The Tampa Bay Buccaneers added another coach from the college ranks to their staff for the 2024 season. The NFL has seen an abnormal influx of college coaches to the NFL in the coaching carousel this winter.
College coaches have been leaving for the NFL
One of the biggest shakeups in the coaching carousel this offseason was when Jeff Hafley left the head coaching position at Boston College to become the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator. Per Pete Thamel with ESPN, Hafley left because of the current state of the NIL and college football:
“[Hafley] wants to go coach football again in a league that is all about football,” a source told ESPN. “College coaching has become fundraising, NIL and recruiting your own team and transfers. There’s no time to coach football anymore.
“A lot of things that he went back to college for have disappeared.”
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hired away a Georgia coach
The Buccaneers are taking advantage of issues in college football this offseason. They hired Liam Coen from Kentucky as their offensive coordinator and Brian Picucci from Kentucky as their offensive line coach.
Per Adam Schefter with ESPN, on Saturday, the Buccaneers hired Georgia’s wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator away to be the wide receivers coach in Tampa Bay in what Schefter calls “another college deflection.”
Another college defection: Buccaneers hired Georgia’s well-regarded wide receivers coach and pass game coordinator Bryan McClendon as their wide receivers coach, per source. https://t.co/rtwqARXHjE
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 17, 2024
Bryan McClendon leaves for greener pastures
The former Georgia wide receiver played for the Chicago Bears in 2006 but has not been in the NFL since. McClendon has coached college football since the 2007 season.
One can’t blame McClendon for trying to get ahead at the NFL level. Interestingly enough, NFL coaches like Bill O’Brien, who did not receive an NFL job after he was let go from the New England Patriots this January, are the ones taking college jobs in a new and competitive coaching market. O’Brien initially took the Ohio State offensive coordinator job before eventually replacing Hafley as the head coach at Boston College.
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