Dennis Allen ranks 13th but it's hard to believe who's ahead of him

Offense is a different matter with the various ways of scoring. Defense is truly simple.

When they put the list together, PFN somehow landed Green Bay defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as the 10th best coordinator, well ahead of Allen and some other good coordinators.

Hafley had a decent 2024 with a defense sixth in scoring, fifth overall but in his first year was 17th in yards allowed. The two-year performance is only slightly better than what Joe Barry had done for the previous two years in Green Bay. He was fired.

Regardless, you can't put a defensive coordinator with two years of experience, one of them so-so and one good, and say he's better than one who had Allen's experience with a top 10 rankings in scoring six of the previous eight full years—especially when he's been both a head coach and coordinator for 14 years.

Allen used to own Tom Brady when the GOAT was in Tampa Bay. The Saints defense eventually got old as Allen was head coach and they had the worst salary cap situation in the league for three straight years so they couldn't do much to resupply it. He was fired. But now he's a coordinator again, not a head coach with a bad cap situation hanging over his head. The Bears are the beneficiaries.

The same logic applicable to Hafley is true about Jesse Minter with the Chargers. He was effective for college at Michigan and had a good year last year. That's it in the NFL. Minter was somehow ranked No. 5 by PFN.

They jumped the gun a bit on Zach Orr with the Ravens. Sure, he had the 10th-ranked defense and they were ninth in scoring defense in his first year.

Orr was gift-wrapped one of the best defenses in the NFL by Mike Macdonald and actually, 10th ranked is kind of a disappointment when he was given a defense ranked first and third in scoring the previous two years and ninth and sixth in yards allowed.

Proving yourself still matters.

The guy at the top of the rankings shows this. Former Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio obviously is No. 1, and Kansas City's second-ranked Steve Spagnuolo also paid is dues, just like Allen did.

Conversely, this is why Sharp Football Analytics ranking Ben Johnson 22nd is very fair. No experience as a head coach is a detriment. Then again, tying him with Raheem Morris is a real stretch.

Experience is good. Losing experience is not good.

And by the way, Matt Eberflus in those defensive coordinator rankings? 18th. You don't need to call timeouts as a defensive coordinator. The head coach does it.