Fremantle and Justin Longmuir are bullish that they can buck the AFL trend and make an ongoing employment agreement work.
The Dockers have become the fourth club to move away from a contract for their senior coach.
Brendon Bolton was sacked from Carlton and David Noble suffered the same fate at North Melbourne, while Neil Craig went onto an agreement for the last year of his tenure at Adelaide.
Craig, the Crows' longest-serving coach, then resigned during his final season.
Longmuir was due to come out of contract at the end of the season and the new agreement was announced on Tuesday.
He will remain as coach without a fixed term, becoming a full-time staff member at the Dockers at the end of his current deal.
"We considered and understood that there was precedence," Dockers chief executive Simon Garlick said at their media conference.
"I have a high level of confidence that this is going to work."
It is a noteworthy turnaround from Freo, who had only offered the sixth-year coach a one-year extension last season, which ended with the Dockers losing the last four games to crash out of the finals race, finishing 10th.
While the Dockers have made the finals only once in Longmuir's five-year reign, they are seen as a likely top-eight side.
Longmuir and Garlick are comfortable with the new arrangement.
"Hopefully there comes a time we've won two or three flags and I can step away, promote someone else and ride off into the sunset. Whether we're successful or not, I'm happy with this contract," Longmuir said.
He added the move to ongoing employment removes the pressure of securing a new contract.
"I believe the variation better reflects the mechanisms that should be in place for coaches to ensure we have an adequate layer of protection and security for ourselves and our families," Longmuir said.
"The external expectation for us to perform and deliver success over the coming years is high, as it should be, and the nature of my contract doesn't change that.
"I'm as driven as ever to see this group succeed."
Garlick backed Longmuir to lead the club to a period of prolonged success.
"We are strongly invested in what we are building here at Fremantle and have high expectations on what we can achieve over the coming years," Garlick said in a statement.
"Following a number of discussions with Justin, it was clear that those expectations we set ourselves is what drives our ambitions and standards, not the length of a contract."
But equally if Fremantle struggle again this season, there is no guarantee that Longmuir will remain for 2026.
"Regardless of the contract type, whether it's a fixed term agreement or an ongoing employment arrangement that we've settled on, we're in a performance-based industry," Garlick said.
"Clearly performance along with a whole host of factors is a critical element of determining decisions that are made."
