Youth movement: Over the past decade, NFL teams are hiring younger head coaches

Youth movement: Over the past decade, NFL teams are hiring younger head coaches

by Cameron Kritzer, Cronkite News
November 14, 2026

PHOENIX – On Jan. 12, 2017, a wide-eyed, fairly clean-shaven face rocked the NFL coaching ranks with his energetic demeanor and fresh ideas. 

When the Los Angeles Rams lured Sean McVay, 30, from his job as Washington’s offensive coordinator, he didn’t just make history as the youngest head coach in modern NFL history. He set a trend that has permeated the league for the past decade. 

The Arizona Cardinals jumped on this trend with the hiring of Mike LaFleur in February, after he spent five seasons as an offensive coordinator with the Jets and Rams. LaFleur, now 39, is the youngest coach in team history, and he will face one of his biggest tests on Sunday against McVay’s Rams when Cardinals rookie quarterback Carson Beck makes his first regular season NFL start.

Along with Beck, there will be several others experiencing a new role on Sunday, and this has forced LaFleur to get creative. He was asked Friday what it takes to adjust to this new look and maintain a stable offense while also keeping it “cutting edge,” a skill that helped him land this job.

“There's that fine line of ‘We've done that and they're practicing it,’ but we don't want to outsmart ourselves,” LaFleur said. “Some of these guys haven't played a lot of football for us on Sundays, so there's a delicate balance, and it's our job to figure that out.”

Being a first-time head coach can provide an advantage as an unknown against other teams because they haven't seen tendencies. That has been notably visible with McVay. 

At the time of McVay’s hiring, there were questions about how well he would perform given his lack of experience, but he has since transformed the Rams into a perennial contender. McVay became the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl when he led the Rams to the championship in 2022, shrugging off doubts and proving his inexperience at the top job wouldn’t hold him back.

McVay’s hiring was the first major domino that shifted the league’s landscape, as coaches on the NFL sideline continue to prove age is no longer a factor. 

With three new under-40 hires, the average age of an NFL coach is now 48.3, with five teams featuring a head coach under 40. In 2015, the league average was 53.4 years. 

The NFL’s youngest coaches

Joe Brady, Buffalo Bills, 37
Kellen Moore, New Orleans Saints, 38
Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 39
Mike LaFleur, Arizona Cardinals, 39
Klint Kubiak, Las Vegas Raiders, 39

One reason for this shift is the advancement of technology. Today’s players were raised in the era of cell phones and handheld devices that create access to a new world of information and opportunities, a fact that former Cardinals center Lyle Sendlein said partially explains the mentality behind the young hires.

“I think the younger coaching staff understands that these guys these days grow up with that,” Sendlein said. “It just wasn't normal for the older guys.”

Bruce Arians was 60 and the second-oldest coach in franchise history when Arizona gave him his first NFL head coaching job in 2013. Arians led the Cardinals on two postseason runs that included a division title and an appearance in the NFC Championship before retiring at the end of the 2017 season. He came out of retirement in 2019 to coach Tampa Bay, becoming the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl when he hoisted the trophy with the Buccaneers after the 2020 season, when he was 68.

Since the departure of Arians, the Cardinals’ winningest coach, the team has transitioned in a younger direction, with all four of its subsequent hires being under 50. 

Sendlein experienced a coaching shift in 2013 when the Cardinals fired Ken Whisenhunt, 50, and brought in Arians. It was Arians’ first full-time head coaching job, but he still had his own way of doing things, and Sendlein noted the contrasts between the two coaches.

“BA was a lot less (formal) and coach Whiz was kind of a leader in a different way,” Sendlein said. “But they both cared a lot about their guys, and their similarities would be kind of leadership and expectations.”

Separated in age by about a decade, there wasn’t a massive difference in coaching styles between Arians and Whisenhunt, but the gap still affected how they ran their operations and perhaps how players related to them.

LaFleur’s impact spreads across Arizona’s sideline. The youth is represented in his staff, especially with his coordinators. Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett is 46, defensive coordinator Nick Rallis is 33 and special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial is 38. 

Rallis in particular stands out because when he was hired in 2023 after working as the Philadelphia Eagles’ linebackers coach, he became the youngest coordinator in the NFL at the time. It also marked the first time he was calling defensive plays at the professional level. 

Kent Somers, who covered the Cardinals and the NFL for The Arizona Republic, says the wave of young coaching isn't only happening because teams want newer faces. Teams want the best available fit and a coach’s youth is an added benefit.

“I think the shift happened because that was a trend in the league and I think it still is,” Somers said. “It's a cliché, but it's a copycat league, so I think that was a big motivator.”

The success of coaches such as McVay and the Seattle Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald, 39, has been a big motivator in this trend, but Somers said that teams can get too caught up in hiring a coach just because of their age. 

“I think both pros and colleges make a mistake if they set out to think this is the type of guy we want to hire,” Somers said. “(When teams think), ‘We want this young offensive coach,’ I think you're ignoring a whole pool of candidates.”

Besides the on-field production under young coaches, teams also might believe that having someone younger will help relate to the players. Many coaches are former players and are less removed from their playing years, helping them connect with their team on different levels.

But not always.

“I've seen 35-year-old coaches who can't relate to players at all, and yet I've seen 65- to 75-year-old coaches who are much better at it,” Somers said. “I think back to Arians in his 60s who had (assistant coach/offense) Tom Moore on his staff who was in his 70s at the time and the players loved him.”

It may be nice to have a couple of coaches who are young, but it might be best to have a mix of old and young, Somers said. 

“You look at some of the younger coaches, a lot of them have an older coach, some of them with coaching experience,” Somers said. “I think it's nice to have that balance on your staff. I think it helps to surround him with experience to help him out. So I think there's value in that and having a mix on staff.”

When the Cardinals were looking at the coaching staff and LaFleur in particular, they believed he checked all the boxes. LaFleur worked under two respected minds in McVay and Kyle Shanahan. He also, in pro sports parlance, paid his dues while working his way up from smaller colleges such as Elmhurst, St. Joseph’s and Davidson. His age only made him a more enticing candidate due to the possible long-term benefits. 

But his upside also came with pressure to perform immediately. A young and inexperienced hire could be overwhelmed by the all-encompassing day-to-day duties of a head coach, a risky move that could possibly send a franchise into a downward spiral, but Sendlein said there's always pressure regardless of age.

“I would think the pressure is there either way,” Sendlein said. “I mean it's a ‘What have you done for me lately’ type of league. There's not a single coach that doesn't want to win, and unfortunately it's a hard thing to do in the NFL.”

Super Bowls have traditionally leaned toward older coaches such as Kansas City’s Andy Reid, who at 68 has 20 playoff appearances and three Super Bowls. Only five coaches aged 40 or younger have won a Super Bowl, including, Macdonald was only 38 when he led the Seahawks to the Super Bowl title in 2026. That could change, however, if the recent trend of hiring younger coaches continues.

Former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who has a pair of Super Bowl rings and two Super Bowl MVP honors, has a unique perspective on the coaching trend. 

“The age doesn't matter,” Manning told USA Today. “I think it’s just all about experience. It’s all about how many coaches they’ve been under, who has impacted their style – their philosophy of being a head coach. It’s just about their leadership.”

Manning credits the older coaches who have guided coveted coordinators, noting that the constant turnover in the NFL makes it more difficult for teams to retain staff. 

But does a coach's age affect a team's overall performance? In a 2025 USA Today Sports study, researchers looked at team wins over the past 25 years, comparing coaches over and under 50. The bottom line offers a glimpse.

Since 2000, teams with a full-time head coach under the median age of 50 have recorded a combined winning percentage of .504. Those with coaches older than 50 have gone .500. So there really isn't a direct correlation between a coach’s age and success on the field. 

Which raises a question: Is the trend of hiring young coaches a passing phase?

“I wonder how sustainable it is, and I just think teams will be making a mistake if they think, ‘Oh, we want young coaches,’” Somers said. “I think if you do that, you may be promoting someone who's not quite ready sometimes.”

Ownership, management, personnel and myriad other factors play a role in a coach’s success rate, but as the Cardinals take their own turn at this trend, LaFleur is trying to prove that he is the right choice for the future of the franchise, regardless of age. 

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.