COACHES' JOB SEARCH ABOUT SUPPLY, DEMAND.

Byline: BILLY WITZ

If Thanksgiving is all about turkey, stuffing, holiday sales and more football than you can shake a drumstick at, it also marks the beginning of something else for coaches: job-hunting season.

There may not be any interviews until the end of the NFL regular season, just after New Year's Day, and all the hiring may not be done until after the Super Bowl, but this is when the angling begins in earnest.

The first signs came recently with word that two college football coaches on the hot list of NFL executives - Iowa's Kirk Ferentz and Cal's Jeff Tedford - have contract extensions either signed or in the works that, with incentives, could pay them in the $2 million range.

Predictably, this prompts talk locally that they won't be going anywhere, thus satisfying alumni and mollifying recruits, as recruiting season kicks into gear. Of course, what it really means is they haven't yet been asked by the NFL - or at least not by the right team.

Then there are those who don't need to be asked - or told. It was so clearly spelled out to Miami coach Dave Wannstedt that he was finished, he turned in his playbook three weeks ago.

That same writing is on the wall in Cleveland, where Butch Davis has, according to reports, made third-party inquiries into the vacant University of Florida job.

When it was reported this week that Browns owner Randy Lerner was considering whacking Davis after Sunday's loss to the Jets, the club announced that it expected Davis to finish the season. In the NFL, that passes for long-term commitment.

Not that Davis has done much to engender any confidence. If his 24-35 record isn't enough, the pregame brawl with the Steelers and quarterback Jeff Garcia's criticism of Davis don't give the impression of a coach in control of his team.

Also on the outs is Saints coach Jim Haslett, who won the NFL's Coach of the Year award in 2000 - and perhaps a lifetime achievement award for guiding New Orleans to the only playoff win in franchise history.

Those Coach of the Year awards don't count for much. If Haslett is fired, he'll join other recent ``winners'' to get axed: Dick Jauron in Chicago, Dan Reeves in Atlanta, Jim Fassel with the Giants, Dom Capers in Carolina and Ray Rhodes in Philadelphia.

Their present standing excepted, this can't be good news for the last two winners, Andy Reid and Bill Belichick.

All this activity belies what should be a relatively slow season. This is based on two factors: supply and demand.

First, those three jobs may be the only ones open. Now it's possible that Dennis Erickson, who didn't sign up for a reconstruction project in San Francisco, could want to get back in the college game at Washington, which is in his hometown, Seattle. Or that Al Davis makes Norv Turner his second firing in two years - the Raider owner has whacked all three coaches who have lost 10 games (Tom Flores, Joe Bugel, Bill Callahan).

Also, the three struggling seniors - Bill Parcells, Joe Gibbs and Dick Vermeil - could walk away, although Vermeil said last week he'd return next season. Or if the underachieving Seahawks and Rams fail to get in gear, Mike Holmgren and Mike Martz could be called in for some explaining.

Yet those are all long, long shots.

One of the reasons there won't be more changes is because there have been so many of late. Eighteen of the 32 coaches haven't completed a third season with their team, and those are generally the teams that are struggling.

In the NFC, of the nine teams with a losing record, six are coached by first- or second-year coaches. Two others, Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden and Carolina's John Fox, have been to the past two Super Bowls. The remaining one is Haslett.

It's roughly the same in the AFC, in which three of the eight sub-.500 teams have a first- or second-year coach. Then there's the well-respected Vermeil and Tennessee's Jeff Fisher, and Capers, who is running an expansion team in Houston. The remaining ones are Davis and interim Miami coach Jim Bates.

So while supply looks to be down, demand should be tepid, too. Even if the 49ers and/or Raiders open up, who would want those jobs - not to mention Miami and New Orleans?

In Miami, an old, creaky roster needs an overhaul - and a quarterback would be nice, too. In New Orleans and San Francisco, if only the defenses were as tight as owners Tom Benson and John York. In Oakland, well, enough said.

Suddenly, working in Cleveland never looked so attractive.

The speculation there is that Lerner will hire Patriots personnel director Scott Pioli as general manager. He'll then bring in either Ferentz, with whom he worked under Belichick in Cleveland, New England defensive coordinator Romeo Crenel or offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, who is also being mentioned as a candidate in New Orleans.

The coaches who aren't inclined to jump at the money - or an opportunity they think might be their last - figure to sit this one out: Nick Saban, Jim Fassel, Tedford and Pete Carroll among them.

It's one thing to get an NFL job and, as recent practices tell us, quite another to keep it. In Carroll's case, he may be content to sit around Heritage Hall polishing national championship trophies while waiting for the NFL to return to Los Angeles.

In the meantime, the current job market is beginning to look increasingly like the weather, making for a chilly holiday season all the way around.

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NFL WEEK 12

- Daily News Wire Services