Ben Johnson
It will be 2028 before we get over our Cap issues. That is a lot of seasons for a coach to be playing with other people's players, especially players that are always hurt and B level players at best. Ben Johnson or anyone like him won't come here.
It won't be that long. A few guys here already looked at it and it can be done in another two years. Most of the issues are over once Jordan, Davis, Hill, and Carr are off the books. That should be done in about 2 years.
Regardless there is always the option of kicking the can again at some point if its necessary and the solution to the depth and middle of the roster issues are in drafting better, not having more cap space. Cap space is to sign your own good player when they run out of contract. Trying to build a team is free agency doesn't really work. The best teams are built in the draft not by spending cap space in free agency so if a coach feels he needs all that cap space to build a team, then he's probably not going to be a good head coach anyway.
Very seldom does someone turn down an NFL head coach job. There are only 32 of them and only a few available each year. And they all pay huge money.
And again, every job that will be open has major issues. There will be a good candidate who will be willing to take the job. Maybe not Ben Johnson, but frankly, if he turns down all the jobs this year, maybe he just doesn't have the confidence needed to be a head coach. Not all great coordinators are cut out to be head coaches and maybe deep down inside Johnson knows he isn't.
What job do you think is really a much better situation than this one? Jacksonville? Hardly. The Jets? Certainly not. What great job do you think is going to come open?
People said the same thing about the OC job this offseason that no good candidate was going to want to come here and we would be stuck with Ronald Curry by default. And they said it for all the same reasons expressed in this thread. They wrong wrong about that and they will be wrong about this.