This Sunday is John Fox‘s final game as head coach of the Carolina Panthers.

Come Monday, Fox will join an already crowded field of unemployed head coaches.  And the Panthers will become at least the fifth team to begin a coaching search.

So who’s next?  Who takes his place?  Instead of throwing out a bunch of names and why they are the best choice for this team right now I’d prefer to focus on the kind of head coach the Panthers need.

Debate among the fans seems to dictate the mention of names like Bill Cowher, Jon Gruden or even Jim Harbaugh.

Further, fans of any team looking for their next head coach will always throw out the obligatory “we need an offensive-minded coach” or “we need a defensive-minded coach.”  Their focus is myopic as they tend to look only at the weakest area of their favorite team.  The thinking is, for instance, that our team has a bad offense so let’s bring in a coach who has a background on that side of the ball.

Is it that simple?

We’ve looked back over NFL statistics and Super Bowl results since 1980 to try to determine a trend.  What we found just might surprise you.

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