NFL Rehab Matchmaker

Right now in the football calendar, both college and professional, we’re already reaching the point where we want to burn down the front office and make a quarterback and coaching change.

11 different college head coaches have been fired at Division 1 programs, 1 NFL head coach has already been fired, and there have been 4 different quarterback benchings already due to poor performance. The first two months of football come at you fast.

We’re also in a time where it’s never been hotter to once be someone’s trash and then get rehabilitated into a treasure somewhere else! Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and Geno Smith, before this year, all just needed to find the right place at the right time and are new versions of themselves because of it. Even for coaches, Todd Bowles was seen as a net negative in New York and is now a Super Bowl Champion head coach with a system in Tampa Bay! Dan Quinn was fired in Atlanta and is now a great fit in Washington after getting his coordinating groove back in Dallas!

Let’s play armchair doctor and send some coaches and quarterbacks who just need to get sent to the Sam Darnold Todd Bowles School of Rehabilitation.

What kind of place do they need? What’s the path for them here since success is not always linear?

Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa

Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

No one was more pre-fired this year than the apathetic offensive guru coach in Miami in Mike McDaniel, and after a beatdown in Cleveland 31-6 to fall to 1-6 on the year in some of the ugliest weather you’ve ever seen, it hit rock bottom when you wear those tropical colors and have the reputation of being “soft” to get that blown apart on the road by a moribund midwestern team. Mike McDaniel was the young hotshot “this scrawny guy from an Ivy League school is CHANGING football!” guy once upon a time, where they put up 70 points in a game and had one of the most prolific rushing offenses. What McDaniel needs is to go be only in charge of being responsible for making the fast guys faster and making someone’s life easier on offense. Can you imagine him as the offensive coordinator, drawing up plays for Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery that take the Lions over the top now that Ben Johnson is gone? He’ll be right back in the conversation as one of the best offensive minds in football rather than the washed Miami tech boy.

As for Tua, he came out during the game and was benched for Quinn Ewers after his third interception in the second half. It’s never a good look to get pulled right after you call out your teammates for a lack of player leadership when you’re the captain, you’ve had a plethora of concerning injuries and decided against taking measures like wearing a guardian cap, and teammates like Tyreek Hill may have asked for a trade request in wake of working with you, but we digress!

Tua was once the quarterback at Alabama that teams were trying to tank for. There’s a strong possibility that we collectively caudled him with the amount of injuries he’s received, and he needs some tough love.

Let’s put him learning from a seasoned veteran in a tough environment as a backup for a while to be humbled just for a little while. Maybe playing behind a Lamar Jackson or a Matthew Stafford for a year would benefit him in the long run, for a change of scenery and to also escape the “I got paid and was a former top pick” crown that is heavier than it would appear.

Brian Daboll

Brian Daboll was once the offensive mind that possibly turned Josh Allen into Josh Allen, and ever since becoming the head coach of the Giants, they’ve collectively been the worst offense in football. He was already on the hot seat heading into this season, and with how well rookie Jaxson Dart played after he made the change, it looked like it could have saved his job!

Until one of the biggest meltdowns in NFL history happened this weekend, they had a 19-0 lead in the fourth quarter before the Broncos promptly scored 33 points in one quarter to win the game.

There aren’t many good ways to come back from that, and it may have brought the relationship with Daboll back to reality; Dart, if anything, should be more of a reason for the Giants to make a change if he’s successful, not a “savior” to a Daboll problem.

Daboll is still seen as one of the most well-received “guy’s guys” in the league, someone like Josh Allen loved having in his corner. Maybe he goes somewhere as an OC to inspire confidence and make someone else’s quarterback a junkyard dawg. Paging Caleb Williams?

Kyler Murray

Kyler Murray needs to go somewhere he’s not seen as “the answer” for once, as a Texas High School Football undefeated legend, Heisman winner, MLB draft selection that he decided against doing, and face of the franchise in Arizona that just hasn’t been able to put together anything consistent with him on offense after taking him first overall. He’s had all the talent in the world in spite of his height, yet this year, the Cardinals’ offense has flowed more progressively in the games that Jacoby Brissett played for him in his absence, scoring more points per game and getting Trey McBride his first-ever multi-touchdown game.

It might just be the wrong place at the wrong time for a stud quarterback that is doing his best to provide a historically awful team with some success; he even wears the jersey number one. Without the pressure of being the “savior,” much like Baker in Cleveland, and the pressure of competing to stay in the league, he may ball out with a coach who can draw up some plays not resulting in getting balls batted down at the line of scrimmage. In free agency, if he gets traded to a team willing to take a flier on him, it might be a great wakeup call.

Justin Fields

This is spot number three for Justin Fields, unfortunately, and despite what all of the fantasy football gurus will tell you about how he’s a startable quarterback because of the amount of points he’s capable of getting by using his legs, he is not a winning quarterback. He had a -10 net yards before being benched for Tyrod Taylor, and has had the worst total winning % for anyone who has made as many stops as he has.

Fields still has the physical characteristics of someone who went to elite schools at Ohio State and Georgia, was picked in the first round, and just hasn’t been able to put it all together as an elite presence in the pocket. We don’t want his athleticism to go to waste, though, right? Imagine someone as strong and fast as he is still coming in for gadget plays like a Taysom Hill at this point. We don’t want to rule him out as a quarterback entirely, but for the time being, at least put him in a place where the speed and strength can be utilized after he unfortunately signed with a franchise where quarterbacks go to die.

Sean Payton, the ball is in your court.