OCTOBER 17: The NFL will greenlight this in-season rule change, with SI.com’s Albert Breer reporting it passed 32-0. HC-seeking teams will not be able to meet with candidates in-person until after the divisional round. This will present fewer candidates with complex itineraries — like the one DeMeco Ryans navigated ahead of the 49ers’ divisional-round matchup with the Cowboys earlier this year — and allow for these assistants to focus on their teams’ postseason matchups.
This rule only applies to coaches on other teams’ staffs, with unemployed coaches and college coaches free to meet with teams earlier. This field-leveling attempt by the league will also see internal candidates not subject to this rule change, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.
OCTOBER 16: The hiring process for NFL head coaches could again be delayed starting with the 2024 cycle. The league is giving thought to pushing back in-person interviews with candidates still under contract until after the divisional round of the playoffs, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports. 
Making such a move official – which could happen as soon as this week’s league meetings in New York – would give head coaching candidates an extra week before potentially lining up a move to a new team following their current club’s elimination. As things currently stand, in-person interviews cannot take place until after the wild-card round of the postseason.
As Jones notes, virtual interviews would still be allowed prior to the end of the divisional round under the proposed changes. Coaches not under contract, along with in-house candidates, could also be brought in for in-person interviews at any time as teams gauge their options before the start of the new league year in March. Owners are expected to vote on the proposed changes in the coming days.
Passing them would lengthen the overall hiring process, something which has already taken place since the 2021 alteration which pushed in-person interviews back. The current changes under consideration would still leave the issue of certain candidates taking time during preparation for conference championship games to meet with their prospective new employers, but the pool of staffers for which that would be the case would at least again be decreased.
Jones adds that the alterations being considered would apply only to head coaches, not to general manager interviews. It remains to be seen if the requisite support is in place to push through the proposal, but the league sent a memo to all teams last year detailing the money spent on fired coaches and executives, a potential deterrent to rushed hiring processes. Those may become lengthier by a margin of one week as early as 2024.
Should be pro bowl week or if a team is knocked out.
Guys should be focusing on upcoming big games in their career.
Exactly
I agree with Pro Bowl week or until after the Superbowl so as not to penalize the assistants working for the AFC/NFC champions. Standardize on one date to keep coaches focused on the current games.
Next the should hold reds accountable for brutally bad calls.
They wouldn’t have any refs left…the standards have dropped while oversight has allegedly increased this year. The flagged penalties on both sides Giants/Bills game were baffling, from non-calls for tripping and obvious interference in the first quarter to the last plays. They got more wrong than right…
Goodell has zero leverage in trying to force game officials to do a better job. The NFL tried to bully officials several years ago (during a strike) by bringing in replacement officials from the college level and that was an unqualified disaster. No way will the league risk having fan blowback like that again.
Which is why these ‘judgmental’ figures should either be taught the realities of the game or the rules should allow for players to play
They have a difficult job and are put in a no win situation by the league. If they called every penalty games would last about 6 hours and the score would end up being 3-0, thus the league tells them to ignore all but the most obvious penalties, leading to the nonsense we see each week.
Exactly there is holding on OL every play, sum more egregious than others, sum in plain sight. There’s contact w/hands shoving n trying to get separation by recievers n hand checking dwnfield by DBs all day long w/o calls being made. There’d B flags on every play if they really enforced rules to a T. No harm no foul but then u see horsecrap calls where either ref’s vision must truly B failing em, they’re getn paid off by bookies, or he dropped acid pre-gm cause they’re oblivious.
Delay all hires until post Super Bowl. The current system makes a joke of Rooney Rule intentions, distracts coaches who still have games to play and/or costs coaches opportunities because teams want to accelerate their hiring timing.
Scrap interviews altogether. Just create an event like the player draft but instead of selecting player prospects have an auction where owners can bid on executives or coaches who they want as part of their organization.
it’s a start at least
This is dumb. It should be until after the SB. Why undercut your premier teams in the playoffs?! This isn’t college, there’s no reason these teams need to fill their HC slots immediately. Stop rewarding bad teams.
That seems like one reason teams end up with bad coaches. Rather than wait for the winning teams’ candidates to interview, GMs rush the process so they don’t lose out on hiring those who are available.