George Edwards, Pat Shurmur on list of recommended coaching candidates

We’ve been talking for some time about how both of the coordinators on the Minnesota Vikings’ coaching staff could be serious head coaching candidates this coming offseason. Now, they’ve gotten a pretty significant recommendation from the league itself.

The National Football League’s Career Development Advisory Panel. . .which is, apparently, a thing. . .has released their list of twelve recommended candidates for head coaching vacancies. Vikings’ offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur and defensive coordinator George Edwards are both on the list.

The speculation around Shurmur has been going around since early in the season when the Vikings’ offense started showing signs of making a significant turnaround. Shurmur has previous head coaching experience, having served as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns for two seasons, as well as one game as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles following the firing of Chip Kelly.

The buzz around Edwards is a little more recent. He was a part of the coaching staff for the East-West Game last year, and the media types that covered that contest came away very impressed with Edwards. While head coach Mike Zimmer generally gets most of the credit for the Vikings’ defense, Edwards plays a big role in game planning and knows the scheme very well, so a team that might want to attempt to capture some of Minnesota’s recent defensive success might take a look in his direction, too.

The other coaches on the list are:

• Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks
• Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter
• Houston Texans defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel
• Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy
• Kansas City Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub
• New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels
• New England Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia
• New Orleans Saints assistant head coach and tight ends coach Dan Campbell
• Philadelphia Eagles quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo
• Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz

How much of a chance do either Shurmur or Edwards have of moving on to another team? Well, if the Vikings do lock up a first-round bye in this year’s playoffs, both of those coaches could schedule interviews for potential head coaching vacancies during that bye week. That means we could have a pretty good idea early in the process whether or not the Vikings are going to be looking for a new offensive or defensive coordinator in 2018. Perhaps they could end up needing both.