Millennial minds: How Doyle, Udinski leapt to head of OC class - ESPN

At age 22, when Declan Doyle arrived in New Orleans in 2019 shortly after getting hired for his first NFL job as an offensive assistant, he wrote down some of his goals and aspirations on sticky notes that he bunched around a mirror.

One of the messages read: «Youngest NFL coordinator in history, February 2024.»

When Doyle was hired to become the Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator in 2025, he remembered that note and thought to himself, «Oh, I was a year late.»

Doyle's obsessive determination is why he is leading the charge with the new generation of offensive coordinators, which is a storyline for Thursday's game between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video). Doyle, who is in his first season as the playcaller for the Ravens at age 30, and the Jaguars' Grant Udinski (also 30) are among nine NFL offensive coordinators who are 35 years old or younger.

These members of Generation Y represent a young wave in the NFL that has nearly doubled in size in a year. With five offensive coordinators 35 or younger in 2025, that number has grown in 2026 to include Doyle, Udinski, Denver's Davis Webb, Washington's David Blough, Cleveland's Travis Switzer, Philadelphia's Sean Mannion, Atlanta's Tommy Rees, Carolina's Brad Idzik and Los Angeles Rams' Nate Scheelhaase.

Their experiences this season range widely: guiding high-scoring offenses, getting stripped of playcalling duties, going from being celebrated to criticized and dealing with multiple quarterback changes. But all of these millennial minds born in the 1990s have proven to be young and relentless, rising rapidly to the role of offensive architects because of their connections, creativity and sacrifice.

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