Jesse Minter is the current defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers and was known as the second-hottest coaching candidate for first-timers, at least at the beginning of the season, behind Joe Brady. While his star has fallen in the eyes of fans because of his injured defense, he still has an innovative scheme with great potential. With a lot of the guys on this list, I’ve been very familiar with them. Robert Saleh has been my favorite candidate since late October, Chris Shula was a hot name after he forced Darnold into four picks, and Klint Kubiak was a dude I got in on the hype on early with. Jesse Minter, though, is a guy I was not as familiar with. I’d heard the name, sure, and I knew that he had the Mike MacDonald defense, but nothing past that. So, this was one I was looking forward to and was interested to see how his profile stacked up compared to all the other candidates. So, without any further delays, here is the head coaching profile of Jesse Minter.
Jesse Minter got his first coaching gig all the way back in the year 2006 as a defensive intern for the (not robbed of the CFP) Notre Dame Fighting Irish. After a year doing that, he went on to be a grad assistant for 2 years (2007-2008) at the University of Cincinnati, and after this, he finally got his first job as a position coach. In 2009, Minter took the job at Indiana State to be their linebackers coach and stayed at that position for a year before being promoted to defensive coordinator. He did well enough for the two years he was there to the point where Georgia State’s staff decided to give him a chance at the defensive coordinator position. He had a couple of years there where, for Georgia State, his defenses were pretty decent (2013-2016). After his time at Georgia State, he finally got the call up to the NFL and gained his connection to the Harbaugh family as he got a position on the Baltimore Ravens staff as a defensive assistant. After two years at that position, the Ravens promoted Minter to Assistant Defensive Backs coach, and after one year, he was promoted to the main Defensive Backs coach. After spending the pandemic year at that position, Clark Lea called him to come be the Defensive Coordinator for the Vanderbilt Commodores. His defense wasn’t at all good at Vanderbilt, but in year one of Clark Lea, the whole team was overall terrible, so it’s hard to blame that on him. After that miserable year, though, Minter was rewarded. Jim Harbaugh took Minter away from Vanderbilt, and he officially became the Defensive Coordinator for the Michigan Wolverines. He crushed it there for two years, thanks to his innovative defense, and won a National Championship in his last year there. After that last year at Michigan, as Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL, Minter followed along to be his defensive coordinator, which I personally believe was a giant mistake on Michigan’s part, because they should’ve at least thought about Minter. Anyway, this is what Jim Harbaugh had to say on Jesse Minter in the middle of last season,
“He’s a humble warrior, I mean his picture could be right up there next to it,” Harbaugh lavished. “And a jackhammer. I’m about to go into a meeting with Jesse and it’s gonna be ‘we played this’, and he’s gonna want ‘we can get better at this’. ‘We had this many missed tackles, and we had the two defensive offsides penalties back to back.’ He’s always-more is more for Jesse. He’s just intuitive. He knows offensive football almost as well as defensive football. He knows how an offense is going to try to attack” https://boltbeat.com/chargers-dc-jesse-minter-has-perfect-response-amid-head-coaching-buzz#:~:text=%22He’s%20a%20humble%20warrior%2C%20I,of%20the%20National%20Football%20League%22.
That’s high praise from one of the best head coaches when it comes to producing other culture-building head coaches. So, now it’s time to look into his coaching career in more detail with Minter’s positives and negatives in the coaching cycle.
Jesse Minter’s Positives
Ok, the first and most obvious positive that Minter has going for him is the defensive scheme he runs. This defense is considered to be one of the most innovative and interesting things in the entire NFL. It’s a 3-4 playbook that has a lot more mixed into it, specifically, he loves to blitz, and this has proven to be very confusing for even some of the best quarterbacks. This scheme is absolutely brilliant, and you don’t need to look any further than just Monday Night Football against the Philadelphia Eagles. Jalen Hurts threw four picks against a bruised defense that doesn’t have too much star power currently. Now, Jalen Hurts isn’t the best QB in the NFL, no doubt, but he usually takes care of the ball, and he is still better than a lot of starters in the NFL. This performance was a difference in coaching, and Minter ran circles around Patullo and Sirianni. This is a scheme that has worked, and will continue to work well into this next era of the NFL. Another positive for Jesse Minter is that, for a coordinator looking for his first shot, he has a lot of experience and some good things on his profile. I’m gonna bet that there are very few people reading this who knew, when you do the math, that Jesse Minter had ten years as a defensive coordinator under his belt. Now, of course, only two of those years of experience came in the NFL, but it’s still a lot more experience than almost every other hotshot coordinator in the NFL. To me, this is why he is one of the only first-timers who has ever been mentioned by insiders when it comes to this job. This experience is also beneficial because of the differences in every experience he has had. Going from a D2 school to a very small D1 school, to the (at the time) joke of the SEC, and then coordinating one of the three best national championship defenses of the 2020s in Michigan, and then going to the NFL. That is one of the weirdest cycles I’ve ever heard for a coach, and I love it because of its uniqueness. The last positive I’ll mention is the coaching tree he is from. Now, the coaching tree Minter is a part of obviously hasn’t only produced elite head coaches, but it has produced one of the best lists of names out there. As much crap as he’s gotten, Sherrone Moore led Michigan to a 9-win season in a difficult conference, but the real standout of the Harbaugh group is Mike MacDonald. When looking at Minter, it is very hard not to get a feeling that he could very easily end up being like MacDonald with the way he runs his program. Also, with how hard it is to hang in with the Harbaughs as a coordinator, it should tell you something when Jim has so many good things to say about his defensive coordinator, especially when you’re coaching with a dead man walking in your offensive coordinator (Greg Roman). Jesse Minter’s positives are very big, and his experience is something he can hang over the head of a Klint Kubiak or Chris Shula.
Negatives of Jesse Minter
Now, even though Jesse Minter is a very solid coaching candidate, and fits the profile for what the Titans are looking for in a head coach, potentially the best out of all the newcomers, there are still some negatives. Starting out with my least favorite one, his offensive coordinator connections. Look, obviously, the connections won’t be the breaking point, but there is a lot more pressure on a defensive-minded coach to be able to say that he has a serious candidate for an offensive coordinator. Shula has the McVay tree, which, when it hits, it hits hard; Saleh has the connections around the league and the Shanahan tree, and even Vance Joseph has a certified connection to Davis Webb, who is one of the most loved offensive minds currently in the NFL. What does Minter have? Even though I said the coordinator tree for the Harbaughs is amazing, the position coaches are never the first place a defensive-minded coach goes for his offensive coordinator. The only connection I could make was maybe that his coaching against Davis Webb in the same division might have given them a connection, but that is a big stretch. Not saying this fully takes him out of the race, but it 100% does have a big effect on his chances and his profile in the eyes of many. Another negative of Jesse Minter is that he doesn’t have any head coaching experience. Now, does this make him a terrible head coaching candidate? No, I think I’ve made that clear, especially when I had so much good to say about Shula. Still, though, this has to be accounted for because of how terrible it went the last time we did that. Now, look, of course, compared to other defensive or offensive coordinators, Minter has some experience, but it’s nothing compared to the experience of Mike McCarthy, Robert Saleh, or even Vance Joseph or Matt Nagy. Now, in some instances (like Brandon Staley, who isn’t even being considered for any job), no experience is better, but in this situation, getting a person with experience is a good key to a fast turnaround. The last thing I’ll mention for Minter, and this goes for all the first timers, is the microwaved society we currently live in. For a first-time head coach, it could be very hard to keep an organization’s confidence for long enough to progress as a head coach. With someone experienced, there’s more established trust that they will turn it around even if it gets off to a rough start. Even with that, though, I am nitpicking with negatives with Minter because even though the coordinator thing is huge, it still was very hard to go hard against Minter.
How Likely is Minter to get hired
Overall, how likely do I think Jesse Minter is to end up with the Tennessee Titans this offseason? Well, he might be the most likely of the newcomers to get the job for the Titans’ head coaching spot. This is one I was kind of on a high for recently, and it is one that has consistently come back to my mind as the process just keeps coming closer. Even though I go back and forth with him, if he ended up as the next head coach, I think other people alongside me could get behind it. His scheme just really sells his profile for me, specifically with how innovative it is. That defense could seriously end up being the saving grace for us, and it could make us even better overall. Even with how confusing his offensive coordinator hiring could be, it is still 100% worth it to at least take a shot at Minter. This is a candidate I will continue to have my eye on for the rest of the season and throughout the entire interview process. Also, just as a quick note, for the rest of my articles, I’ll put a link to some of my video stuff at the end of every article, so y’all can check out more of my content at Titans Rundown.
