The NFL would probably like to avoid ever seeing the Josh McDaniels coaching fiasco ever happen again, and a subsequent rule change would ensure that it doesn’t.
NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay confirmed that the league is considering a rule change that would allow assistant coaches to sign contracts for head coaching positions even before their teams are eliminated from the playoffs.
“Every year it’s become harder as the media pays more focus to those coaches and who may be going where,” McKay said, via Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk. “For too many years we’ve tried to hold that line on you can’t sign a contract but you can have an understanding. We just felt like we need to get over that hurdle and say you can sign a contract. It doesn’t mean you can work, but you can sign the contract.”
Current rules state that assistants are not able to formally sign on with a new team until the obligations they have to their current employer — such as playoff runs — are concluded. That leads to a lot of informal agreements that are widely reported in the media during the playoffs, and said coaches are forced to bat away that distraction until they can talk about it. Beyond the media speculation and distraction, it opens the door for last-minute changes of mind that leave teams and other coaches in the lurch. It’s about time the rule is changed, because as it stands, it’s not fooling anyone.
