The firing of Mike Shanahan was easily the least anticipated story of the year. Of all the coaches in the league, only Bill Belichick seemed less untouchable. Anyway, the press is saying now that Bowlen wanted to fire the GM Shanahan, not necessarily the coach Shanahan. And although such surgeries are certainly possible at Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic, all the money for such a procedure was tied up in former Browns’ defensive linemen.

It obviously stinks for Shanahan, who for all his failures as a personnel guy is an awesome coach. But there are a few winners emerging from this story, and they aren’t at first glance related at all.

The biggest winners of the Shanahan canning are the Baltimore Ravens, New York Giants, and Tennessee Titans. 

Here’s the deal: there are currently five coaching vacancies in the league right now, and although he should be fired twice, it looks like Herm Edwards isn’t going to be joining them. Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, St. Louis, and the Jets. Those are the options. Which one would you want to go to?

The Jets, who have a confusing future with the Favre business in place and just fired Eric Mangini after he added five wins to his ’07 total?

The Lions, who are further from competing than GM is from the Volt?

The Rams, who have a horrifyingly bad defense and a disgusting salary cap situation?

The Browns, whose window seems to have slammed shut in one season?

Or the Broncos, who have a history of stability and one of the better young QBs in the game?

The news is especially damaging to the Jets and Browns, who are less likely to take a flier on a random coach; they want a Name. The problem is that the Names will pick Denver instead. So if any of these teams want to hire their first choice, they’ll have to get to him before the Broncos can.

That means they’ll have to do it before the playoffs are over.

The Titans and Giants have bye weeks and the Ravens are favored against the Dolphins. That means that Jim Schwartz, Steve Spagnuolo, and Rex Ryan can’t be hired for at least two weeks. Teams that want to even interview them can do so only in the case of bye weeks and even then have to ask permission, which can absolutely be denied.

Each of these three coordinators are absolutely vital to their teams. All of them call the plays, and are trusted by their head coaches to essentially run the entire defense. All of them will leave eventually for head coaching jobs (all are deserving of at least the shot), but the delay creates stability in each organization and, at the very least, allows time for their assistants to be groomed to replace them. That becomes a lot more likely if teams are trying to beat the Broncos.

Prediction:

Cleveland – Lands Scott Pioli, who teams up with Eric Mangini to form Pats-Lite.

Denver – Makes a godfather offer to Bill Cowher.

Detroit – Gets Mike Shanahan and gives him all the keys

New York Jets – Bide their time and swipe Spagnuolo

St. Louis -  Jim Haslett keeps the job; gets fired next year.