Black Monday will be here before you know it, and these NFL head coaches should be worried.
Black Monday is only two weeks away, as these NFL head coaches should be feeling the heat.
Thus far, only two teams will have new head coaches next season. The Las Vegas Raiders will replace Jon Gruden permanently. While Rich Bisaccia has done well in the interim, the Silver and Black may look to upgrade over their special teams coordinator. And then there’s the Jacksonville Jaguars mess that saw Urban Meyer get fired after only 13 games on the job. They are terrible!
With between six-to-eight head coaches usually getting the ax in the offseason, who should be nervous about keeping their jobs behind this season?
NFL hot seat watch: What coaches should be feeling the heat after Week 16?
Vic Fangio is a great defensive coordinator, but it might be time for a change
Though the Denver Broncos are still alive for an AFC Wild Card berth, it is certainly trending in the direction that this proud franchise will miss the postseason for an unthinkable sixth year in a row. Denver has not been to the playoffs since winning Super Bowl 50 over the Carolina Panthers will Peyton Manning riding off into the sunset. Will Vic Fangio get a fourth year on the job in Denver?
This really comes down to if new general manager George Paton thinks he is the right man for the job. Paton knows he needs to draft a franchise quarterback if Denver wants to get out of irrelevancy in the AFC West standings. While it is established how good of a defensive mind Fangio is, we have to wonder if this is as good as it gets with him being the franchise’s head coach?
While Denver could go either way with Fangio, these next two coaches are really feeling the heat.
Will the Vikings rip the Mike Zimmer band-aid off if they miss the NFC playoffs?
The Minnesota Vikings find themselves in a relatively similar situation with their head coach Mike Zimmer as the Broncos do with Fangio. Interestingly enough, Minnesota is where Paton came from before taking over the Denver front office. Though the Vikings had great success with Zimmer, it might be time for a change of Minnesota fails to get in as a NFC Wild Card team.
The biggest difference between Minnesota and Denver is the Vikings have a proven commodity at quarterback, albeit a limited one in Kirk Cousins. Minnesota has more on-field talent than Denver, but the results have been similar. A change at the helm might help close the gap on the Green Bay Packers, while the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions are clearly in rebuilding modes in-division.
Doubt has to have entered David Tepper’s mind about Matt Rhule as head coach
While it usually takes two or three years for Matt Rhule to get a team right, we have to wonder if Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper has the patience to give his head coach a third year on the job. After a promising 3-0 start, the Panthers have lost 10 of their last 12 games. The quarterback play has been horrendous and wunderkind offensive coordinator Joe Brady has already been fired.
Though the Panthers play in the same division as the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it is not like the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints have been world beaters. Even if Atlanta and New Orleans do not reach the playoffs, they are still alive entering Week 17, something the 5-10 Panthers cannot claim. Is Rhule’s reign in the Queen City coming to an end?
Though Zimmer and Rhule might be looking for new jobs, they have a better chance at retaining their posts than these two other head coaches.
Sadly, the game seems to have passed Pete Carroll by, as this thing is so over
How did we even end up here? Pete Carroll is a hall-of-fame head coach at both levels, college and pro. He won a Super Bowl leading the Seattle Seahawks and went to another. Carroll oversaw the most successful run in franchise history. Even without a ton of talent most years, this franchise almost always saw itself in the NFC playoffs. Now at 5-10 after a Chicago Bears loss, it is so over.
As painful as it sounds, the game has passed Carroll by. This franchise is in dire need of a reboot, which would require Carroll to resign from this post and embrace retirement, as well as franchise quarterback Russell Wilson leaving the Pacific Northwest to close out the final third of his hall of fame career. Either way, Seattle has to accept its best years are behind it to move forward in 2022.
Not even a harsh Chicago winter can cool down Matt Nagy’s hottest of hot seats
It does not matter one damn bit if the Chicago Bears beat the Seahawks by a point on the road; they stink! Because the McCaskeys are too proud to fire their lame duck head coach Matt Nagy before the end of the season, the NFL world will have to suffer through two more weekends before Bears ownership finally pulls the plug on this never-ending head-coaching catastrophe.
Even though the Bears won games in his first three years on the job, you could tell very early on it was not going to work out. Nagy is an offensive-minded head coach and the Bears offense was regularly the hardest watch for the better part of an olympiad. This team must get the right head coach and general manager to build a winner with Justin Fields. Nothing else matters for Chicago.
If the McCaskeys allow Nagy to keep coaching their team, then they are no better than the New York Giants, who still think the Joe Judge/Daniel Jones pairing is something worth investing in.