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No matter what happens next year or in the years moving forward, Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski will always get to say his initial experience interviewing for head-coaching openings had two unorthodox aspects.
The Cleveland Browns administered their candidates a personality test.
Interesting.
And the Buffalo Bills had NFL MVP quarterback Josh Allen in the conference room for their search.
Also interesting.
From Jan. 17-26, Udinski twice met with Cleveland and once with Buffalo.
The Browns went with Todd Monken and the Bills promoted Joe Brady, one of 10 openings during the cycle. But what a cycle for Udinski, who finished the 2024 season as the Minnesota Vikings’ assistant offensive coordinator/assistant quarterbacks coach and then had a meteoric rise.
His takeaways from the experience?
“Probably too many to go through,” Udinski said after the Jaguars’ opening organized team activity practice on May 26. “But it was a great process to go through. I was honored to be able to be considered for those opportunities. Really, it was a testament to the work our team and our offense put in to kind of raise my status and elevate me to even be considered.”
Enjoy him while you can, Trevor Lawrence.
Ditto for you, Liam Coen.
And same for you, Jaguars fans.
Another 13-4 season — or something even close to that that includes sustained offensive success — and Udinski is poised to become the youngest head coach in league history (he turned 30 on Jan. 12).
A timeline of the aforementioned 10 days for Udinski:
Jan. 17: The Browns interviewed Udinski by Zoom for the allotted three hours. Meanwhile, the Jaguars and Udinski were already talking about a re-worked contract.
Jan. 23: The Browns interviewed Udinski in-person.
Jan. 25: The Bills interviewed Udinski in Palm Beach.
Jan. 26: Udinski removed himself from consideration for the Browns job.
Jan. 27: The Bills hired Brady and the Jaguars announced Udinski would remain with the club.
The interest in Udinski by Cleveland and Buffalo was understandable. More surprising was how the other eight teams with openings didn’t feel the need to request an interview with Udinski just to get his take on the key components of the Jaguars’ turnaround, which include a nine-win improvement highlighted by a jump from 26th (18.8) to sixth in scoring (27.9) and Lawrence finishing fifth in the MVP voting.
The Browns had — and have — a quarterback problem. The Bills, I think, wanted an offensive mind who could provide fresh ideas for Allen, but also somebody who game-planned for their defense in 2025.
First, Cleveland. How did the personality test go?
“You’ve got to ask them that,” Udinski said with a laugh. “I don’t have the results. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing that they didn’t give me the results.”
(Udinski’s agent should call the Browns and ask for the results. He spent hours preparing for and going through the two interviews and the least he deserves is a recap of the test to better himself.)
Next was Buffalo, the best opening of the cycle. Allen was in the room.
MORE FROM RYAN O'HALLORAN: An inside look at Jaguars rookie Nate Boerkircher's improbable NFL path
“(Allen’s) status, his intelligence, his football intelligence — it was really cool to get the opportunity to sit down and talk to him and it was cool to see him interact with the rest of the organization,” Udinski said. “It’s a sign of what they think about him and the person he is to trust his opinion and value his opinion on things more than just football.”
(Indeed, after the search, Allen said some of the things he asked candidates was about how they would structure training camp, a regular-season practice day, etc.)
After his press conference, I gave Udinski another chance to provide one takeaway from the process. Just one. Please!
“If I picked one thing, it would be unfair to the other 99,” he said with another laugh. “Not only do you learn about yourself, you learn about other organizations and hopefully you can use that wisdom and implement that here, if it’s something small or big, to impact the Jags.”
From 2022-26, an average of 8.4 NFL head-coaching posts have been open — 10 in 2022 and 2026, five in 2023, eight in 2024 and 7 in 2025.
Jobs will again be open during the next cycle. Indianapolis, Cincinnati and the New York Jets top the list of potential openings and there is always a surprise or three. Udinski being a candidate in the last cycle will make sure he’s on the radar to start this season. Doesn’t call the plays? That isn’t as big a deal as it used to be. Being only 30? Sean McVay was 31 when the Los Angeles Rams hired him and that worked out.
Udinski has spent his career working for Matt Rhule (Carolina), Kevin O’Connell (Minnesota) and Coen, climbing the ladder to now being one rung from the ultimate NFL coaching achievement. He was around the Vikings when O’Connell got a career year out of Sam Darnold and he was front-and-center here last year working with Lawrence. Udinski has the winning chops and quarterback develop chops working in his favor and, really, aren’t those the two main things an NFL owner should be interested in?
“I love that guy,” Lawrence said last month. “I’ve got so much faith and believe in him and how he works and just how smart he is. I know he’s made me a better player so I’m really excited he’s back.”
Udinski is also fired up. He saw January as the “ultimate win-win,” — he would either be a head coach or the Jaguars’ offensive coordinator this year.
“The nice thing going into the interviews was knowing if it didn’t work out, I felt really, really, really, really, really excited about Jacksonville and knowing what we have here with the guys, the organization, the coaching staff and the structure,” Udinski told me. “To say I was excited to come back here is an understatement.”
Contact O’Halloran at [email protected] or on X at @ryanohalloran. Listen to Ryan on 1010AM on Tuesdays (6:35 p.m. on “Into The Night"), Thursdays (1:15 on "XL Primetime") and Fridays (4-6 p.m. on "The Lead").
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars OC Grant Udinski poised set up to be NFL's youngest head coach
Continue reading...
The Cleveland Browns administered their candidates a personality test.
Interesting.
And the Buffalo Bills had NFL MVP quarterback Josh Allen in the conference room for their search.
Also interesting.
From Jan. 17-26, Udinski twice met with Cleveland and once with Buffalo.
The Browns went with Todd Monken and the Bills promoted Joe Brady, one of 10 openings during the cycle. But what a cycle for Udinski, who finished the 2024 season as the Minnesota Vikings’ assistant offensive coordinator/assistant quarterbacks coach and then had a meteoric rise.
His takeaways from the experience?
“Probably too many to go through,” Udinski said after the Jaguars’ opening organized team activity practice on May 26. “But it was a great process to go through. I was honored to be able to be considered for those opportunities. Really, it was a testament to the work our team and our offense put in to kind of raise my status and elevate me to even be considered.”
Enjoy him while you can, Trevor Lawrence.
Ditto for you, Liam Coen.
And same for you, Jaguars fans.
Another 13-4 season — or something even close to that that includes sustained offensive success — and Udinski is poised to become the youngest head coach in league history (he turned 30 on Jan. 12).
Learning about other organizations
A timeline of the aforementioned 10 days for Udinski:
Jan. 17: The Browns interviewed Udinski by Zoom for the allotted three hours. Meanwhile, the Jaguars and Udinski were already talking about a re-worked contract.
Jan. 23: The Browns interviewed Udinski in-person.
Jan. 25: The Bills interviewed Udinski in Palm Beach.
Jan. 26: Udinski removed himself from consideration for the Browns job.
Jan. 27: The Bills hired Brady and the Jaguars announced Udinski would remain with the club.
The interest in Udinski by Cleveland and Buffalo was understandable. More surprising was how the other eight teams with openings didn’t feel the need to request an interview with Udinski just to get his take on the key components of the Jaguars’ turnaround, which include a nine-win improvement highlighted by a jump from 26th (18.8) to sixth in scoring (27.9) and Lawrence finishing fifth in the MVP voting.
The Browns had — and have — a quarterback problem. The Bills, I think, wanted an offensive mind who could provide fresh ideas for Allen, but also somebody who game-planned for their defense in 2025.
First, Cleveland. How did the personality test go?
“You’ve got to ask them that,” Udinski said with a laugh. “I don’t have the results. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing that they didn’t give me the results.”
(Udinski’s agent should call the Browns and ask for the results. He spent hours preparing for and going through the two interviews and the least he deserves is a recap of the test to better himself.)
Next was Buffalo, the best opening of the cycle. Allen was in the room.
MORE FROM RYAN O'HALLORAN: An inside look at Jaguars rookie Nate Boerkircher's improbable NFL path
“(Allen’s) status, his intelligence, his football intelligence — it was really cool to get the opportunity to sit down and talk to him and it was cool to see him interact with the rest of the organization,” Udinski said. “It’s a sign of what they think about him and the person he is to trust his opinion and value his opinion on things more than just football.”
(Indeed, after the search, Allen said some of the things he asked candidates was about how they would structure training camp, a regular-season practice day, etc.)
After his press conference, I gave Udinski another chance to provide one takeaway from the process. Just one. Please!
“If I picked one thing, it would be unfair to the other 99,” he said with another laugh. “Not only do you learn about yourself, you learn about other organizations and hopefully you can use that wisdom and implement that here, if it’s something small or big, to impact the Jags.”
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Excited to be back with Jaguars
From 2022-26, an average of 8.4 NFL head-coaching posts have been open — 10 in 2022 and 2026, five in 2023, eight in 2024 and 7 in 2025.
Jobs will again be open during the next cycle. Indianapolis, Cincinnati and the New York Jets top the list of potential openings and there is always a surprise or three. Udinski being a candidate in the last cycle will make sure he’s on the radar to start this season. Doesn’t call the plays? That isn’t as big a deal as it used to be. Being only 30? Sean McVay was 31 when the Los Angeles Rams hired him and that worked out.
Udinski has spent his career working for Matt Rhule (Carolina), Kevin O’Connell (Minnesota) and Coen, climbing the ladder to now being one rung from the ultimate NFL coaching achievement. He was around the Vikings when O’Connell got a career year out of Sam Darnold and he was front-and-center here last year working with Lawrence. Udinski has the winning chops and quarterback develop chops working in his favor and, really, aren’t those the two main things an NFL owner should be interested in?
“I love that guy,” Lawrence said last month. “I’ve got so much faith and believe in him and how he works and just how smart he is. I know he’s made me a better player so I’m really excited he’s back.”
Udinski is also fired up. He saw January as the “ultimate win-win,” — he would either be a head coach or the Jaguars’ offensive coordinator this year.
“The nice thing going into the interviews was knowing if it didn’t work out, I felt really, really, really, really, really excited about Jacksonville and knowing what we have here with the guys, the organization, the coaching staff and the structure,” Udinski told me. “To say I was excited to come back here is an understatement.”
Contact O’Halloran at [email protected] or on X at @ryanohalloran. Listen to Ryan on 1010AM on Tuesdays (6:35 p.m. on “Into The Night"), Thursdays (1:15 on "XL Primetime") and Fridays (4-6 p.m. on "The Lead").
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars OC Grant Udinski poised set up to be NFL's youngest head coach
Continue reading...
