn’t meet in-person with anyone until the past week anyway, so is that timing just circumstance, or a byproduct of the search getting really real?
“It is weird, and I would argue that part of it can probably hurt Ben going forward,” Breer said. “I’ve covered this for two decades and your name doesn't stay hot forever – in a lot of cases, a guy's name can be hot for two or three years and then it cools off; I don't think that's gonna happen to Ben Johnson, but it certainly could. When you've left different teams at the altar, or gone through the process with a bunch of teams and pulled out, there's always gonna be the question if he’s ready to jump. That’s all stuff to consider with Johnson going back to Detroit and looking forward to where he might be in 2025.”
Grant of course has a hard time believing Johnson wasn’t the favorite either way…and what makes things worse, but had yet to be reported by Breer when he was on, is that Bobby Slowik has a new deal to stay in Houston, too, so it’s down to all defensive candidates.
But perhaps, and especially in the cases of three of the four remaining candidates, that’s okay?
“Adam Peters himself said at the press conference that he wants a leader, and number two, there is a trend happening in the NFL that I think less people are paying attention to than the offensive play-caller thing, and that's the success of recent ex-players,” Breer said. “Look at Dan Campbell, DeMeco Ryans, Mike Vrabel, Kevin O’Connell – guys who played in the league who didn't have a ton of runway as assistant coaches getting jobs, and then being successful in those jobs. I think it really speaks to a big piece of all of this, that with this generation of player, it’s difficult to get engagement. That's a very hard first hurdle to clear - Mike McDaniel, for example, had to work really hard to get that in Miami – but those guys have it the minute they walk in the room. There are different ways to do this, and I think focusing on one bucket really limits what you're looking for in a head coach. I give the Commanders credit for looking at different buckets; I know they were committed to looking at everything and they've certainly done that, but it wouldn't shock me if they wanna go with somebody experienced or the ex-player route.”
So then, that may eliminate Mike MacDonald…but then who becomes the favorite?
“I think Dan Quinn is certainly in the mix. He’s a guy who can create a culture, and we saw it in Atlanta,” Breer said. “He got to a Super Bowl, built a great staff there – he hired Kyle Shanahan and then replaced him with Steve Sarkisian – and he’s a guy who has the connections and the ability to lure in good offensive coaches. I think you see the way that he connects with players now, he's not an ex-player, but just ask Micah Parsons or the Legion of Boom guys about him.”
And that brought Breer back to Washington, circa a decade ago?
“I remember talking to the Rams about Sean McVay when he came from there, and one of the biggest things they liked wasn’t play-calling, which was way down the list,” Breer said. “ One of the Rams guys said to me, look at that huddle he had in Washington, and the personalities he had in that huddle: Trent Williams, DeSean Jackson, Jordan Reed, RG3 as a backup – he was able to manage all of that and get a high level of performance out of all of those guys, right? That says something, and that's sort of what Dan Quinn can bring to the table, and so I think Quinn's a good candidate, and I think Aaron Glenn is gonna get a serious look.”
And if they do something G&D suggested and maybe open the search wider?
“If one name makes sense to me, it would be Mike Vrabel, who Adam Peters was with in New England for six years,” Breer said. “If they really are gonna look under every rock here, Vrabel would be one I would advise them to look at. I think he's a Top 7 or 8 head coach in the league, and I think if you could get him at this point, that would be a win.”
Take a listen to Breer’s entire segment above!