Conventional wisdom is running amok in the NFL. Decision makers use the same criteria, covet the same profiles, worry about the same optics and produce coaching searches every winter that are very much carbon copies of what everyone else is doing. It's an exercise in keeping up with the Joneses or covering one's backside and fearing the unknown. Everyone is looking for QB whisperers/offensive play callers, so we have to have ours, too! Week 16 I'm over it. There is a reason there is so much futility in this league. And this is part of it. Relying on consultants more times than not results in "inside jobs" where nepotism or cronyism seeps in, and the coach Terrell Owens Jersey who's hired invariably worked previously for (or grew up best friends with the son of) the consultant leading the charge. The idea of headhunters is beyond ridiculous -- if an owner can't put together a decent list of candidates, someone in his organization better be able to have enough of a grasp on the league to do so. And these copycat candidate lists often lack much vision, creativity or foresight. So this year, as I present the dozen guys I believe are best positioned to constitute the coaching cla s of 2017, please allow me to stump for Dave Toub. Yes, Dave Toub. And the fact you have no idea who the hell he is, in and of itself, is indicative of the kind of tail-wagging that has been going on with these searches for far too long. Toub is the stud special teams coach for Andy Reid in Kansas City. He's the guy who has been helping win games for the with big returns DeForest Buckner Jersey and fake punts and shifting field position and motivating men and outsmarting his opponents. And before that, he was the guy behind the perennially dominant special teams in Chicago (2004-12). Oh, and before that he led Reid's special teams units in Philly (2001-03), which were also generally top notch. He's the guy behind and and, lately, Chiefs dervish . Many of his players over the years have told me Toub should be leading an entire team, not merely one unit. He's a leader of men. He commands respect. He gets the best out of players. He is arguably the best coach on Reid's esteemed staff in Kansas City, and Reid has been nothing but a developer of NFL coaches. He grows them. And Toub is one of his best, yet the fact that he coaches special teams works against him. That still remains true in spite of Hall of Famers like George Allen and Marv Levy were coaches who came through the special teams pipeline, not to mention Bobby Ro s or Baltimore's John Harbaugh, another one of Reid's disciples. "He's a combination of Harbaugh and John Madden," one of Toub's former colleagues said. "He is the real deal. This guy can coach. Period. He's a big guy, physically, who can take over a room when he has to. He gets people to buy in. These guys love playing for him. He comes from a Weston Richburg Jersey great coaching family tree. Look at Andy Reid's a sistants over the years. This guy is ready. All he needs is a chance." A personnel exec who used to work with Toub, 54, said: "If Dave Toub can't get a job in this league, then I give up. Talk to other coaches in the league. They know who is for real and who is horseshit or the flavor of the month. This guy can coach a football team. He'd be the first guy I'd talk to, and it isn't even really close." Toub has been involved in head coaching searches before, interviewing with the when they hired Joe Philbin (how did that work out for them?) and the in 2013 (when they hired Marc Trestman -- yikes). He has been under consideration for many more, but general managers have been scared to pull the trigger. I spoke to two of them a year ago about Toub, a former all-WAC offensive lineman who was drafted in the ninth round by the but never made it on to an NFL roster. Both agreed he was a hell of a coach and an inspired thought to run a team and that he merited a chance, but then both e sentially ruled it out in the end because they needed to develop a quarterback and were locked into going offense. Neither guy who was eventually hired, by the way, is what I would call especially safe even only one year in. Another exec who knows him said: "Superb at what he does and by a million miles the best special teams coach in the league. He Tom Rathman Jersey is an A-plus guy." You can find a quarterback coach and offensive coordinator to work with the pa sers. It doesn't have to define the entire coaching search. I would actually a sert that special teams coaches are ahead of the curve in that they already must addre s players from both sides of the ball, and in e sence the entire team with regularity. They aren't dealing with merely those certain position groups. Besides the head coach, the special teams coach is the only guy on the staff entrusted with clock management and other in-game responsibilities. He also must adjust to losing more players than any other unit. A special teams coach comes in with no inherent bias to either side of the ball, and thus no sentimental ties or desires of offense over defense (or vice versa) in terms of roster composition with the GM. "He's a combination of Harbaugh and John Madden. He is the real deal. This guy can coach. Period. He's a big guy, physically, who can take over a room when he has to. He gets people to buy in." -- An NFL coach on Dave Toub I hope this hiring season that some of the GMs who invariably consider Toub actually give the Chiefs a call and ask to interview him. I hope they reflect on how Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin were two of the more outside-the-box hires of the past decade or so, and how well they have worked out. I hope they get beyond the norms and perceived constraints and branch out a little bit. If they do, I suspect they end up richly rewarded. As for the other guys at the head of this year's cla s, I don't see anyone from the college ranks heading to the NFL, though Stanford's David Shaw is perennially at the top of that wish list (and the and 49ers in particular might want to feel him out, just in case). Excluding guys like Shaw and Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh, who I simply don't see even thinking about leaving their current jobs, here are the dozen candidates who, along with Toub, should be getting heavy consideration next month as these searches begin in earnest: Currently out of the league Jon Gruden: A football savant, someone born to coach, and long coveted by pro and college programs. I truly believe he is ready to listen and listen intently, specifically, in Los Angeles. It's Kyle Juszczyk Jersey Hollywood or bust, I reckon. And the Rams and should both be fully exploring this option immediately. Outside of L.A., Gruden is staying in the broadcast booth, and those who do aim to woo him should come correct. Tom Coughlin: His rsum speaks for itself and I've been reporting for weeks on the mutual interest between him and the . At age 70, he might not be best suited to a rebuilding team -- and the Jags are nothing if not perpetually rebuilding -- but t