The NFL is an industry that can be difficult to navigate. If you're a team with a top assistant coach, you know that said assistant will draw interest about being a head coach. And it's hard to convince someone to stay when they'll make more money and get a chance to lead their own franchise.
Only 32 individuals on the entire planet can become NFL head coaches, it's safe to say it's not a job where you can try your luck on LinkedIn. Look at Ben Johnson in Detroit. There was no world in which the Lions knew they could stop what was coming unless they fired Dan Campbell to promote him.
And most teams won't do that. Franchises like to try their luck replacing their assistants, which is something the Atlanta Falcons might be tasked with doing soon. If Jeff Ulbrich continues to draw interest as a head coach, the Falcons will be lucky they're grooming someone to take over as DC.
Falcons' DL coach Nate Ollie is bound to get a DC job in the near future
It would be great if Atlanta could find a way to keep Ulbrich, but if the defense keeps improving, I wouldn't count on it. That's where defensive line coach Nate Ollie comes in, as he helped lead the Falcons' defensive line to a franchise-record 57 sacks in his first season working with the pass rush.
So if Ollie continues to develop guys like Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. into future superstars and the Dirty Birds are once again near the top of the league in sacks, he could draw his own interest for a promotion. But that could come from the Falcons or some other team in need of a young DC.
The 34-year-old's track record will be tough for any DC-needy team to ignore. He's had stints as a defensive line coach in Atlanta and Indianapolis, and an assistant defensive line coach in Houston, Philadelphia, and the New York Jets, all of which have come across the last six or seven seasons.
In addition to the young core in Atlanta, Ollie has worked with star edge rushers such as Will Anderson Jr., Danielle Hunter, DeForest Buckner, Quinnen Williams, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, and Josh Sweat, which is pretty impressive for an assistant who hasn't been in the NFL very long.
If Ulbrich does indeed land a head coaching job, odds are he would look to pursue Ollie as his defensive coordinator. But the Falcons are also likely to have interest in promoting him, so there's a world in which Ollie is forced to make a real Sophie's Choice in one of the next couple of offseasons.
But there's one truth that's inevitable: Nate Ollie will get his chance to become a defensive coordinator sometime soon.
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