Tag: fireable coach rankings

The 2022 season was a grim one for NFL head coaches.

Three coaches were fired in season as the Carolina Panthers’ Matt Rhule, Indianapolis Colts’ Frank Reich and Denver Broncos’ Nathaniel Hackett were summarily told to hit the bricks before they could hang a new calendar in their office.

The start of 2023 promises to be similarly rough. Black Monday is the colloquial term for the first day after the regular season concludes and teams outside the playoffs are forced to reckon with their failures. That’s the day most struggling coaches are informed their services are no longer needed. While this year’s early firings have pared that list down from its most obvious candidates, January 9 promises to be the last day at work for at least one overwhelmed playbook author.

Who won’t be coming back for next season? There are several coaches who’ll wake up nervous Monday morning — but in the end, Black Monday may not be the extinction event it has been in the past. Here are the candidates to watch.

The first round of our fireable head coach rankings debuted with an obvious name at No. 1. Poor Matt Rhule was saddled with the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL, failed to turn them into something better and was fired after two-plus seasons, 38 games, and 11 wins.

He was the first firing of 2022. He won’t be the last. This season has been the backdrop to disappointing performances and baffling decisions that will have some familiar faces and new hires under the microscope as Black Monday — the day after the regular season ends that winds up the backdrop to most coach firings — approaches.

Who’s in trouble this winter? Well, most of the AFC West, it turns out. Let’s dig in.

Job security is mostly a mirage for NFL head coaches. While some mainstays are effectively employed for life — Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, Pete Carroll — the majority of the league’s play-callers are subject to constant review and criticism.

18 weeks of the regular season all lead to one decisive moment for the league’s struggling coaches: Black Monday. That’s the day that, with a frustrating regular season in the books, franchises either decide to clear the decks or give a downtrodden coach one more chance to steer the ship in the right direction.

The 2022 season is still in its infancy, but with four weeks of results and in some cases years of disappointment to back them up, we have a good idea which coaches will have to sweat out Black Monday and who may not even make it that far. The first month of the season presented a blank canvas for bad decisions. These six coaches took that opportunity to create art.