Longtime coach Chuck Pagano returned to the Ravens as a senior defensive assistant this year, but he has no ambition to take another head coaching job in the NFL.
Pagano’s success as a secondary coach and defensive coordinator during his first stint in Baltimore helped him line up a promotion to head coach with the Colts in 2012. He missed a large chunk of his first season in Indianapolis while undergoing treatment for leukemia, but the team still went 33-15 with three playoff berths across Pagano’s first three years in charge.
The 64-year-old said (via a team transcript) on Thursday that Colts owner Jim Irsay, who passed away last week, supported him through the health scare in 2012, but added that “nobody has any idea until you sit in that seat.”
Pagano could not maintain the Colts’ performance through repeated injuries to Andrew Luck and was fired in 2017 after missing the postseason for a third year in a row. He then replaced Vic Fangio as the Bears’ defensive coordinator in 2019 and retired after the 2020 season.
Pagano needed a break after COVID (“probably like everybody else in the world”) and said that rejoining John Harbaugh‘s staff was “probably the only opportunity that would get me off the couch.” He cited the media obligations of a head coach and his desire to spend more time connecting with his players as reasons to stay in an assistant role.