Eyes in Detroit and Tennessee have been gazing in the direction of Chargers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt for a while now, but there are more of them now that the Chargers season has come to an end and Whisenhunt is available to be hired as a head coach.
There have been several indications that Whisenhunt will wind up taking a job with one of those two teams and a report on Monday had Whisenhunt trying to line up assistants to take with him from San Diego to his next stop. Even before those reports surfaced, there were people voicing concern that Whisenhunt was distracted by having three head coaching interviews (the Browns also spoke to Whisenhunt) while preparing for the divisional round game in Denver.
Whisenhunt said last week that he wasn’t distracted by the dueling agendas, something quarterback Philip Rivers agreed with on Monday.
“I think that’s crazy, honestly. He was all in, all week,” Rivers said, via Tom Krasovic of U-T San Diego. “He handled it like a pro.”
The Chargers offense took a long time getting going on Sunday as they were held scoreless until rallying to close within a score in the fourth quarter. Rivers said Monday that the wind limited the ability to open up the offense early, as illustrated by his eight pass attempts (while getting sacked three times) in the first half, and the Broncos seemed to agree given how much they ran the ball. That does leave room for a lot of second-guessing, but that’s true of the offensive coordinators who lost over the weekend without interviewing for head coaching jobs last week as well.
Either way, it seems likely to be someone else’s problem before too much longer. In Rivers’ opinion, quarterbacks coach Frank Reich “would be great” as a replacement when/if Whisenhunt moves down the road.