History says Bills must avoid Philip Rivers as head-coaching candidate 

The Buffalo Bills sent some shockwaves through the NFL on Friday when they announced they had interviewed Philip Rivers for their vacant head-coaching position. While it is entirely normal for coaches to be former players, those coaches typically work their way up through the ranks. They start as position coaches, work their way up to a coordinator role and then get their head-coaching opportunity.

The only coaching experience that Rivers has is with a high school team. 

That is a far jump to the NFL.

It remains to be seen if the Bills are actually serious about hiring Rivers, or if they were just leaving no stone unturned in their quest for ideas, but there is some history of teams hiring coaches with almost no major coaching experience.

The results have been mixed.

Inexperienced coaches more common in NHL and NBA

Over the past 25 years, there have been a small handful of teams that have gone outside of the traditional coaching hierarchy to find their next coach. 

Most recently, the Los Angeles Lakers hired J.J. Redick despite having no coaching experience beyond volunteering for a fourth-grade team that his son played on. In his debut season, the Lakers made the playoffs before losing in the first round in five games. As of Friday, he is 76-49 with the Lakers in his first year-and-a-half on the job.

Back in 2014-15, the New York Knicks took Derek Fisher right out of his retirement as a player and made him their head coach. That experiment lasted just two years and resulted in Fisher finishing with a 40-96 record. He has never been a head coach again.

Jason Kidd followed a similar path and got his first head-coaching job during the 2013-14 season with the Brooklyn Nets following his retirement. He has been more successful than Fisher, coaching 10 seasons in the NBA (including currently with the Dallas Mavericks). He has made the playoffs just five times and has a 381-365 record.

In the NHL, Martin St. Louis (Montreal Canadiens), Eddie Olczyk (Pittsburgh Penguins) and Wayne Gretzky (Phoenix Coyotes) were all hired as head coaches despite having no prior coaching experience. Olczyk lasted just parts of two seasons (2003-04 and 2005-06) and was only 31-64-18.

Even though Gretzky is one of the greatest hockey players of all time, his four-year run behind the bench produced zero playoff appearances and only a 143-161-24 record. 

Neither ever coached in the NHL again. 

The only recent NHL coach who followed that path with much success has been St. Louis, the current head coach in Montreal. He has overseen the Canadiens' rebuild and helped turn them into a playoff team much sooner than anticipated. 

Jeff Saturday is best recent NFL comparison

The best parallel for Rivers might be the brief experiment the Indianapolis Colts attempted with former offensive lineman Jeff Saturday.

The Colts gave Saturday the head-coaching job midway through the 2022 season, hiring him to replace Frank Reich despite having no major coaching experience. It was immediately panned at the time, with Saturday shocking everybody by winning his first game on the Colts sideline.

He then proceeded to lose the next seven games to finish the season. 

He has yet to coach again in the NFL.

In theory, just having knowledge of the game and good ideas would seem to be the most important factor involved in coaching. Leadership ability and delegation of duties would be right behind that. But there is a reason people work their way up the ranks and take smaller jobs before getting the top jobs in the industry. Experience matters. Learning the ropes matters. Having a connection to the current game and current players matters. 

Rivers is an intriguing person to interview, and it certainly makes headlines. The Bills should still be hesitant given his lack of experience as a coach.