Josh McCown might wind up being an offensive guru. Josh McCown could be a Super Bowl-winning head coach one day. Over the last few years, Josh McCown has been a highly sought-after candidate in NFL coaching circles. The only thing is, Josh McCown’s coaching resume is skimpier than the meat that new employees put on your burrito at Chipotle. If Steve Wilks is furious, we’d understand.
Earlier this week, the Minnesota Vikings announced they were hiring McCown as their new quarterbacks coach. He comes to Minnesota after spending some of last season with the Carolina Panthers in the same role. I say “some,” because McCown was part of the coaching staff that got fired during the season. The Panthers and their offense sucked. Before that, McCown helped out as an assistant coach at the high school level.
That last paragraph is all of his experience as a “coach.” No college employment. No time was spent as a pro coordinator. No time as even a preps head coach. Yet, he’s employed again. According to ESPN’s Jordan Reid, McCown was the assistant coach at the high school Drake Maye played for. The intrigue is real as the Vikings have the 11th pick in the draft, and could be looking to move up.
But despite that connection, McCown’s situation is why Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the league for its “alleged” racist hiring practices is headed to open court. And this is why Wilks joined that lawsuit.
Over the past few years, Wilks has unfortunately joined Eric Bieniemy as the poster child of how unfairly Black coaches get treated in the NFL. Wilks was the head coach in Arizona in 2018. He was given a terrible team. The Cardinals finished 3-13. Wilks was fired after only one year on the job. In 2022, Wilks became the interim coach of the Carolina Panthers after Matt Rhule was fired during the season. The Panthers were 1-5 under Rhule. They were 6-6 under Wilks. It wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t retained. This past season he was the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers. But after Kyle Shanahan blew a double-digit lead for the third time in a Super Bowl game in which he was the head coach or offensive coordinator, he made Wilks the fall guy and fired him.
If you visit Wilks’ Wikipedia page, you will see a minimum of 20 coaching jobs he’s had in his career between college and the NFL. If you do the same for McCown, you will only see the two I mentioned above.
In 2022, it was believed the Houston Texans were going to hire McCown as their new head coach without any coaching experience at all in the NFL. And then, out of nowhere, Flores dropped his class-action lawsuit against the league and the Texans magically landed on hiring Lovie Smith — a Black coach. Smith was fired after one season in the same way that David Culley — another Black coach — was also fired before him in Houston after one season. Houston did them like Arizona did Wilks.
The Vikings have a new quarterback coach with a paper-thin resume, who spent much of his long playing career as a backup because he could never cut it as a starter. Minnesota must also figure out who McCown will be coaching, as it isn’t crazy to assume that the team will be looking up at the Lions and the Packers in the NFC North. And if things don’t work out — again — and Josh McCown gets fired, some other team is sure to hire him in a heartbeat. That’s not a guess, it’s what history has taught us.
