While John Harbaugh quickly became the most sought-after head coach this cycle after he was fired by Baltimore, many NFL teams seek the next Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan.
The young, up-and-coming coordinators usually get most of the attention.
With eight openings around the league, there’s plenty of opportunities for rising candidates to emerge.
McVay became the youngest coach since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 when the Los Angeles Rams hired him in 2017 at age 30. He has led them to one Super Bowl title in two appearances, four NFC West championships, seven playoff berths and eight winning seasons in nine years.
The Rams (12-5) are heavy favorites on the road this week against the Carolina Panthers (8-9).
Shanahan was 38 when the San Francisco 49ers hired him in 2017. He has led them to five playoff appearances and two NFC championships in nine years. The 49ers (12-5) visit the Philadelphia Eagles (11-6) on Sunday.
Harbaugh, who won a Super Bowl in 18 seasons with the Ravens, rose to the top of many wish lists after he became available. Mike McCarthy and Doug Pederson also are unemployed Super Bowl champion coaches waiting on an opportunity. Of course, there’s North Carolina coach Bill Belichick if any teams want to turn to a six-time Super Bowl champ.
But several young assistant coaches are going to get strong consideration and it’s not just McVay and Shanahan who’ve had success. Ben Johnson was the coordinator everyone wanted the past few years. He left Detroit after last season and turned the Chicago Bears into NFC North champions in his first season.
Sometimes the little-known assistants end up being the best hires.
The Eagles were mocked for hiring Pederson in 2016 when he wasn’t on many other teams’ radar because he was an assistant who didn’t call plays under Andy Reid in Kansas City.
He quickly led the Eagles to the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory and did it with a backup quarterback beating Belichick and Tom Brady.
After firing Pederson following the 2020 season, the Eagles turned to Nick Sirianni. The team was chastised even more for hiring a guy who drew little interest from other teams after serving as an offensive coordinator under Frank Reich in Indianapolis for three seasons.
All Sirianni has done is win in Philadelphia. Five playoff appearances in five seasons, including two NFC titles and one Lombardi trophy.
Here are five assistants who could end up with a top job this coaching cycle:
The 42-year-old defensive coordinator for the Chargers followed Jim Harbaugh from Michigan to Los Angeles. He previously was an assistant under John Harbaugh in Baltimore.
“Tremendous knowledge of the game, great teammate, just works so well with the general manager, head coach relationship is going to be tremendous with him,” Jim Harbaugh said of Minter. “That’s really important. His ability to motivate. Just all aspects. It’s always about the team, there’s no ego there. If you got a box to check, you check it with Jesse. He’s had several (teams) that have reached out, interview requests. No surprise.”
The 45-year-old Weaver was the defensive coordinator in Miami the past two seasons under Mike McDaniel, who lost his job Thursday. He previously was an assistant with the Ravens, Texans, Browns, Bills and Jets. Weaver also played seven seasons in the NFL as an edge rusher with Baltimore and Houston.
He’s the defensive coordinator for the Rams and has strong bloodlines as the grandson of Don Shula. An assistant in Los Angeles under McVay since 2017, the 39-year-old Shula said “if the right spot in the right context and if the right situation presents itself, when that time comes, we’ll decide.”
Like Minter, who is preparing to face the Patriots, Shula is prepping for a game against Carolina this week.
Webb, who turns 31 this month, has been the quarterbacks coach for the Broncos under Sean Payton since 2023 and added offensive pass game coordinator to his duties this season. A former quarterback, he was a third-round pick by the Giants in 2017. He started one game in 2022.
He’s been an offensive coordinator in Minnesota, New Orleans and now in Seattle. The 38-year-old Kubiak is the oldest son of former NFL QB and Super Bowl champion coach Gary Kubiak. His brother, Klay, is San Francisco’s offensive coordinator. The Seahawks beat the 49ers 13-3 last Saturday to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
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Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, left, and Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, right, talk before an NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh speaks during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Justin Berl)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
