Mike Shanahan (UPI)
Pete Carroll (AP)
When it comes to coaches, the NFL’s fall color is decidedly gray.
After a run of young, inexperienced hires produced too many disappointing results, teams decided to turn back the clock this year when choosing who would wear the headset.
Just three clubs changed head coaches in 2010 — one of the lowest turnover rates in years — and all three jobs went to people you could charitably describe as “experienced.”
The Redskins think they hit a grand slam by bringing in two-time Super Bowl winner Mike Shanahan (age 57), but “retread” is more like it as far as the Bills (58-year-old Chan Gailey) and Seahawks (58-year-old Pete Carroll) are concerned.
Are the old guys making a comeback? Three hirings don’t constitute a trend, of course, but it might indicate that the owners are suffering from a bit of rookie fatigue when it comes to filling one of their most important positions.
“We brought in the best coach in the league because, to me, there’s just no substitute for experience and success,” Redskins owner Dan Snyder told The Post at the recent NFL spring meeting — and Snyder should know after the Jim Zorn debacle.
The NFL has long been a copycat league. When first-time head coaches John Fox of the Panthers and Lovie Smith of the Bears reached the Super Bowl in the middle of the last decade, and Marvin Lewis turned around the sad-sack Bengals, it set off a wave of similar hirings.
But while the Saints hit it big with Sean Payton and the Jets seemed to do the same with Rex Ryan, much of the shine has come off for owners when it comes to choosing energy over experience.
That’s obvious from the number of coaches in their first NFL head-coaching job who firmly are on the firing line this season. As well as Fox, Smith and Lewis, other first-timers feeling the extreme heat in 2010 are Jack Del Rio (Jaguars), Gary Kubiak (Texans), Todd Haley (Chiefs) and Raheem Morris (Buccaneers).
And let’s not forget the Broncos’ 34-year-old Josh McDaniels, the poster boy for inexperienced NFL head coaches who arguably is solely responsible for this year’s semi-lurch back to the graybeards.
A Bill Belichick disciple, McDaniels finished 8-8 in his debut season last year. But that was as shaky an 8-8 as you could imagine, with eight losses in 10 games to end the season, personality friction with several veterans and the eventual trade of disgruntled Pro Bowl wideout Brandon Marshall.
If that’s not enough to make owners think twice about going with inexperience, the Chiefs’ Haley might be the finishing touch. Not only did Haley not even play college football, but he had never been a head coach at any level of the sport before Kansas City tabbed him last year.
Haley finished 4-12 and made so many rookie mistakes that it prompted running back Larry Johnson to publicly mock him for his inexperience — helping to prompt Johnson’s midseason exit.
Just looking at those two, perhaps it is no wonder the Bills went for Gailey and the Seahawks lavished $33 million on Carroll despite both of them flaming out in their previous NFL stops (Gailey with the Cowboys and Carroll with the Jets and Patriots).
Known entities, at least this year, trumped what was behind Door No. 3.
What helps make the first-timers attractive to the league’s more cost-minded owners is their cheap price, which means the NFL always will have its share of wet-behind-the-ears head coaches to go along with the Wade Phillipses and Norv Turners.
But if this season is any indication, the league’s “hot assistant” trend has cooled off.
bhubbuch@nypost.com