There are assistants who have been head coaches before, like Kliff Kingsbury and Brian Flores. There are former Cowboys assistants like Kellen Moore and Wes Phillips, and Al Harris could emerge as a dark horse candidate, and that’s before the young gun coordinators like Ben Johnson, Bobby Slowik, Joe Brady and others are even mentioned.

McCarthy spent six years in the college ranks before he broke into the NFL in 1993 on Marty Schottenheimer’s Kansas City staff as a quality control coach. He was a quarterback coach for the Chiefs and Green Bay Packers before leaving to become the offensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints in 2000.