NFL coaching carousel pauses for wild-card weekend, with one or two exceptions

Seven NFL teams are searching for new head coaches, but interview requests for top wild-card candidates remain on hold until after this weekend's playoff games

The NFL coaching cycle reached a new gear Tuesday night with seven teams now having vacancies at their head coach position. But the process still hasn't reached full tilt just yet.

According to high-ranking individuals on multiple teams as well as coaching agents, there appears to be an understanding with the majority of teams looking for head coaches to not officially request candidates on wild-card teams until after this weekend's games have been played.

Official league rules allow for teams with vacancies to request permission to interview coaches employed by other clubs as early as this past Monday. And head-coaching interviews cannot be conducted with coaches on wild card teams until days after the conclusion of their first playoff game, regardless of result.

But teams could always at least put in requests with coaches to flag their interest. Instead, it has been mostly crickets for prospective head coaches who are currently coordinators or assistants on teams playing this weekend.

It explains why some of the top coaching candidates this cycle have not seen their names attached to teams with vacancies just yet. The likes of Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula, Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, Texans defensive coordinator Matt Burke, Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady, Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, Jaguars defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile and Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, among others, have not yet been publicly named as interview candidates at any open job.

Of the seven teams with vacancies, only the Arizona Cardinals have confirmed requests for coaches on wild-card teams. The Cardinals, who fired Jonathan Gannon on Monday, have requested 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and Patriots pass game coordinator Thomas Brown.

One source said complaints from multiple teams have led to this tacit understanding. Those teams want their coaches focused on the upcoming postseason game rather than having any distractions. The league denied sending any such directive to teams, and one high-ranking executive with a team searching for a head coach told CBS Sports the team was always going to wait until next week for wild-card coaches.

Coaches who are not currently employed by a team are free to interview virtually or in person with a team at any point. So Mike McCarthy, Kevin Stefanski, John Harbaugh and others like them can interview at the time of this reading.

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Coaches on teams that missed the playoffs can interview virtually now. And coaches on Denver and Seattle -- the two No. 1 seeds in the playoffs -- can interview until Monday, Jan. 12, when it is then time to lock in on that week's game. 

Should a wild card team lose this weekend, those coaches can begin interviewing on Tuesday or Wednesday with no further restrictions. If the team wins and advances, those coaches can begin interviewing mid-week with the interviews concluding before the end of the divisional round of the postseason.

In-person interviews with candidates currently employed by teams cannot begin until Jan. 19. It would be difficult for any team to hire a new coach before then due to league rules.

But by early next week, there will be a new wave of interview requests, and the mad dash for teams to get their new leaders will be on.