Coaching firings plague the NFL news this week, which means many successful assistants and coordinators are doing rounds of interviews at teams with coaching vacancies.
When you're the New England Patriots, you go 14-3 in the regular season and become favorites for the Super Bowl—suddenly, teams that never had a shot want a piece of what got you there.
Case in point: NFL head coaching interviews that take place throughout the playoffs.
Teams that have fired their head coaches will look to fill vacancies quickly and, if needed, will request interviews with assistants and coordinators from teams still in the postseason.
With the likes of John Harbaugh recently parting ways with the Baltimore Ravens and the firings of Pete Carroll in Las Vegas with the Raiders and Kevin Stefanski with the Cleveland Browns, to name a few, the so-called coaching carousel is going to be interesting over the next few weeks.
The Arizona Cardinals are in the hunt for their next head coach after firing Jonathan Gannon after three seasons and a 15-36 record overall. It turns out they called the Patriots.
One would think that they would be calling about offensive coordinator and overall quarterback whisperer, Josh McDaniels. The answer to that is actually no, for now at least. McDaniels openly stated during the season that he plans to stay in New England for professional and personal reasons.
So the Cardinals went down the line to the Patriots' passing game coordinator, Thomas Brown. They've reportedly requested an interview with Brown as the Patriots gear up for a showdown with the Chargers this Sunday night.
Brown does have some NFL head coaching experience. Last season, when the Chicago Bears fired Matt Eberflus, Brown took over as interim head coach. Not much success came from the experience, but Brown was viewed by many as a contender for something down the road. He's still quite young at 39.
Brown's resume does not end there. He learned a lot from Sean McVay's staff with the L.A. Rams. He spent time in Carolina with the Panthers. But in 2025, he was on the team that helped develop Drake Maye into who he is today.
Despite a not-so-traditional path to being in the conversation for a head coaching position next season, Brown still seems like a worthy candidate.
The Patriots had the biggest turnaround from last season to this one. Why wouldn't another team's front office look at what they've done and want to duplicate it?