NFL hot seat index: which coaching jobs will open on Black Monday?
TThe NFL’s coaching carousel will officially open once the final slate of games concludes on Sunday. There are already three vacancies – the Jets, Saints and Bears – and Black Monday will likely bring at least four new vacancies. Let’s take a look at the hottest coaching seats in the league.
Jerod Mayo, New England Patriots
Replacing Bill Belichick was never going to be easy; Belichick controlled the entire Patriots building. But Jerod Mayo’s first season was a disaster. The new coach has botched his initial quarterback decision, struggled with in-game management, built a poor staff and is constantly undermined by communication errors.
There have been some doozies. From calling his team “soft‘, to tell running back Antonio Gibson that he would be the team’s starter for not start itto insist that there be “Nothing‘ what he can do for players as soon as they step onto the field. Even Nick Sirianni shudders at Mayo’s public comments.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft believed in Mayo’s promise so much that he secretly made the team’s former linebacker the winner. head coach in waiting long before it was clear Belichick was on his way out. But that belief has backfired. Mayo looks woefully out of depth, unable to withstand the pressure of a season or handle all the extracurricular activities a head coach has to deal with in addition to coaching on the grass. The Patriots lead the league in mental errors, pre-snap penalties, blown timeouts, special teams snafus and my totally fictional “did he really just say that?” stat. The The Foxborough crowd has already turned.
Adding to the heat though WHO is available to take over. Mike Vrabel, another former Patriots linebacker, is a free agent and he is reportedly interested in the New England job. By moving from Mayo to Vrabel, Kraft could save some face. He would still employ a former favorite player, but he could bring in someone with a proven track record as a culture builder and winner. Vrabel would find himself in a luxurious situation: The Patriots’ roster is barren, but they will have more than $120 million in cap space to pursue free agents this season, lead the race for the No. 1 overall pick in the draft and a potential franchise starting quarterback in Drake Maye. That is a solid basis for reconstruction.
Normally, a coach isn’t done until he goes from a losing record to incompetence. Mayo is squarely in the Nathaniel Hackett vortex. The only reason the Patriots would trust Mayo to make it from here is Kraft’s arrogance.
Hotseat meter: 9/10
Mike McCarthy, Dallas Cowboys
You have to hand this to Mike McCarthy: He has kept the Cowboys competitive since Dak Prescott was lost to injury for the season. Since Micah Parsons returned from his injury, Dallas’ defense has stepped up and the offense has been solid enough to hold games against playoff teams. Winning four of five games with Cooper Rush at quarterback should not be diminished.
Early in the season, it felt like a foregone conclusion that McCarthy would be out. The vultures circled. Agents were leaking. Now there is a steady drumbeat of speculation about McCarthy be able to has coached his way to a second chance, also from his own dressing room.
McCarthy isn’t an elite coach, but he’s solid. Are there better options? Certainly. But will a young, sharp, offensive mind, the kind of candidate Cowboys fans crave, be open to working under Dallas’ specific structure? Does Ben Johnson, the top candidate on the market, want to work for Jerry Jones? Even if the Cowboys move on from McCarthy, every report indicates Dallas will look for a renewed career as a veteran.
That could be a good thing! More than a smart X’s and O’s coach, the Cowboys need a cultural reset, if Jones is willing to step back and let a coach implement his style. But McCarthy can make a compelling case that he can be that man. The Cowboys have locked up their star players and don’t have much room to move in free agency this offseason. McCarthy has shown in recent seasons – and even at times this year – that he can leverage the Cowboys’ best stars. If anything, this season’s failure lies on the coach’s side, with a sloppy approach to last year’s free agency and the draft to blame, something Jones himself has admitted.
The Cowboys feeling like they need something new, a new voice to take Dak Prescott to another level and reshape their defense. And McCarthy’s contract expires this season, giving both sides a clean slate. But there’s a chance the team sifts through the list of prospects and ultimately brings McCarthy back for one final run.
Hotseat meter: 7/10
Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas Raiders
Aside from Brock Bowers, it was another miserable season for the Raiders. Owner Mark Davis has already declined to commit beyond this season to head coach Antonio Pierce, an interim coach who was given the full-time job last season.
Like McCarthy in Dallas, Pierce can point to failures above him as he pitches to keep his seat. The Raiders failed to address the quarterback position last year, sat out the top of the draft and opted to sign Gardner Minshew in free agency, who missed most of the season with an injury. Where would the Raiders be if they had signed Sam Darnold instead of Minshew? What if they could have made a trade in the draft for Michael Penix or Drake Maye, two moves they were reportedly looking at in the lead-up? They would have missed Bowers, already one of the top two players at his position in the league, but the medium-term prospects might have been brighter.
Instead, without a functional quarterback, the Raiders were listless on offense. Pierce falls into the category of a rah-rah coach who coaches with fear. Unlike Dan Campbell, who backs up his words with sharp fourth down calls and aggressive decisions, Pierce appears to be stuck in the 90s.
When he took the job, Pierce made noise for being the most physical team in the NFL. He wanted to run the ball and set up a suffocating defense. And defensively, the Raiders aren’t far off: They rank sixth in rush success rate and 13th in defensive EPA/play. Considering the talent available, that’s a damn good thing. But their offense has been a struggling, old-fashioned mess. They rank last in rushing EPA/play this season, by a margin that even puts the Seahawks to shame. Remember: this is a team that want to running the ball considers it their organizational identity. There is no greater indictment of Pierce’s tenure.
Hotseat meter: 9/10
Brian Daboll, New York Giants
Giants owner John Mara made a song and dance in October about retaining general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll. This week, he doubled. But the Giants have disintegrated into farce this year. Even with an excellent draft class, the Giants too often looked uncompetitive. To be fair, key parts of the team have been torn apart by long-term injuries, but there have also been plenty of self-inflicted wounds. The staff botched Daniel Jones’ benching, forcing them to release the veteran and take a cap hit. And this after an offseason in which they didn’t pay Saquon Barkley because they committed $40 million to their quarterback.
In a vacuum, you could argue that it was wise to move on from a $12 million running back after coughing up $40 million for a quarterback. But here, in the real world, far away from the spreadsheets, the Giants have been forced to watch Barkley march to a historic season as they scoot around trying to scrape together fourteen points.
Normally, such a decision would boost social media and sports talk radio. We like to think of franchises as smart and judge decisions on the process as much as the outcome. Firing everyone because of the fan and media backlash to letting Barkley walk is the kind of move you’d expect from a volatile owner, not Mara. But the indelible image of the Giants season will come from last season’s Hard Knocks: Mara sat like a child on a high chair, swinging his legs back and forth as he told his general manager that he Real doesn’t want Barkley to go elsewhere and return to his top form.
#Giants owner John Mara on Saquon Barkley may receive interest from the Eagles and Bears:
“I’ll have a hard time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I can tell you that. … He is BY FAR the most popular player we have.”pic.twitter.com/T0SJDIyHZH
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) July 17, 2024
“I’ll have a hard time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia,” Mara said. “I’ll tell you that… He’s by far the most popular player we have.” Phew. Maybe the talk show people are right about this.
Hotseat meter: 7/10
Doug Pederson, Jacksonville Jaguars
Doug Pederson was effectively fired after Jacksonville’s lackluster performance against the Bears in London in October. Since then, Pederson and the Jags have been playing out the series, waiting for a reset in the offseason. The Jags won nine games in each of Pederson’s first two years in charge. But this season they have collapsed.
Owner Shad Khan said before the season that this version of the Jaguars was “the best team put together under ownership.” But that best team was virtually eliminated from the play-off race in November. Since the London debacle, Jacksonville has been crushed by the Lions, hammered by the Jets, fallen to the Raiders and only has wins over the lowly Titans and Patriots.
The most intriguing decision will be whether Khan chooses to take on Jacksonville football czar Trent Baalke. Baalke has routinely failed in the draft and free agency, but retains ownership support as a general manager who can put things right. If Baalke remains in place, the number of candidates interested in the coaching job in Jacksonville will decrease.
Khan thought the pieces were in place for a special season. Now it’s time for a complete overhaul.
Hotseat meter: 10/10
Other coaches who may be on the hot seat: Shane Steichen, Indianapolis Colts; Mike McDaniel, Miami Dolphins; Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers; Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns; Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals