This season, eight NFL teams will have new head coaches running the show: Bruce Arians (Arizona Cardinals), Rob Chudzinski (Cleveland Browns), Doug Marrone (Buffalo Bills), Mike McCoy (San Diego Chargers), Gus Bradley (Jacksonville Jaguars), Marc Trestman (Chicago Bears), Chip Kelly (Philadelphia Eagles) and Andy Reid (Kansas City Chiefs). Having 25 percent of all NFL teams starting a season with new coaches might seem like an outlier, but, since 2004, 69 teams have made offseason coaching changes. That breaks down to an average of almost seven new coaches per season.
With so many new coaches taking over each year, we wondered how well these teams perform in Year 1 and whether there is an advantage for sharp sports bettors. After running the numbers, we found that there is definitely value to be had and were able to identify a couple of teams we like as value plays early in the season.