When the Detroit Lions take on the Minnesota Vikings in Week 18, there is a lot on the line. The winner will get the No. 1 seed in the NFC and head out to a bye week, while the loser will head to Tampa Bay or Atlanta to play a road playoff game against the NFC South champs. For Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, and Vikings DC Brian Flores — three of the hottest head coach candidates of the 2025 cycle — the stakes are also high as the winner will get a leg up in the interview process.
“Coaches from the winning team will be cleared to interview three days after the game while coaches from the losing team must wait until at least three days after next weekend's wild-card games conclude,” ESPN insider Adam Schefter reports.
There are currently three jobs open — the Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints, and New York Jets — with several more expected to become available on Black Monday, the day after the regular season ends. The Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, New York Giants, New England Patriots, and Dallas Cowboys are all head coaching jobs rumored to be up in the air as the season comes to a close.
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While Johnson, Glenn, and Flores are all wildly different candidates — Johnson is an offensive wunderkind, Glenn a Pro Bowl-level ex-player, and Flores a taskmaster with 49 games of head coaching experience — they will likely go head-to-head for several jobs. That could give a major advantage to the coach or coaches from the team that wins the Lions-Vikings game on Sunday night.
Coaches who get fired on Black Monday (Doug Pederson?), whose contracts expire (Mike McCarthy), or who didn't coach last season (Mike Vrabel) can all interview as well, so the coaches coaching in the Wild Card Round are at an even bigger disadvanatge.
The place this might matter the most is with a franchise considering multipel coaches from the Lions-Vikings tilt. For example, the Bears are rumored to have Johnson and Flores as two of their top-three candidates along with Vrabel.
