8/2/11 Daily NFL News and Notes

The player movement has finally calmed down to a point where that doesn't need to dominate the NFL news for the day.  Can spread out my time and make it more of a general roundup of reactions to the NFL news of the day.  Also letting everyone know that I'm working on plenty of more fantasy features for the next few weeks, so if my Marshall Faulk Strategy post and my Buccaneers post aren't enough for you, there is still plenty more to come.

Of course, I'd also like to point out that Alex "Skillet" Scarlett has been active as my second writer here at Big Derf Sports so be sure to check out all of his work including today's list of best MLB teams.

Today some of the last few gems on the free agent market were finally locked up, and news from camps has finally really started to come in so I'm just going to get into all of that right now...

NFL Assistant Coach Changes: Josh McDaniels Leads List Of Best Assistant Hires

Every year in the NFL the head coaching changes get all of the publicity, but most of them are delegators.  The assistant coaches are generally the ones who work directly with the players and call the plays on Sundays.  This past off-season the Bears hired Mike Martz as offensive coordinator and Mike Tice to coach the offensive line.  After some early season difficulties, the Bears offense has produced over the second half of the season and they are in the NFC Title game

This list is going to take a look at the top five coaches who have the potential to produce similar results with their new teams next year. Most of them, like Martz and Tice, are one time head coaches who are going back to being assistant coaches and are driven to hopefully get themselves positioned for new head coaching jobs down the road.