With the hirings made on Sunday morning, the NFL’s offensive play-callers are now set for the 2026 season. As it stands now, there are 18 head coaches who double up as offensive play-callers in the league, 6 who double up as defensive play-callers and just 8 teams that are willing to live in the head-coach-as-CEO world (Chargers, Commanders, Eagles, Falcons, Giants, Lions, Patriots and Texans).
One thing that is interesting to me is how few of these “new” play-callers are getting their first shot at calling plays in the NFL. The NFL has been on a firing spree, as ownership seems to want to pull triggers on multi-million-dollar buyouts quicker over the last two seasons, but these coaching searches aren’t really unearthing any new names. As it turns out, more firings just means more retread hires.
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This is also true at the head coach and defensive play-caller level, too, but today, I want to focus on the league’s offensive play-callers. Let’s dive in.
Returning Offensive Play-Callers
Head Coaches
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Cowboys: Brian Schottenheimer
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Vikings: Kevin O’Connell
Offensive Coordinators
These two data points are why teams are leaning into hiring play-callers as head coaches. It’s a lot easier to stabilize your club with a dual-role head coach than to find a new offensive coordinator every year. Every hiring cycle is an opportunity for failure. Few play-calling offensive coordinators are retained year-to-year. If he succeeds, he’s almost certain to get a head coaching opportunity quickly.
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The one caveat here is that there is some debate in Denver about whether Sean Payton will continue to be the team’s play-caller or if that job will go to Davis Webb, who was promoted from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator this offseason after receiving head coaching interviews. Beyond Webb’s case, there has been clear reporting on the other 31 play-calling situations around the league.
Newly Hired Offensive Play-Callers
Head Coaches
Joe Brady was actually already the Buffalo Bills’ offensive play-caller, as he was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach this offseason. All of these other head coaches, unsurprisingly, also have backgrounds in calling plays in the NFL.
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Offensive Coordinators
This is where you might expect to see fresh names, new ideas, etc., from the league: play-calling offensive coordinator hires. If you expected that, though, you’d be wrong. Of the 12 newly hired offensive coordinators in play-calling roles, two-thirds of them are retread play-callers.
Here’s a breakdown of guys who have previous experience in play-calling:
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Buccaneers: Zac Robinson previously called plays for the 2024-2025 Atlanta Falcons.
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Chargers: Mike McDaniel was a play-calling head coach with the Miami Dolphins from 2022 to 2025.
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Dolphins: Bobby Slowik called plays for the Houston Texans from 2023 to 2024 as offensive coordinator and was with the Dolphins in 2025, making him one of two internal promotions on this list.
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Falcons: Tommy Rees was actually the play-caller with the Cleveland Browns under Kevin Stefanski, and he followed Stefanski to Atlanta.
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Giants: Matt Nagy was the play-caller with the Kansas City Chiefs in the second half of the 2017 season, his final year there, before taking the Chicago Bears’ head coaching job, where he was a play-caller until giving up that role to Bill Lazor.
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Jets: Frank Reich has called plays at multiple stops, notably his entire run in Indianapolis as the Colts’ head coach from 2018 to 2022. In 2023, his lone year with the Carolina Panthers as head coach, he gave up play-calling duties just to take them back.
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Lions: Drew Petzing called plays for the Arizona Cardinals the last three seasons.
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Titans: Brian Daboll was the offensive play-caller with the Buffalo Bills from 2018 to 2021 and also called plays as the head coach of the New York Giants (2021 to 2025) until his final year there.
Of the 32 offensive play-callers league-wide, these four are the only coaches who are getting their first crack at a fresh opportunity in 2026:
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Commanders: David Blough, a former NFL quarterback (2019 to 2023), has made a meteoric rise after serving as the Commanders’ assistant quarterbacks coach over the last two years. He was internally promoted all the way to offensive coordinator after being Tavita Pritchard’s (quarterback coach) assistant in 2024 and 2025. Pritchard left the NFL this offseason to become the head coach of his alma mater, Stanford.
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Eagles: Hey, it’s Sean Mannion! Mannion is another former NFL backup quarterback (2015 to 2023) who was an offensive assistant for the Green Bay Packers in 2024 before becoming the quarterbacks coach in 2025.
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Ravens: Declan Doyle was the Chicago Bears’ offensive coordinator in 2025, but head coach Ben Johnson elected not to block Doyle from leaving for a play-calling opportunity elsewhere. The 29-year-old had only been an on-field coach for two years before his hiring as a coordinator.
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Seahawks: Brian Fleury comes to Seattle by way of the San Francisco 49ers, where he’s served as tight ends coach since 2022. Before making the transition to offense, he spent the 2005 to 2015 seasons coaching on the defensive side of the ball, earning an on-field role as the outside linebackers coach with the 2015 Cleveland Browns. He then left coaching for three years to work for the Miami Dolphins’ research staff before reemerging in San Francisco and transitioning to the offensive side of the ball.
So, yeah, those are really the only new names to learn for 2026. Outside of them, the NFL has been a big game of musical chairs this offseason.
