Bill Callahan has taken a team to the Super Bowl. Derek Dooley coached a team in the best conference in the SEC.
Rod Marinelli has a rather dubious head-coaching distinction, but has at least held the title before, as has Monte Kiffin, with a three-year stint in college sandwiched around numerous assistant coaching positions.
Jason Garrett is the head coach of this team.
But he’s got a staff with a few former head coaches, something he said can be highly beneficial.
“Oh, I think it’s a really positive thing. I firmly believe you want to hire people that are smarter than you are,” Garrett said. “And you want to get as much input from them as you can and we really try to get our staff invested in what we are doing. I really encourage them to share ideas with me. Certainly football ideas, scheme ideas, ideas about personnel, but also just the way they’ve done things different ways. When you have guys who have been in those situations, making those decisions, we believe that you can make those decisions better as a staff.”
Callahan was the Raiders’ head coach in 2002-03 before he went to Nebraska for four seasons as the Cornhuskers’ head coach.
Dooley has been a head coach at Louisiana Tech and most recently at Tennessee. Marinelli was the head coach of a Detroit team that finished 0-16 in 2008. Kiffin coached three seasons at North Carolina State.
While they have the skins on the wall, Garrett likes the way they conduct themselves on his staff as well.
“They’re good coaches, but they’re certainly great people, the guys who have been head coaches and coordinators on our staff,” Garrett said. “So you get a lot of input from them and you certainly want to use the information and the knowledge that they have to make our team better.”
Marinelli spent the last three years as Chicago’s defensive coordinator and will likely be a huge help for Kiffin, who has been out of the NFL the past four years coaching at Tennessee and USC.
On offense, there is an expected big change in the play-calling, although Garrett has yet to confirm anything new. It has been speculated Callahan will handle the play-calling and have more duties as the offensive coordinator.
