After the 2015 season, there were seven new head coaching hires. All seven were offensive head coaches, as part of a three-year coaching sandwich that focused on one side of the ball.

• Adam Gase to the Miami Dolphins was one of three high-profile hires.  But after a strong first season, the shine has worn off in South Beach. Gase’s Dolphins struggled everywhere except the scoreboard for awhile, but after a 6-10 season in year two, Miami looks no closer to finding long-term success than it was prior to Gase.

• Another sexy hire was Hue Jackson to Cleveland, who was also the lone minority hire from 2014-2015. Unfortunately, Jackson has been hired to be the Browns head coach as many times as he’s won games as the Browns head coach.

• After being fired by the Eagles, Chip Kelly still landed in San Francisco as a high-profile hire. Of course, he flamed out quickly, going 2-14 in his lone season with the 49ers. He’s now the UCLA head coach after taking the 2017 season off from coaching.

• The New York Giants promoted Ben McAdoo from offensive coordinator to head coach; that went well for a year, but McAdoo couldn’t even last a full two years despite making the postseason in year one

• Dirk Koetter joined McAdoo as offensive coordinators that were promoted to take over for fired head coaches. Koetter, like Gase and McAdoo, was much better in year one than in year two. He wasn’t fired, but a 4-11 start in 2017 put him on the hot seat.

• Mike Mularkey went 2-7 as the Titan’s interim head coach in 2015, and then somehow got the fulltime job.  After an impressive 2016 and an up-and-down 2017, Mularkey’s Titans made the playofs…. but he was still fired after the season, to make room for Mike Vrabel. Random factoid that may only interest me: three of the last four Tennessee coaches were named Mike, and in the last 30 years, all Titans coaches have been named Mike, Ken, Jeff, Jack, or Jerry.

Clearly, Kelly, McAdoo, and Mularkey were failures. The book is still out on Koetter, Gase, and Jackson, but it’s not looking good for any of the three (particularly Jackson).  And then there’s Doug Pederson.  The Eagles head coach has had two strong seasons, thanks in part to stability at the corodinator position with Frank Reich and Jim Schwartz. Since arriving in Philadelphia, the Eagles rank 4th in points scored, 5th in points allowed, and 2nd in points differential.

Pederson was hardly the sexiest coaching hire at the time — here he was ranked as the worst hire — and the Eagles themselves may have wanted Gase or McAdoo more. I don’t know if any GM or owner really knows much when it comes to hiring a head coach.

What factors do you think GMs and owners should emphasize? And how would you have ranked Pederson two years ago among this class, and where would you rank him now?