FanHouse Leslie Frazier

The St. Louis Rams will have a new head football coach in 2009, as interim coach Jim Haslett has been notified he is no longer a candidate for the full-time gig. Though he was said to have interviewed well for the job, I can't see how this is much of a surprise. He went 2-10 after taking over for Scott Linehan, including 10 consecutive losses to end the season.

Delving through the extraneous information (and the egregious typo in the title) in the article, it would seem Leslie Frazier is the front-runner, though Steve Spagnuolo is reportedly close to Frazier on the Rams' wish list. Other candidates presumed to still be in the mix are Rex Ryan, Jason Garrett, and Jim Fassel.

Twelve months ago the Rams had just put the finishing touches on a 3-13 effort. If the team had fired head coach Scott Linehan and replaced him with Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, I think most fans and media types would've praised the move.

As I've mentioned before, Garrett's star lost some luster after a seemingly indifferent Cowboys offense went through the motions these last four months. Of course, Tony Romo missing time with a pinky injury didn't help, but that doesn't explain the late-season implosion that kept Dallas out of the playoffs.

What it does explain is the tepid response from the St. Louis Dispatch's Bryan Burwell, who admits that names like Rex Ryan, Jim Haslett, Leslie Frazier and Steve Spagnuolo fit within general manager Jim Devaney's "publicly stated description of meat and potatoes' football guys and strong leaders of men," while Garrett, well, does not.

Being the Vikings defensive coordinator is quite a career move.

Just a year after Mike Tomlin used one year as the Vikings defensive coordinator to leapfrog to the Steelers head coaching job, Leslie Frazier could land another plum coaching job.

According to Pro Football Talk, ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that Frazier would be one of the favorites to replace Tony Dungy in Indianapolis if Dungy decides to retire after the Colts disappointing second-round playoff exit.

Frazier has already interviewed in Miami, but that might have been just a Rooney Rule move since the Dolphins are expected to hire Cowboys assistant Tony Sparano. Frazier was the special assistant to Dungy and defensive backs coach during the Colts Super Bowl run last year, so the Colts are well versed in Frazier's skills.

The crazy thing about all these rumors is that neither Tomlin or Frazier really built dominant defenses in Minnesota. But Tomlin's solid head coaching debut should help reassure teams that Frazier is ready after one year as a coordinator.

Everybody loves getting a scoop. The New Haven Register is reporting that native son Tony Sparano "has been offered the head coaching position by the Miami Dolphins and will accept it at the conclusion of the Dallas Cowboys' season, according to a source." Unsurprisingly, a Dolphins spokesman denied the report.

The Dallas Morning News' Todd Archer has a few questions, though:

* If Sparano accepted the position, why did he get on a plane and fly to Baltimore to interview with the Ravens later Saturday?

* [Jeff] Ireland and Bill Parcells know the rules. If they offered the job to Sparano, they would be in violation of the Rooney Rule, which states teams must interview at least one minority candidate.

The Dolphins are scheduled to interview Vikings' defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, who is African American, on Monday, so the team will be in compliance with the Rooney Rule in short order. But as Archer posits, why would Parcells, who worded "his contract in such a way that he could pry Ireland away from the Cowboys immediately and without compensation", so obviously violate the Rooney Rule?

Being the Vikings defensive coordinator appears to be a great step toward a head coaching job. Last offseason, Vikings defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin was snapped away by the Steelers. Now the Dolphins are interviewing current defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier for their vacant head coaching job.

As Pro Football Talk spells out today, Frazier is highly unlikely to actually get the Dolphins job--there's a good case that his interview is partly to satisfy the Rooney Rule (which requires that teams consider minority candidates) and partly just to file away Frazier's resume for future use. New Dolphins exec Bill Parcells has no ties to Frazier--and at this point Parcells has ties to just about everybody in football--so it's hard to see Parcells turning to someone he doesn't know as his new Dolphins coach.

But it is a good sign that Frazier will be moving onto more and more coaching short lists. Frazier did a solid job with the Vikings defense this year--they still annihilate running games while getting destroyed by passing attacks.

While he's unlikely to land a head coaching job this offseason, he does seem to be a decent bet to become a head coach at some point in the future.