Bobby Petrino quit on his team and left the Atlanta Falcons without a head coach before the 2007 season had even finished.  Petrino opted to return to the college ranks after a short stint as a coach in the NFL. 

There appears to be a developing trend occurring where college coaches are jumping into the pro game to improve their resume in an effort to return to the NCAA to land a more lucrative coaching job.  Last season, Nick Saban left the Miami Dolphins for a premium head coaching job in the college game. Now Petrino has followed in Saban’s footsteps and benefited from the brief stay in the NFL.

I think the league needs to put a rule in place where if college coaches are wanting to climb up into the NFL for a head coaching job, they will need to sign a minimum three-year mandatory contract where the only opt out option is if the club decides to terminate the contract.  I understand the view point that if the team can just fire the coach to break the contract, then the coach should have the option to break the contract too.

However, something has to be done, because coaches jumping into the NFL only to bail on their team to go back to the college game is watering down the NFL.  The coaches that are bouncing back to college from the pro game are leaving behind a mess that they made.  These are messes that could take NFL clubs upwards of a decade to fix. 

It is just not right that these rent-a-coaches are leaving pro teams in disarray just so they can use the fact that they coached in the NFL as a recruiting tool at their new jobs.  It is time that the NFL fights back and declare that they are not a developmental league for college coaches, and going forward, they will do anything in their power to keep these type of NCAA coaches where they belong…in the NCAA!

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