It is officially the NFL coaching carousel season. There are now eight teams that will have new head coaches by the time next season begins, and that number may still grow after the end of Wild Card weekend. This year’s firings have ranged from unsurprising, like Brian Callahan in Tennessee, to downright shocking, like the institutional change in Baltimore.

But while head coaches usually grab the headlines, the more interesting movement often happens one level down. Every year, coordinator openings reveal who teams believe are the rising minds in the sport. These are the coaches who become the next wave of head coach interviews when jobs open. Watching who gets requested, who skips steps, and who is suddenly in demand allows you to read the tea leaves and identify who might be on a head coach track.

And with that in mind, here is a prediction.

The next great NFL head coach was just hired as an offensive coordinator, and most people barely noticed.

That coach is David Blough.

Ironically, Blough and Ben Johnson are more connected in this story than you might think. Before diving into why this prediction has real merit, I want to add a quick caveat. I am not great at sports predictions. I am not saying I am bad, but I definitely have my misses. That said, my best take ever actually has a lot to do with Blough and his ascent in the coaching world.

On January 10, 2022, I tweeted that I knew Ben Johnson was immensely talented and that I wanted him to become the Lions’ next offensive coordinator. At the time, Johnson was the tight ends coach on a 3-13-1 team. He had not been interviewed by anyone else, and the team took another month after my tweet to promote him. That ended up being one of my rare wins in the prediction game.

This article is being written just days after David Blough was hired as the Washington Commanders’ offensive coordinator. That hire represents the most recent step in what has been an absolutely meteoric rise for Blough. He retired as a player only last year and was originally hired as Washington’s assistant quarterbacks coach before being promoted to offensive coordinator in a single offseason.

Blough skipped multiple steps that usually take coaches years to climb, which speaks volumes about how highly the Commanders value him. He is also just 30 years old.

Funnily enough, I actually predicted that his rise would be even faster than it has been. I tweeted last offseason that the Lions were going to hire Blough after Ben Johnson left for the Chicago Bears. Instead, Detroit hired John Morton, stripped him of play-calling duties midseason, and then fired him weeks later. The Lions eventually acknowledged their mistake and scheduled an interview with Blough on January 5th to bring him in as their offensive coordinator.

One day after that interview was set, Washington fired their offensive coordinator, Kliff Kingsbury. From piecing together the timeline, it appears the Commanders made that move specifically to keep Blough in the building. Kingsbury, a highly respected offensive mind in his own right, was let go in favor of retaining a 30-year-old assistant quarterbacks coach. That should tell you something.

To understand why this rise has happened and why it is likely to continue, it helps to look back at Blough’s playing career. This may sound insulting, but it is actually a compliment.

David Blough was not a good NFL quarterback.

He was not physically gifted and lacked many of the traits that allow players to stick as long-term starters in the league. And yet, he stuck around. Blough carved out his NFL career not because of arm talent or athleticism, but because of his mind. He was extremely cerebral about the game, and that trait earned him enormous respect in locker rooms and coaching staffs.

Dan Campbell, his head coach in 2021, described him this way:
“He’s smart. He’s extremely smart. He knows where to go with the football. I love his timing. He knows how to command the huddle, he communicates well, and on top of that, he’s a hell of a dude. He just is.”

Notice what is missing. There is very little about arm strength or physical tools. Instead, the praise centers on intelligence, leadership, communication, and command. Those are not just quarterback traits. Those are head coach traits.

If Blough’s understanding of the game, communication skills, and leadership were that obvious while he was still playing, it is no surprise that he has risen quickly in coaching circles. Even while he was with the Lions, he was already designing portions of the offense.

Over the past few seasons, the NFL has seen the re-emergence of the flea flicker, with most teams running some variation of the same design. That version of the play was first used by the Lions in 2022. The name of the play in Detroit’s playbook? “Boilermaker.” David Blough went to Purdue. He designed it. The team literally named the concept after him.

That was not an isolated instance.

Do you remember when the Commanders pulled off a stunning upset over the Eagles in a 36–33 thriller in 2024? They won that game on a nine-yard pass from Jayden Daniels to Jamison Crowder. The designer of that play was David Blough.

“It set up perfectly,” Daniels said of Blough’s concept. “We did that same play in practice, same route, right behind the linebacker, in two-high coverage. That was my first read presnap from what I’d seen. I was going to go right here and trust him to make a play.”

When a young quarterback is publicly crediting a coach for play design and preparation in a game-winning moment, that matters. It tells you where the respect in the building actually lies.

The clearest indicator of Blough’s future is the respect he earned inside organizations like Detroit. Lions beat writers spent an unusual amount of time talking about the mental brilliance of their third-string quarterback. If a beat writer compliments a coach’s ability to connect with players or a play designer’s intelligence, that usually does not move the needle much. That is what reporters are supposed to look for.

But when it was so obvious that a player who was likely to spend most of his career on the practice squad was that smart, that means something.

The 2022 season of Hard Knocks offered another telling glimpse. That preseason was rough for Blough on the field. He simply did not play well. And yet, every time he was mentioned on the show, it was in a positive light. Team executives repeatedly emphasized how big of a mistake it would be to let him leave the organization because of what he brought intellectually.

That is not how teams talk about fringe roster players unless they see something bigger.

Blough’s coaching trajectory only reinforces that idea. He went from retirement, to assistant quarterbacks coach, to offensive coordinator in essentially one season. That kind of leap is not about opportunity alone. It is about trust. Coaches do not get fast-tracked unless decision-makers believe they are dealing with someone who sees the game at a different level.

This is also where the Ben Johnson comparison comes back into play. Before Johnson became one of the hottest head coach candidates in football, he was largely unknown outside of Detroit. He did not have a long résumé as a coordinator. He was a tight ends coach on a losing team. But inside the building, it was clear he was different.

Blough appears to be on that same path. The difference is that his ascent has been even faster.

There is also something worth noting about the modern NFL coaching ecosystem. Teams are increasingly valuing teachers, communicators, and play designers over pure “football guy” archetypes. The next generation of head coaches is being built out of quarterback rooms, offensive labs, and film rooms. Blough fits that mold perfectly.

What makes his case especially compelling is that his rise has not been driven by networking or optics. It has been driven by problem-solving. Designing plays that spread across the league. Building concepts quarterbacks trust in high-leverage moments. Earning enough internal credibility that organizations are willing to fire established coordinators to keep him in-house.

That is not normal. That is not luck. That is a signal.

It is rare for someone with Blough’s football mind, the speed of his rise, and the level of trust he already commands across the league not to eventually receive a head coaching opportunity. And when that moment comes, the expectation should not be curiosity. It should be confidence.

So when David Blough’s name starts popping up on head coaching shortlists in the coming years, remember this: the league may just be catching on, but the signs have been there all along. And yes, you heard it from The Fringe first.

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