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Sean McVay remains the youngest head coach hire in NFL history.
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The Super Bowl-winning head coach had a seven-year streak of being the youngest in the league.
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For the 2024 campaign, new hire Mike Macdonald enters as the youngest head coach in the NFL.
Following the success of Sean McVay, more and more NFL teams have been willing to roll the dice on less seasoned tacticians for their head coach positions.
During this offseason, Jerod Mayo joined the New England Patriots, making the 37-year-old the league’s youngest. Then, the Seattle Seahawks swooped in with Mike Macdonald, who’s only 36-years-old.
Both seem much more seasoned than McVay was when he took his first NFL coach role, but is McVay the outright youngest head coach in NFL history?
Sean McVay (30 years, 11 months)
Born in January 1986, when the Los Angeles Rams moved to make the Washington Redskins offensive co-ordinator their head coach for the 2017 season, Sean McVay became the youngest head coach in NFL history.
Having transformed Kirk Cousins into a Pro Bowl quarterback with the Redskins, the Rams decided to get McVay mere days before he turned 31-years-old.
By the age of 33, McVay was the youngest head coach to make it to the Super Bowl. In the 2021 season, aged 36, the Ohio native became the youngest head coach in NFL history to win the Super Bowl.
In the seasons since, it’s been a rebuilding job while dealing with major injuries. Coming into the 2024 season, the Rams are middle of the pack in the NFL betting at 30/1 to win the Super Bowl again.
Lane Kiffin (31 years, 8 months)
They may have been the Oakland Raiders back then, but the franchise was still rolling through head coaches at breakneck speed back in the mid-00s as they have been more recently.
Taking over from Art Shell, who lasted one season, Lane Kiffin became what was then the youngest head coach in NFL history.
His 2007 hiring made him younger than fellow modern NFL youngsters Mike Tomlin and Eric Mangini.
Kiffin lasted a little into his second season helming the Raiders, being sacked in September 2008, but has since enjoyed a successful run in college football and is currently the Ole Miss head coach.
Harland Svare (31 years, 11 months)
As a player, Harland Svare was a top-notch linebacker who’d go on to win the NFL Championship in 1956 with the New York Giants.
He’d later become the team’s defensive co-ordinator before moving to the LA Rams.
In 1962, he worked his way up through the coaching roles for the Rams, becoming what was, for a long time, the youngest head coach in NFL history at 31-years-old.
Unfortunately, Svare wasn’t able to turn in a winning season for the Rams, nor could he do so when he joined the San Diego Chargers from 1971 to 1973.
John Michelosen (32 years, 2 months)
Now standing in the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, when the Pittsburgh Steelers elevated John Michelosen to head coach in 1948, he became the youngest NFL head coach ever.
Michelosen’s time with the Steelers wasn’t exactly imperious, with his final record being 20-26-2 for a .435 win percentage.
After, he’d return to the University of Pittsburgh and guide the team to several major bowl games across his ten-year tenure.
Raheem Morris (32 years, 4 months)
Rounding out the list of the NFL’s youngest-ever head coaches is one who has recently returned to the role.
Raheem Morris has been named as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and is at 30/1 to win it all in his first season, per the online betting.
In 2009, as a part of a complete overhaul of the team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers handed the reins to Morris at the age of 32. He bookended a 10-6 season with ones of 3-13 and 4-12 from 2009 to 2011.
Back in 2020, he turned in a 4-7 record as Atlanta’s interim head coach, but for 2024, he’ll officially be in the hot seat having learned from some of his struggles as one of the youngest NFL head coaches.
Also in the bracket of 32-year-old NFL coaches are David Shula (Bengals, 1992), Josh McDaniels (Broncos, 2009), and John Madden (Raiders, 1969).
*Credit for the photos belongs to Alamy*
