For an extended period, the New England Patriots had one of the NFL’s most senior coaches. Briefly, they even held the record for the league’s eldest coach, with Bill Belichick being approximately seven months younger than Pete Carroll, the former coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Carroll recently parted ways with the team he had coached since 2010.
However, Belichick and the Patriots also parted ways. Subsequently, the Patriots now boast the youngest coach in the entire football league, having promoted Jerod Mayo to head coach just a day later. Mayo is roughly a month younger than Sean McVay, the coach of the Los Angeles Rams, who had held the title of the NFL’s youngest coach since his hiring in 2017.
Among the current head coaches, seven are aged 40 or younger, as indicated in the table below:
COACH | TEAM | DATE OF BIRTH | AGE |
---|---|---|---|
Jerod Mayo | Patriots | 2/23/86 | 37 |
Sean McVay | Rams | 1/24/86 | 37 |
Kevin O’Connell | Vikings | 5/25/85 | 38 |
Shane Steichen | Colts | 5/11/85 | 38 |
DeMeco Ryans | Texans | 7/8/84 | 39 |
Zac Taylor | Bengals | 5/10/83 | 40 |
Mike McDaniel | Dolphins | 3/6/83 | 40 |
McVay had held the title of the youngest coach for so long that the last time he wasn’t the youngest coach in the league was in 2016 when Adam Gase, then in his first season with the Dolphins, claimed the position. Gase went on to coach for three years in Miami and two more with the New York Jets but hasn’t coached in the NFL since.
The Patriots are evidently hoping for a coaching track record more in line with McVay’s than Gase’s. Encouragingly, the recent achievements of these young coaches showcase promising results: McVay has been to two Super Bowls, winning one; Taylor has been to a Super Bowl; Steichen and Ryans led remarkable one-year turnarounds this season; McDaniel has constructed one of the league’s best and most explosive offenses; O’Connell has surpassed expectations in Minnesota.
One noteworthy difference between Ryans and most of these other young coaches is that while they are primarily offensive coaches, Ryans focuses on defense. Ryans is the only coach on the list whose expertise lies in defense. His successful first year was influenced significantly by bringing offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik from San Francisco and securing C.J. Stroud in the draft. This emphasizes the importance of Mayo’s upcoming offensive coordinator hire and the Patriots’ choices with the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft.