The NFL head coaching carousel has a wild amount of big-time names available, from young hotshot coordinators to established legends bound for Canton, Ohio, such as Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick.

One coach who has gone under the radar is Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

He's already interviewed for the Chargers' top job and is expected to draw more interest having interviewed for many jobs in the past couple of years.

Who is Kellen Moore?

Since he was a college football quarterback, and one that broke many records at Boise State, Moore was widely known as a football genius. Pick up a scouting report at random on him as an NFL prospect and you're likely to read something along the lines of "future coach."

That's why after six years in the league as a backup quarterback, Moore quickly became the quarterbacks coach for the Cowboys and within one year, he was promoted to offensive coordinator.  

From 2019-2022, Moore found significant success, at least statistically. The Cowboys wanted more, and that led to Moore leaving for the L.A. Chargers in 2023, when his offense underwhelmed, especially in the running game.

Does Moore call the plays? 

He does, and the results have been a mixed bag. Take the Chargers' 2023 season, for example. Before Herbert's injury, Moore's offense ranked Top 10 in the NFL in dropback EPA/play and success rate through Week 13. That's all fine and well but L.A. was 32nd in rushing success rate and 27th in EPA/play.

However, Moore balanced it by being the sixth pass-happiest team in the NFL in early downs, per RBSDM. 

Overlooked reason why Moore still draws interest

It's easy to forget that despite so much experience as OC at only 35 years old, Moore has only been coaching since 2018. To put it into context, Sean McVay spent six years coaching before landing his first coordinator gig.

If you wonder why NFL teams seem to remain so high on Moore's future as a head coach despite the mixed results, that's a primary reason why. He's just getting started yet he's already battle-tested and has worked closely with Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert.

Moore is great at play design

Moore's calling card has to be play design. While he still needs to avoid certain tendencies and improve in situational football, Moore is known as a play collector and he always has something up his sleeve.

He's known to take bits and pieces from other offenses around the NFL and lower levels of football as well. He's also not afraid to be creative here and there, sometimes to a fault.

Can Moore lead a franchise?

This is one of the most complicated questions about Moore just because we haven't seen it. But I'd point toward his rapport with quarterbacks as a reason to believe he could. Cowboys QB Dak Prescott wasn't shy about his frustration over Moore's firing early in 2023 and that's because he had a strong relationship with the coach.

If a coach can get a QB to buy in, it's easy to bet can get an organization to buy in. 

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