Meet Your 2008 NFL Head Coaching Candidates: Jim Caldwell

With NFL head coaching jobs beginning to open, we'll profile some of the candidates to fill those openings.

Name: Jim Caldwell

Current job: Assistant head coach/quarterbacks coach, Indianapolis Colts

Past jobs: College assistant at Iowa, Southern Illinois, Northwestern, Colorado, Louisville and Penn State. Head coach, Wake Forest, 1993-2000; assistant coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2001

Pros: He coaches the quarterbacks in Indianapolis, and in case you haven't noticed, Indianapolis has had some pretty good production out of its quarterback . Colts coach Tony Dungy, who also had Caldwell on his staff in Tampa Bay, will lobby for Caldwell behind the scenes and give him all the time off he needs for interviews while the Colts are in the playoffs.

Cons: Went 26-63 in his eight years as head coach at Wake Forest.

Conclusions: The Falcons showed some interest in Caldwell before hiring Bobby Petrino last year and are expected to interview him again this year. The biggest problems, though, are the perception that Peyton Manning would look good no matter who was coaching him, and that record at Wake Forest. It's tough to sell your fans on a guy who had so little success the last time he was a head coach, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank desperately wants to get the fans excited about his team again.