Welcome back to The MMQB newsletter. It's been a wild week in the NFL, with the Giants reportedly finalizing a deal with John Harbaugh on Thursday to become the team's next head coach. Conor Orr takes readers inside the dinner that sealed the deal for New York and Harbaugh.
A seismic shift also rattled Pittsburgh and reverberated throughout the league on Tuesday, with Mike Tomlin announcing he would step down as the Steelers' head coach after 19 seasons. It marks the latest move in a busy start to the offseason, with nearly a fourth of the league now in search of a head coach. Orr ranked all of the vacancies and assigned the best candidates for each market. Meanwhile, Albert Breer looked back at Tomlin's legacy, unpacking his secret to relationship building. But before we dig deeper into the madness of the coaching carousel, let's not lose sight of what's right in front of us: the playoffs. Before the divisional round, Mitch Goldich composed his annual column, ranking all 16 potential Super Bowl matchups from the eight remaining teams. Let's start with the news of the day, though, and the restaurant that made it all possible. |
By Conor Orr As the most critical meal in New York Giants history wound down Wednesday night, Tim Salouros, the owner of Elia restaurant in East Rutherford, N.J., walked into his private dining room in the old wine cellar and looked out at a contingent that included general manager Joe Schoen, senior executive Chris Mara and highly sought after NFL coach John Harbaugh. The Giants had called Salouros that morning, as they have for every prospective head coaching dinner since 2018, the year the team hired Pat Shurmur as head coach. He was warned that Harbaugh was on a time constraint and that they would need a table for between four and eight people at between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.. Harbaugh had a private jet flight back to Baltimore at 7:30 p.m. Salouros knew he would have the dinner downstairs because, as he joked, the wine cellar tends to be cooler than all the other parts of the restaurant, which is good in case the mood in the room gets heated. "After they were done eating, I told them, I know there's a lot of tension in the room but, as a fan, please sign," Salouros told Sports Illustrated Thursday morning. "And if you're not going to—I have a back door and I'll show you out that way." Everyone laughed. The room looked perfect—the owner described the ambiance as "festive" and "celebratory"—and Salouros, despite hearing that Harbaugh had other head coaching interviews after this one, knew the Giants had landed their dream head coach when Harbaugh smiled on his way out and said: "I know I'll be seeing you again soon." |
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By Mitch Goldich For 18 weeks, this was the NFL's bizarro season. Unexpected teams charged their way to the top of the standings while some of the familiar faces we've come to know plummeted out of the playoff picture entirely. I am here to report, after sifting through the wreckage of wild-card weekend, that the Super Bowl is still going to feel like the Super Bowl. Welcome to my annual column in which, after the NFL playoff field is trimmed to eight teams, I rank all 16 possible Super Bowl matchups. I had thought a few weeks ago that I might be ranking a bunch of previously unthought of championship games. That notion took a bit of a hit last weekend, with some of the usual suspects dispatching of the teams we don't typically see much in late January. Half of the teams still alive have been to the divisional round in at least two of the past three seasons. Five of them have played in multiple Super Bowls over the past 12 years. This exercise was particularly hard this year. I don't think we have any weak links. The field has top-scoring offenses, top-scoring defenses, Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Hall of Fame coaches and burgeoning young stars. Seven out of the eight quarterbacks left were first-round picks (outside of Brock Purdy, Bo Nix at No. 12 was the lowest picked). In the AFC, none of the quarterbacks have been to the Super Bowl, let alone won it. In the NFC, we have one Super Bowl champ and one who lost a Super Bowl in overtime. There are a lot of teams, games and matchups I like for similar reasons: Elite defense against star quarterback! Elite defense against highly touted young quarterback! Elite defense against elite defense! As always, I am trying to rank them based on what I think would be the most appealing matchup, on and off the field. It's not even necessarily what I want to see, or what I think would make the most people happy. Sometimes having a villain helps, whether you like it or not. And your particular rooting interest may vary, but I am trying to picture the hivemind on Pluribus and give us the Super Bowl for the masses. |
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Barry Reeger/Imagn Images |
By Albert Breer On Friday afternoons, the Steelers' offensive coordinator knew it was coming—and Todd Haley had been in the role long enough to the point where, by the end, he'd actually ask the question, preemptively, rather than wait for Mike Tomlin to spit out the answer. How many points do we need this week, Mike? In a world built on complicated and coded work and jargon, the Steelers' coach wanted to boil it down, just before the game, into simple terms. He knew it'd help the OC do his job. And that, after 19 years, is perhaps the lasting mark Tomlin leaves, as he steps away from the coaching job he won (in a huge upset) a generation ago. The ex-college receiver, and ex-Buccaneers and Vikings assistant, always knew what his players needed, and what his team needed. Give that to them consistently, he trusted, and you'd keep folks on board, and harvest the best from them all. It sounds simple, and easy, but it also illustrates how often fans, and even teams, get what they should be looking for in a head coach so dreadfully wrong. What Tomlin did best could never be measured on a spreadsheet, or broken down by an in-house analyst, or judged by where a playsheet might take him. |
By Conor Orr Before wild-card weekend, we ranked the eight available head coaching jobs in the NFL and predicted the ideal fits for each job—and then the league went haywire … again. John Harbaugh has effectively begun his free-agency tour. The Steelers' job opened on Tuesday afternoon and Mike Tomlin is on the market (or is he?). Marcus Freeman might be back in play. So, it's time to reset once again and take a second look at the now nine available jobs, rank them and assign the best fits for each market. We have a much better picture of the current situation—like a puzzle in which you've been able to put together all the edge pieces. It's still not perfect, but we can move forward with a little more confidence than we have in the past few weeks.
A note: As of now, it does not seem like many people expect Tomlin to coach next season. If that changes, we will revisit this breakdown. Nine openings. A sea of interviews. Endless chaos. Let's dig into it. |
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By Greg Bishop Back in their undergraduate days at Georgia, two friends who partook in the Greek system went on a date night for her sorority and his fraternity in November 2009. The theme: famous couples. They got creative, borrowing from popular Mac commercials at the time that sought to differentiate cool vibes from those of boring, old PCs. She went with the Mac computer. Her date already struck everyone as analytical, this finance major who crunched numbers for fun, who legitimately adored equations. He intentionally donned dorky glasses and an even dorkier plaid tie, which together formed a playful nod to his general nerdiness. This showcased his dry sense of humor; he was, in fact, hilarious, not to mention self-deprecating, authentic and brilliant. So brilliant, he never needed to stand on chairs and announce the depth of his intellect. He wore it subtly, which made him and it more effective.
"If coaching doesn't work out," the Mac sometimes thought to herself, "he could make tons of money on Wall Street." |
Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images |
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By Gilberto Manzano Tomlin stepping down was the first step toward the Steelers ending their 10-year cycle of mediocrity. But changing coaches for the first time in 19 years likely means a hard reset for the organization, which could ignite a fire sale among the many veteran players on this roster. Pittsburgh could keep a few cornerstone pieces, such as Watt, but it's tough seeing the star edge rusher signing up for a losing season or two heading into his age-32 season.
I wouldn't rule out the Steelers going the quick-fix route, which would be a massive mistake, in my opinion. If they hire Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores to replace Tomlin, I wouldn't put it past him to quickly produce a playoff team and maybe win a postseason game. The biggest question: Are the Steelers embracing change to end the seven-game playoff-losing streak, or are they finally serious about building a legitimate Super Bowl contender that they haven't had in a decade? When Tomlin took over for Bill Cowher in 2007, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was a few years into his decorated career, and the defense still had a few Hall of Famers in the midst of their prime. |
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Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images |
By the MMQB Staff The divisional round is here! Many NFL fans call this the best weekend of the year, with four games on tap that will narrow the field down for the conference championship games next Sunday. While much of the news this week has focused on the head coaching market, we are ready to pick some games. In the first game of the weekend, the Bills opened the week as underdogs in Denver against the top-seeded Broncos, but four of our writers and editors think Buffalo will prevail.
On Saturday night, the Seahawks and 49ers will renew their NFC West rivalry in Seattle, and our editor, John Pluym, is the only one who thinks the banged-up 49ers will pull off the upset. Sunday's action begins in Foxborough, where the Texans will take on the Patriots. This is the one game where we are fully split, with three pickers on each side. And the weekend will conclude in Chicago, where Conor Orr is the only one on our panel who has Ben Johnson's wild ride continuing and ending the Rams' season. |
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