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Coaching Carousel 2026

Tank said:

Expect Steve Bisciotti to be patient and unconventional in the Ravens’ coaching search​


Childs Walker
1/9/2026 12:32 p.m. ESTchat_bubble
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In calmer days, when John Harbaugh was more than a year removed from leading the Ravens to victory in Super Bowl XLVII, team owner Steve Bisciotti explained the interplay among himself, his coach and then-general manager Ozzie Newsome.
“I’m not a patient man,” Bisciotti told The Baltimore Sun in September 2014. “[John’s] not a patient man. So, just like I rely on [former Ravens president] Dick [Cass] for business, I rely on Ozzie sleeping on things. Whenever John and I have an issue we agree with or strongly disagree with, it’s bring in Ozzie. Let’s get the third opinion.”
Call it checks and balances. Call it creative friction. Newsome used to refer to it as “scrimmaging.” But that back-and-forth between executives, all of whom report independently to the owner, has been a hallmark of Bisciotti’s Ravens.
It will come to the fore again now that Bisciotti has fired Harbaugh and begun his search for a leader to reinvigorate the Ravens’ championship ambitions.
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Bisciotti has made precious few public comments about the Ravens or their leadership structure over the last five years — though that will change Tuesday when he and general manager Eric DeCosta are scheduled to hold a press conference. Over his first decade and a half as owner, he sprinkled enough hints throughout his state-of-the team addresses to give us a sense of how he might operate over the coming days and weeks.


If he follows his script from 18 years ago, when he chose Harbaugh after abruptly firing Brian Billick, Bisciotti will lean hard on DeCosta, Newsome and his other football decision-makers to give him a curated list of candidates. He’ll spend good chunks of time with the ones he likes best — Harbaugh got about 15 hours in 2008 — and then trust his gut on the final call.
Bisciotti cherishes delegation and collaboration, just as he did when he and his cousin, Jim Davis, built their company, Aerotek, from two desks in the basement of a rented Annapolis townhouse into the third-largest private staffing firm in the world. He also trusts, absolutely, his instincts on choosing a leader, even if his preferred candidate lacks an obvious track record.
However the Ravens’ search plays out, it will be an expression of the owner’s management proclivities and personal style. Bisciotti, 65, knows what he likes.
“You have to be willing to do things the masses would never do. That’s how you separate yourself from the masses,” he said at the news conference introducing Harbaugh in January 2008. “You go with your instincts, and I think I have pretty good instincts.”
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As much as he relies on his antennae for talent, Bisciotti puts just as much faith in the collaborative process through which his top lieutenants flood him with information on the best candidates. He began that same news conference 18 years ago by thanking the seven team executives who narrowed the pool to six potential coaches.
“These guys delivered me six people that could be my head coach,” Bisciotti said at the time. “In order to get a reputation to end up in that final six, in order to garner the kind of positive thoughts people communicated to us … you’ve spent 25 years doing a million little things right or you don’t get the kind of endorsements that we got out of these six candidates. So I was never nervous.”
Never nervous even though the process steered him to Harbaugh, who had never been a head coach at any level, never coordinated an NFL offense or defense.

Kevin Byrne, the Ravens’ former senior vice president for public and community relations, was one of the advisers carrying out that search.
Each person called on his contacts from around the football world to build dossiers of useful information on each of a dozen or so initial candidates. They would gather at least once a day to bat around what they’d learned. “Steve’s style, what I remember is that he’s in charge,” Byrne recalled. “But he’s very open to let his group of leaders express themselves so that, in the end, we come up with a common good answer for all of us.”

Once the Ravens invited their finalists for interviews, Bisciotti’s gift for asking thought-provoking questions took center stage.
“Steve asks questions that are unusual,” Byrne said one candidate told him. “But you end up examining yourself. Have I thought enough about this?”
Harbaugh found the owner intriguing enough that he took notes on how Bisciotti conducted their introductory interview.

Bisciotti asked what he was doing. “Well, I’m a long shot for this job,” Byrne recalled Harbaugh saying. “But I might as well learn something.”​

Those nuggets cut through the crush of information.
“Steve has a knack to spot the unusual,” Byrne said. “John’s the perfect example. There were more logical candidates.”
So don’t be surprised if Biscotti’s next hire is not atop the speculative lists currently circulating or if he takes his time making a choice, even though the Ravens began Zoom interviews with candidates Thursday. He needed 20 days to choose Harbaugh, in part because his first choice (and a hotter candidate), Jason Garrett, opted to stay with the Dallas Cowboys. Bisciotti won’t be rushed by external forces.
General manager Eric DeCosta collaborated with coach John Harbaugh on building the Ravens’ roster. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Banner)
“I don’t want to speak for him, but I think it’s because he believes there’s not just one out there,” Byrne said. “If somebody is going to threaten us by saying, ‘I’m going to take the Browns job today unless you make me an offer,’ Steve’s probably willing to say, ‘Well, you should take that, because we’re not ready to make our decision today.’ He wouldn’t be uncomfortable saying there’s more than one person in the whole world who could be a successful head coach for the Ravens. He’s not sitting there today panicking about losing such-and-such.”
Bisciotti can operate that way because he’s comfortable in his own skin but also because he’s holding an excellent hand with a stable, winning franchise, a well-regarded general manager and a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player at quarterback. Analysts have called it the most attractive NFL job opening in years.
For some NFL teams, the coach is de facto general manager. For others, he is subordinate to the top football decision-maker. The Ravens are not alone in treating their coach and general manager as equal collaborators who form a three-legged stool (four when you include the team president on big-picture decisions) with Bisciotti. But they stand out for their proud devotion to this multiheaded structure.
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Byrne detailed it in a 2015 column on the team’s website.
“Here’s what I know: there are only a handful of NFL teams where the head coach and the general manager are clearly on the same page,” he wrote. “Insecurity is rampant in this pro football world, and accusations abound.”
He noted the doors to Newsome’s and Harbaugh’s offices were less than 6 feet apart and the two men bumped into one another a half-dozen times in a typical day, a designed coziness that persisted after DeCosta succeeded Newsome in 2019.
“Neither of us is afraid to honestly voice an opinion, and we’ll ‘scrimmage,’ as Ozzie says. But, there’s never a trump card situation,” Harbaugh told Byrne. “We’re not walking out on each other. We’re like two lawyers in a court of law presenting our cases. We’re not seeing who has the most power here. It is always about what is best for the team.”
Bisciotti refers to this as “care-frontation.” In other words, you have to care enough about your colleague’s opinion to tell him you don’t think he’s right in a given case. That extends to him. Yes-men are anathema to the Ravens owner.
“It encourages everybody to speak their mind without fear,” Byrne said. “I’m sure many people have worked in organizations where they’re listening to drumbeats from the owner or the president. But with Steve you’ve got to care enough to tell him the truth. Even Art Modell, who welcomed others’ opinions, he never invited it to the extent Steve would. Steve almost demands it from you. ‘Do you really believe that, or are you just repeating what I just said?’”
It remains to be seen if the front office setup will persist with a new coach far less steeped in the Ravens way than DeCosta, who has spent his entire career in the organization. But Newsome’s stature was greater than Harbaugh’s in 2008, and he gracefully welcomed the younger man as a friendly sparring partner with whom he’d hammer out a winning roster. Newsome was DeCosta’s teacher, and Bisciotti remains in place as collaborator in chief, so it stands to reason that the team’s brain trust will stick with its modus operandi.
“You have to make the best decision for the organization, and you do that by talking about things, not running from them, not closing your door,” DeCosta said when he was introduced as general manager in 2019. “You talk about these things. You confront the issue. You confront the evaluation or the player or the decision, and you come to an agreement that’s the best decision for the organization. Yeah, we’ve never always been aligned on every single issue or every single player. But in the end I always feel like we’ve always made the best decision, regardless.”

Childs Walker
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Just looking at the 6 final candidates from last time:
John Harbaugh, Jim Caldwell, Jason Garrett, Tony Sparano, Brian Schottenheimer, Rex Ryan

That's a real mix of styles and skillsets
 
airconteka said:
Bunch of young fellas here, I was 32 at the time and hated NFL. 2 years later I was hooked. I remember a guy telling me to watch NFL like it was cricket rather than rugby and was an absolute game changer for me. Picked the Ravens and never looked back.
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I was 17 at the time he was hired, I didn't get fully into the NFL until a few years later when The Blind Side came out. Came for Michael Oher, stayed for Ray Lewis and Ray Rice.

Regardless of how good you are at your job in professional sport, you need to have something about you to last 18 seasons at one team. I hope he gets the job he wants and achieves everything he hopes to, just not at our expense.
 
rossihunter2 said:
Just looking at the 6 final candidates from last time:
John Harbaugh, Jim Caldwell, Jason Garrett, Tony Sparano, Brian Schottenheimer, Rex Ryan

That's a real mix of styles and skillsets
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Definitely. I would expect similar diversity culled and put forth to Steve this time. But there will be no Rex Ryan type, they don't make those anymore. lol
 
Simba said:
On what metric though? Like I’m really not trying to be an ass here. It’s not like we’re looking at athletic testing numbers or anything here.
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I always believe you discuss things in good faith no worries my guy.

I do agree with you that this will be more qualitative in the parameters but still quantitative in the outcomes.

When hiring a coach, you're looking at things like leadership skills, media skills, schematic advantages, clock management, potentially play calling, adaptability, his network, I could go on and on and on.

Now those squishy parameters would come together with the understanding of the roster and other things where you say to yourself given what we know of this guy, we expect these outcomes.

That may look like:

He can be the HC for the next X years
The expectation is barring an injury to QB we are a playoff team for the next 7 years
We think over his entire time here we can get 2 SBs

Etc

The point is simple. If you think a candidate can at his very best can keep rosters competitive and win 1 SB in 2 decades, he's worth discussing. But if there are other candidates who you believe have the capacity at their best, to achieve more than that, I think you need to go that direction.

Because ultimately neither one will very likely live up their best case scenario prediction.
 
Truth said:
Worst in our history is tough to say. Dean Pees, Wink Martindale. He's in or just below that category. If that massive turnaround last year stuck through the beginning of this one, he'd be one of the better recent ones. We did manage to look significantly better since the Chicago game with just 18.3 PPG allowed in 11 games, but we were very much a bend but don't break unit with lack of disruptions and turnovers. I've got no indication so far that Harbaugh would've agreed to part ways with Orr. If anything, his penchant for sticking behind good natured but beleaguered mates was always a flaw of his, so I would've expected him to attempt to retain him.
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orr not on on level with wink or peas.. its not even close tbh. It was never a turn around last season, we just played weaker opponents thats all.
 
Deebo813 said:
l

orr not on on level with wink or peas.. its not even close tbh. It was never a turn around last season, we just played weaker opponents thats all.
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TBF the guy was dealt a shitty hand all around this year with the schedule and injuries. That said, I think with some seasoning he'll be fine somewhere, someday.
 
rossihunter2 said:
coaching is so specific and intangible that the parameters that would set your ceiling are so numerous and changeable that it's almost meaningless to think about head coaches in terms of ceilings outside of talking about them in terms of their ability design scheme and playcall

the ability/inability to design/game-plan/playcall is basically the only meaningful way to discuss "ceilings" when it comes to coaching

much easier with players because athleticism and movement is much easier to measure and observe
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I understand what you're saying from a measurement perspective. I respectfully believe you and simba (in a totally normal and cordgial way) overcooked the idea I was getting at. I was really trying to convey a very simple and probably not contentious idea. but I guess poorly.
 
Simba said:
On what metric though? Like I’m really not trying to be an ass here. It’s not like we’re looking at athletic testing numbers or anything here.
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There isn't one. It's entirely subjective. No different than when somebody gets hired for any job. You're looking for a basic skill set you've identified as critical for the position. Not sure what that is for Steve, but he knows what it is. Everything else is just instincts and hope. Maybe the guy is the next Belichick, or maybe he's a serial killer. Impossible to know.

I agree with your first thought though. A hire that achieves exactly what John did is a majorly successful hire. I think there's a shit ton of scenarios where whoever we hire isn't here in 6-7 years. The overwhelming majority of franchises in this league whiff on coaches as much as they whiff on QBs.
 
rossihunter2 said:
yes youre the only one who thinks that the logic doesnt work

the skills that make you good at being a HC aren't necessarily the same ones that make you a good play-designer, game-planner and playcaller
they clearly dont think he offers a schematic advantage which is why they don't want to promote him to DC (but they've showed they like him as a leader by promoting him to assistant HC when he was here as a positional coach, and by interviewing him for the HC job now)
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Agree what the thought process.
If it were me, I wouldn't hire a "CEO" type. There's successes there, but I think that model is largely outdated in modern football. I'm fine if the person you hire grows into that role, but I want my HC to be excellent at Xs and Os on one side of the ball, and be able to manage a group of coaches to perform highly on the other side.
 
What would it be like to be a CEO coach? I think Harbaugh benefited from big rosters, but I don't think he had good game planning.
We played the same way and with the same tactics against everyone, and that's why we lost the way we did.
Everyone planned against Lamar, and we never countered; we always reacted, and that's how it went for us.... I guess we won't know until we see the new coach in action, but I think someone offensively minded would be better for Lamar, and someone who plans a general strategy would be better for the Ravens.
 
UPennChem said:
I always believe you discuss things in good faith no worries my guy.

I do agree with you that this will be more qualitative in the parameters but still quantitative in the outcomes.

When hiring a coach, you're looking at things like leadership skills, media skills, schematic advantages, clock management, potentially play calling, adaptability, his network, I could go on and on and on.

Now those squishy parameters would come together with the understanding of the roster and other things where you say to yourself given what we know of this guy, we expect these outcomes.

That may look like:

He can be the HC for the next X years
The expectation is barring an injury to QB we are a playoff team for the next 7 years
We think over his entire time here we can get 2 SBs

Etc

The point is simple. If you think a candidate can at his very best can keep rosters competitive and win 1 SB in 2 decades, he's worth discussing. But if there are other candidates who you believe have the capacity at their best, to achieve more than that, I think you need to go that direction.

Because ultimately neither one will very likely live up their best case scenario prediction.
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But is that not by definition very arbitrary? We know very little about these guys other than what we see as perceived success. But a lot of the success is built behind the scenes and we never see that.
 
Simba said:
But is that not by definition very arbitrary? We know very little about these guys other than what we see as perceived success. But a lot of the success is built behind the scenes and we never see that.
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I would not say so but it's totally ok if you view it that way.

I'm taking the lense from business. You make a business plan. In business plans the parameters are usually very squishy but the outcomes are highly quantitative. You do forecasting and projections. Set KPMs. You track those over time and see if you're on the track you hypothesized based on what you knew.

For instance when companies go for venture capital investment, as stupid as it is, one of the most important things is your TAM (total addressable market) calculation. Even if you're business is otherwise sound, but the market is too small, investors will simply say not worth my time.

I'm saying with finding a coach, it's like making an investment and I'm not at all interested in investing in a coach with a small TAM even if he's otherwise sound. I am looking to make the biggest possible ROI knowing good and well risk adjusted, on average, I'm going to get nowhere near that.
 
UPennChem said:
I would not say so but it's totally ok if you view it that way.

I'm taking the lense from business. You make a business plan. In business plans the parameters are usually very squishy but the outcomes are highly quantitative. You do forecasting and projections. Set KPMs. You track those over time and see if you're on the track you hypothesized based on what you knew.

For instance when companies go for venture capital investment, as stupid as it is, one of the most important things is your TAM (total addressable market) calculation. Even if you're business is otherwise sound, but the market is too small, investors will simply say not worth my time.

I'm saying with finding a coach, it's like making an investment and I'm not at all interested in investing in a coach with a small TAM even if he's otherwise sound. I am looking to make the biggest possible ROI knowing good and well risk adjusted, on average, I'm going to get nowhere near that.
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I think some of that makes sense, but I also don’t know how literally any of us could say what the ceiling or floor is of a candidate. So much of that is unknown to us and that’s why I struggled with assessing someone’s ceiling who we literally do not know.
 
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