NFL Coaching Updates: Bengals, Raiders, Chiefs, Vikings, Texans
The only team in the AFC North that didn’t see major coaching regime changes, the Bengals will not be left out of the offseason staff conversations after all. According to ESPN’s Ben Baby, tight ends coach James Casey has earned a promotion. The team has added the position of run game coordinator to his title.
Also, following up on the hiring of Davis Koetter as assistant wide receivers coach three weeks ago, Baby reports that last year’s assistant wide receivers coach, Jordan Salkin, has been retained on staff. Salkin has been moved to assistant quarterbacks coach for the 2026 NFL season.
Here are a few other coaching staff updates from around the National Football League:
- The Raiders, too, named their offensive run game coordinator, announcing today that Mario Jeberaeel has been named to the position. Starting his coaching career at the high school level in 2009, Jeberaeel, a Las Vegas-native, worked his way through the collegiate ranks with stops at Arkansas-Monticello, Kansas, and Abilene Christian before debuting in the NFL with the Falcons in 2021. Starting in Atlanta as a diversity coaching intern working with the offensive line, he was promoted to assistant offensive line coach in 2022 and special projects (defense) coach in 2023. He accepted a role with the Jaguars two years ago as assistant outside linebackers coach but saw his role change to defensive assistant for Jacksonville last year. He’ll be tasked with improving a unit that finished dead last in rushing yards and touchdowns in 2025.
- After losing outside linebackers coach Rod Wilson to the Cardinals, the Chiefs have moved to fill the position with Matt House, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network. After a couple collegiate stops to start his coaching career, House dipped his toes in the NFL waters in 2008 as assistant special teams coach with the Panthers before spending the next three years as defensive quality control coach for the Rams. He returned to the collegiate ranks, where he earned defensive coordinator opportunities at Pittsburgh and Kentucky, before first joining the Chiefs as a linebackers coach in 2019. He left Kansas City to serve as defensive coordinator at LSU, and when Brian Kelly fired him after two years, he landed as the Jaguars linebackers coach in 2024. Last year, he returned to Kansas City as a senior defensive assistant. Per Pelissero, the Chiefs blocked multiple requests to interview House over the hiring cycle. The team intended for him to remain as a key part of their staff, and he will do so in 2026 as outside linebackers coach.
- Per Kevin Seifert of ESPN, the Vikings have added Kyle Caskey to their staff as an offensive assistant. Caskey is an older name, returning to the NFL after four seasons away from the league. Caskey first came to the NFL in 2010. In nine years with the Bengals, Caskey spent four as offensive quality control/assistant offensive line coach and the next five as running backs coach. He spent two years after that as running backs coach in Detroit and a final season as offensive quality control of the Jaguars in 2021 before disappearing from the NFL. Caskey resurfaced in 2024 as running backs coach/special teams coordinator of the UFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks and was slated to work as the Orlando Storm’s offensive coordinator before accepting this new role in Minnesota. According to Seifert, Caskey’s opportunities in the alternate professional football league were all the result of UFL head coach Anthony Becht, who Seifert claims is spearheading efforts to create opportunities for coaches to go to the NFL. Another one of Becht’s success stories is Bruce Gradkowski, who was hired as an offensive assistant with the Lions last year after his two-year tenure as the Battlehawks offensive coordinator.
- Lastly, according to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, the Texans are hiring Jay Simpson to join the team as a defensive assistant. After working his way through smaller collegiate roles at South Alabama, UAB, and Arkansas State, Simpson worked last year as the cornerbacks coach at Memphis. He’ll be making his NFL coaching debut with Houston in 2026.
AFC North Coaching Updates: Sullivan, Ravens, Bengals
With the Patriots and Bill Belichick parting ways this offseason, the AFC North is now home to the NFL’s two longest-tenured head coaches, and though the Steelers haven’t had a change at head coach in 17 years, they were required to make some adjustments to the offensive coaching staff this offseason. We’ve reported on a number of staff changes on offense after the hiring of new coordinator Arthur Smith, but the team’s recent finalized staff announcement provided us with a few more updates.
We saw that Pittsburgh made the call to replace former quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan with Tom Arth two weeks ago, but we now see that Sullivan will be retained on staff in the role of senior offensive assistant. Additionally, Smith seems to have brought two coaches with him from Atlanta. Former Falcons specials teams assistant Matt Baker and Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellow Mateo Kambui, who worked with Atlanta’s offensive line, have both been brought on in the role of offensive assistant.
On defense and special teams, only two changes were noted. First, we already saw the departure of assistant defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander in the announcement that he would become the safeties coach in Las Vegas. Second, special teams quality control coach Matt Tomsho does not appear on the team’s new coaching roster and doesn’t seem to have been retained. Neither position was filled with a new staffer.
Here are a couple other staff updates coming out of the AFC North:
- With former associate head coach and defensive line coach Anthony Weaver departing for the defensive coordinator job in Miami, the Ravens needed to find someone new to coach their talented defensive line. According to Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, Baltimore has found their man in former Baylor defensive line coach Dennis Johnson. A former defensive tackle at LSU, Johnson has coached defensive lines at the college level for both his alma mater and the Bears in Waco. His best defensive lines were at LSU in 2018 and Baylor in 2021, coaching players like Siaki Ika and K’Lavon Chaisson.
- The Bengals have brought in a collegiate staffer, as well, per Pete Thamel of ESPN, hiring former Oregon offensive analyst Jordan Salkin to their staff as an offensive assistant. Salkin’s experience at the college level was focused on the quarterbacks position, and he fills the role in Cincinnati left vacant with Fredi Knighten being promoted to assistant quarterbacks coach.