NFL coaching insider: Behind the scenes of the interview and hiring process

There have been seven head coach openings, with the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel as the first domino in a complicated process for the other six jobs.

The biggest change in the hiring process in the past five years has its roots in, of all things, COVID-19 .

Video interviews are logistically easier, but few people involved in the process like them.

The NFL hiring cycle is at least a half-dozen billion-dollar companies competing in real time for the same pool of top candidates.

Candidates will be asked to evaluate the current personnel, good and bad, and that's a tricky path to navigate.

How much power a head coach wields compared to the general manager will vary from team to team and candidate to candidate.

Interviews at team facilities can be limited because assistants aren't around as much.

Teams might have a coach use a white board to draw up a play, to show how he'd install it with a position group.

One candidate recalled an analytics staffer sitting in on the interview who pulled up a reel of specific plays from past season .