Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn will interview with every team that has a head-coaching vacancy.
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn will interview with every team that has a head-coaching vacancy. Except one.
Per multiple reports, Glenn declined an invitation to interview with the Patriots.
The Patriots requested permission to interview Glenn two days after they requested permission to interview Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson — and a day after many criticized the Patriots for potentially circumventing the spirit of the Rooney Rule by quickly interviewing Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton, who currently are connected to no NFL team and thus could be interviewed in person right away.
It’s all part of what many see as an expedited effort to hire former Titans coach Mike Vrabel.
To be clear, the Patriots absolutely complied with the Rooney Rule. Wednesday’s request for Glenn created the impression that the Patriots made an effort to over-comply — either after hearing the external critiques or (possibly) after hearing directly from the league office that it looked like a non-genuine effort to achieve compliance with the rule that two minority candidates be interviewed in person.
The fact that Glenn said “no thanks” actually allows the Patrios to close a deal with Vrabel, if they want. If they do, however, it will give more ammunition to those who claim that the process wasn’t about conducting an open and inclusive search but checking boxes in order to make the hire they possibly have already decided to make.
That said, the Rooney Rule only requires interviews. It doesn’t require that the minority candidates currently be employed by another team. (Perhaps it should.) There was no violation of the letter of the rule.
And the Leftwich and Hamilton interviews carried a secondary benefit. It reintroduced their names to the current hiring cycle, which could help put them on the radar screen for teams that will inevitably be filling out new staffs.
Consider this story that Broncos coach Sean Payton shared on Wednesday regarding the decidedly unscientific way that coaches find their names in the broader mix for jobs.
“It’s not a big community,” Payton told reporters. “I was in New Orleans and Andy Reid called from Philadelphia. They were asking permission to visit with Dennis Allen as a defensive coordinator. Dennis was coaching the secondary for us. Of course I said yes, and I talked to D.A. and he was going to set up an interview. Now, [former Panthers and Broncos] John Fox and I are close friends. We worked four years together at the Giants, but there was a little bit of this: Word got out that Dennis is going to interview at Philadelphia. So a week later, Foxy calls me and in his hoarse voice he says, ‘Hey, I want to talk with D.A. about the defensive coordinator position.’ I said, ‘Foxy, I’m good with that.’ I said, ‘You couldn’t pick him out of a lineup right now, though.'”
Both Leftwich and Hamilton have worked in the NFL as offensive coordinators. Leftwich won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers in 2020, and Hamilton has helped develop the likes of Andrew Luck and Justin Herbert.
If, in the end, one or both parlay their interviews with the Patriots into NFL assistant coaching positions, it’s a win for them.
