Should NFL teams be interviewing for coaching openings during playoffs?

Is the current system fair to coaches of successful teams?

Typically, NFL teams with coaching openings want to fill those positions with coaches who have recently been good. More often than not, that means that their teams are successful and competing in the playoffs. For the hiring team, this makes sense.

However, what about for the current employer? This week, Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken gave some quote that led to the below headline.

I think Monken’s framing of the current NFL norms as “unfortunate” is fair. If we think about it, then does it really make sense for competitive balance during the playoffs that the best teams are those whose coordinators are most likely to be distracted by interviews for promotions that would be granted by other teams? Winning in the NFL is hard enough as it is. To add a potentially distracted coordinator to the mix while trying to beat another playoff team? That certainly doesn’t sound ideal. But it would also be extremely unfair to those candidates to punish them for their success via not allowing them to interview, and that should matter too.

I think all of these concerns beg the question of should the NFL do it this way? Would the hiring cycle really be meaningfully harmed if teams waited until after the season was over to conduct any interviews for coaches, which would allow the playoff coaches to focus on their teams without being set up as less desirable candidates because of current unavailability?

I think the answer is no, at least for head coach candidates (who are often responsible for game planning and play calling for playoff teams). For general manager candidates, the playoff role is seemingly much less relevant to a team’s success, so allowing interviews for these roles seems less harmful to the contending teams.

What do you think? Does Monken have a point, and should this system be changed?