Okay, now that I got your attention, let me admit that I have no real knowledge of the situation and I'm speculating. Here is why I think that Chudzinski is the likely hire for our new OC. I base this on two facts:
- We haven't heard about any interviews. It is almost impossible to hide if someone flies in for an interview or if Hafley ends up in some weird location to talk to someone. Note that I'm not saying that we would necessarily hear about an interview with the ultimate hire, just that we would hear about interviews.
- Nobody can get any information about other candidates. That is also almost unheard of. Agents leak the fact that their guy is a candidate for an open position like this even if all they get is a courtesy or "would he be interested" type of call. Any excuse to get their guy's name out there is good enough.
Based on #1 and #2 above, I conclude it is an inside candidate. That is the only way you wouldn't have heard more about external candidates. And the only inside candidate that makes any sense is Chudzinski. The only hesitation I have in this conclusion is why they haven't already announced it, since there is no hangup on that. My conclusion is that there are going to be other staff shakeups as well, and they want those finalized before they announce everything as a package. Because they already have their guy, there is no reason to rush an announcement. And for anyone that says "but why wouldn't he have just taken the position last year", my answer is that he is smart enough to know that this year was going to be a mess so he turned it down at the time but now he feels better about his chances of being successful and is ready to lean in.
So there you have it. Mystery solved.
