As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers reportedly consider hiring Bruce Arians, 66, to be their next head coach, a year after he retired from coaching the Arizona Cardinals, it bears investigating: How much does age factor into the hiring and success of NFL head coaches?



To measure this, I looked at all of the NFL hires from the last 20 years — 140 in all, excluding interim coaches — and charted the age of each coach at hiring. Arians would be older than any coach at his hiring in that span — Dick Vermeil and Romeo Crennel are the closest at 64, while current Rams coach Sean McVay was the youngest, then just 30.



The average age of an NFL coach at his hiring? Over the last 20 years, it’s 48, with more than half the hires falling between age 42 and 51. There’s a recent buzz for younger hires, as Matt Nagy, hired at 39, won a division title with the Bears in his first season, and McVay has made the playoffs in both his seasons.



Since 1998,...