Potential head coach/GM pairings; five big questions for Week 14   Published: Dec 09, 2017 at 03:29 AM           NFL Network Insider                          After taking the uncharacteristic step of firing Ben McAdoo and Jerry Reese this past week, co-owner John Mara said the team ideally will follow the traditional proce s for replacing them: First, hire a new GM. Then, give the GM a say in hiring a new head coach.      Titles and organizational structure vary, but by my best count, there were 31 such "blowups" atop NFL football operations since the hiring cycle after the 2007 season -- three per year, turning over nearly the equivalent of the entire league in a decade. Seventeen of them followed the GM-then-coach order for filling those jobs.      So how many of those blowups actually worked? What le sons can be drawn from them? And who could the , or any other team that cleans house, and achieve the sustained succe s all owners say they want?     Perhaps it's not surprising, since many blowups coincide with a roster rebuild and some of the same organizations keep starting over -- the incredibly made the list four times in 10 years -- but just eight of the 31 coach-GM duos hired (25.8 percent) combined to produce a winning record over their time together. Even many of the succe sful duos were short-lived.     Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson went 49-31 with the ... and Grigson was fired after five tumultuous seasons. John Fox and John Elway (Denver Broncos) and Jim Harbaugh and Trent Baalke (San Francisco) each produced a team ... and lasted four years together. Same with Andy Reid and John Dorsey -- hired Thursday night as the ' latest GM -- with the before Dorsey's surprise firing this summer.      If having a prior personal and/or working relationship were the key, George Kokinis wouldn't have been fired eight games (!!) into his tenure as Eric Mangini's GM with the in 2009. Before Sean McDermott brought along Brandon Beane to Buffalo this past offseason, the last duo to arrive directly from the same team in one offseason was Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano coming from Dallas to Miami (where they worked under former coach Bill Parcells)  Bradley Pinion Jersey in 2008. The longest-tenured active duo on the winning record list are the ' Pete Carroll and John Schneider, who have been to two Super Bowls together, won one ... and didn't know each other before the interview proce s.      Schneider and Carroll have spoken about the keys to their sustained succe s: no egos, trust, a clear plan for how the GM and coach are going to interact. Regardle s of who's hired first, every NFL executive and coach I've ever spoken to about that relationship has said the most critical element is philosophical alignment, as the demise of even some succe sful duos have Remy Martin Jersey  shown.     Connecting dots based on work history can be overly simplistic. But there's something to be said for guys who have some common threads in their background, so they know what they're getting into and have similar values about what it takes to win. With the caveats that last year's GM hiring cycle was wildly unpredictable -- the hiring John Lynch with no scouting experience, the , and firing GMs after the draft -- and every team has its own criteria, here are some potential fits that came up in discu sions this week with NFL executives:         OC Josh McDaniels and exec Nick Caserio: This one has been on everyone's radar. McDaniels will be the hottest coaching name in this cycle, and while it's not nece sarily a package deal with Caserio, it's well-known they'd like to work together. The pursued them last year before both dropped out.      DC Steve Wilks and former GM Dave Gettleman: Wilks impre sed in his interview last year with the and has only enhanced his profile since replacing McDermott. Several wired-in people have told me Gettleman is the front-runner for his old team, the , who are consulting his old bo s, Ernie Accorsi -- just as Carolina did when it hired Gettleman.      OC Pat Shurmur and a sistant GM George Paton: Another obvious connection. Shurmur has a lot of supporters within the league after a lockout and franchise sale derailed his first head-coaching shot in Cleveland. Paton gets interview requests every year, and Minnesota's succe s could mean that time is now.     Stanford coach David Shaw and executive Will McClay: It'd take a blue-blood program like the to make Shaw -- a former NFL a sistant -- even think about leaving his alma mater. McClay has turned down interviews in the past, but my understanding is he'd listen to the right one now. One of McClay's mentors is former Stanford coach Ty Willingham.      OC Matt Nagy and director of football operations Eliot Wolf: Nagy was on our up-and-coming coaches list in October and figures to get interviews despite the ' recent struggles. He has trained under Andy Reid, who trained under Mike Holmgren, the head coach of the under Wolf's hall of fame father, Ron.       QB coach John DeFilippo and co-director of player personnel Trent Kirchner: Another member of the up-and-coming coaches list, DeFilippo comes from an team that in many ways resembles the Seattle teams that went to two Super Bowls -- built around defense and the run game while a young QB develops. Worth noting: last time Accorsi helped a team find a GM, the put in a request for Kirchner before hiring Bob Quinn.           DC Mike Vrabel and a sistant GM Scott Pioli: Yet another one of our up-and-comers, Vrabel has a lot of fans in front offices around the league. But it's hard to match someone from the tree with an outsider. Pioli, a longtime Bill Belichick personnel man, joined the after his stint as GM and has run their (strong) drafts since 2015.      coach Bill O'Brien and vice president of player personnel Brian Gaine: If O'Brien exits Houston, as many expect, he figures to be a hot name immediately. Gaine has a similar pedigree, coming from the Parcells/Belichick tree, and grew tight with O'Brien in Houston. For O'Brien, getting on the same page with his GM figures to be a high priority.      DC Matt Patricia and player personnel executive Trey Brown: Another New England connection. Patricia has interviewed for jobs; it's unclear how eager he is to leave. He's said to be close with Brown, a former scout who's very young (age 32) and only recently added pro Marquez Garnet Jersey -scouting duties, but showed well in a GM interview with Buffalo last year.      OC Frank Reich and vice president of player personnel Joe Douglas: QB development is at a premium, so Reich (like DeFilippo) figures to get a look after 's breakout season. Douglas joined the after the Wentz draft and is just getting experience on the executive side, but he's known as a strong evaluator.                    WHO thought the would have the NFL's No. 1 scoring defense since Week 5 after they got shredded in a 2-2 start? We poked fun at the annual hysteria in this space back in Week 3, given the ' track record of improvements from the season's first month on. As cornerback told me this week: "We always start slow. It takes a while for us to gel together, and once we do, this is the outcome that we get. It just take time and communication and getting to know each other and believing in each other." The Pats defense gave up 32 points, 456.8 yards, 324 pa sing yards and a 116.5 pa ser rating on average during those first four games. In eight games since (all wins), those numbers have dropped to 11.9, 335.1, 220.4 and 75.4. They're still middle of the pack or worse in numerous defensive categories, but they're forcing turnovers, holding tough in the red zone and doing enough to support a high-powered offense entering Monday's visit to Miami.           WHAT is the point of the keeping coach Hue Jackson for 2018 instead of blowing it up (again)? For starters, owner Jimmy Haslam seems to genuinely believe in Jackson, to the point he all but absolved Jackson of the team's 1-27 record at Friday's media conference introducing Dorsey. For any coach, it was going to be tough sledding these first two years amidst a total teardown on the personnel side. Also consider this: As more than one GM has confided over the years, keeping the existing coach is like having a free pa s on accountability in Year 1 while evaluating the entire operation. There was a similar dynamic at play last year when Chris Ballard took over as GM  Brayden Lenius Jersey and kept Chuck Pagano. Either Jackson shows he can win with an upgraded roster, or Dorsey moves on (as Ballard seems all but certain to do after this season) without sticking those lo ses to the coach of the future. Consider it a jump start on the new era Sunday against the , with whom Dorsey played and came up as a scout.     WHEN will teams start expre sing interest in Ben McAdoo for a coaching spot? (submitted by @imAbsolutelyaV) My understanding is nothing's in the works yet, but it's only a matter of time. Whatever the narrative became as things unraveled in New York, McAdoo earned a lot of respect in his days as a a sistant, including a stint as ' QB coach, and helped rebound for two of his best seasons in 2014 and '15 as a first-time coordinator. Privately, McAdoo has expre sed optimism this season will be the best thing that has happened to him and he'll be better from it. He's only 40 years old. He'll be back on someone's staff in 2018 if he wants to be.     WHERE does rank among NFL MVP candidates? That Keenum's even on the fringe of this conversation is pretty remarkable for a player who entered the season as a backup on a one-year, $2 million deal (and still hasn't actually been named the starter for the season). But it's hard to ignore him, with the on an eight-game winning streak and Keenum's numbers over the past four -- since 's activation -- nearly identical to 's. "You look at a guy that's deserving of that (MVP talk) -- he's been huge for us," tight end told me of Keenum this week. "From an outsider's perspective, you look at this team and -- deservedly so -- we're overshadowed by a great defense. But people don't realize our offense is top five in most categories. We' Denver Kirkland Jersey re OK with that. We have a great defense. But when we play together, that's how you get to 10-2." The longer Keenum stays hot, the more money he makes himself in the offseason. He'll soon be cashing in on the modest incentives in his deal -- $150,000 for playing 75 percent of the snaps, and another $100,000 for 85 percent. Another test looms this week against the ' fearsome front seven.     WHY won't the see if rookie QB can give them a spark amidst the stunning slide to 6-6? The numbers speak for themselves on , who statistically remains one of the NFL's most efficient pa sers after his bounce-back effort last week against the -- his fifth game this season with a pa ser rating of 125-plus. The deep-pa sing numbers remain striking for a QB long labeled a game manager, too. According to NFL Research, Smith's 53 pa s attempts traveling at least 20 yards in the air are a career high (data going back to 2006) and rank seventh in the NFL. On those throws, Smith leads the league in completions (26), touchdowns (11) and pa ser rating (126.8) among qualifying pa sers, with only one interception. So, the idea Mahomes' Howitzer arm is the mi sing piece doesn't hold up, even without considering the likely growing pains he'd go through on a team that still is tied for the AFC West lead. Can Smith play better? Everyone on the team can. But as Andy Reid has said over and over, the ' struggles aren't "an thing." Sunday's showdown with the in Kansas City feels like a pivot point, for better or worse.        This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be mi sing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an i sue. Click here Click here Click here