Doug Pederson and 3 more head coaches who should be fired after Week 13

Things have gotten worse for the Jacksonville Jaguars, which somehow seems impossible in a situation where they are already one of the league’s worst teams. They lost Trevor Lawrence to a dirty hit from Aziz Al-Shaair and dropped their fifth-straight game. 

Over the bye week, there was speculation that Pederson and even GM Trent Baalke were going to be let go as things spiraled out of control in the Sunshine State. Yet, they were given the chance to fight for their jobs. 

And it seems Shad Khan is simply dragging them along before their inevitable demise on Black Monday, or the day after the regular season ends when underperforming coaches and staff find out they won’t be returning for the next season. 

Here’s some coaches that should be anxious about their standing with their respective teams after Week 13. 

Doug Pederson and 3 more head coaches who should be fired after Week 13

Doug Pederson, Jacksonville Jaguars

This is becoming a broken record. Jacksonville, despite losing it’s quarterback to injury again, haven’t looked anything close to what they’ve needed to coming out of the bye week. A division game against the struggling Houston Texans was supposed to be the perfect opportunity to show growth. 

Instead, it was the same old Jaguars with the same old issues and Pederson’s simply the one to blame for that. As I’ve said before, he’s just going through the motions at this point because it truly makes no sense to bring him back next season. 

Firing Pederson after the 2024 season is less about what happened this year and how the Jaguars have literally regressed each season since he’s been the coach. We’ve seen the best of Jacksonville under Pederson’s guise. For what it’s worth, he was handed an awful situation after Urban Meyer did his best to make this team as bad as possible. 

But he wasn’t hired to be a bridge coach to help Jacksonville just get back to the surface. He’s a Super Bowl winning coach. Khan brought Pederson to Florida to win. And that’s the one things he’s struggled with for the better part of the last two seasons. 

Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals

It’s time to start having this conversation, Bengals fans. While it’s unrealistic because Mike Brown is loyal to a fault when it comes to their coaches – i.e. the Marvin Lewis era – it’s a move that has gained some traction over the last few weeks. 

Part of that falls on Zac Taylor reaching the Super Bowl in his third year, had back-to-back AFC title game appearances and two division titles. But last season marred with injuries, the Bengals were last in the division, despite having a winning record. And this year, they’re a win in Cleveland shy of being at the bottom of the division for the second straight year. 

This season, seven of their eight losses are by one possession. And usually that comes down to a coaching decision throughout the game. The Bengals defense has been suspect all season, but this is a wasted season otherwise. Joe Burrow is playing his best football, arguably in his career. 

Yet he has just four wins to show for it and on top of that, none of those wins are against teams with a winning record. 

Mike Brown probably won’t pull the plug on Taylor, it’s not his nature of how he’s run the Bengals. The Bengals would have to play far worse than they are now for Brown to even consider that. 

Brian Daboll, New York Giants

Brian Daboll is very much in the same situation as Pederson. It’s not likely he’ll be around for the team’s rebuild; he’s simply on borrowed time. When he opted to bench Daniel Jones, then release him and go back and forth between Tommy DeVito and Drew Lock, it made it clear his days were numbered. 

The worst part, even rookie wide receiver Malik Nabors realizes the problems within the Giants’ locker room and organization doesn’t lie within the players. Which only leaves the coaching staff and front office as the culprits. 

It’s even possible Joe Schoen is on the hot seat as well. That said, the Giants’ Thanksgiving Day loss to the Dallas Cowboys somehow making it possible Dallas can land in the playoffs, which was further proof he’s not the right coach to lead this team. 

Who that person is, well that’s up to Schoen (if he’s around) and the rest of the Giants’ front office to decide. But either way, Daboll is inching closer and closer to unemployment with each week and each loss. 

Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas Raiders

Antonio Pierce was in an unfortunate situation this season. The Raiders weren’t aggressive in getting their quarterback for the future and lost Aidan O’Connell, who for all intents and purposes looks like he could be their savior, for a few weeks. They had to turn to Gardner Minshew and that didn’t work either. 

Now at 2-10, the only person responsible for the Raiders struggles is Pierce. As stated in a FOX Sports article, Pierce was given the job after serving as interim coach last year because he restored faith and belief in a team that looked lost. 

The Raiders are in the same position they were a year ago and it seems not even Pierce can revive this team. That’s the one thing he was good at and what earned him the full time job. If he can’t rally his team when they’re at their worst, he certainly won’t be able to bring them out of that pit and back to a level of sustainability.