This is the time of year when NFL owners get nervous. They begin to realize their teams have no hope. They watch the losses pile up. They see players start to rebel. And worst of all, they see their disgruntled paying customers stop filling their seats.
This is always when owners start to panic and talk themselves into abandoning whatever their plan once was. And even coaches who were promised they’d be safe for the rest of the season suddenly don’t feel safe at all. As owners start to get jittery, and listen to people tell them of better options, they’re often much more inclined in December and January to give in to their instincts to blow everything up.
Two NFL coaches have already felt their owner’s wrath this season. More are likely to feel it before this season is over. And once it ends, the floodgates could really be open.
So with time literally running out on some of them, here is the FOX Sports bi-weekly ranking of the seven hottest coaching seats in the league, heading into Week 13:
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1. Doug Pederson, Jacksonville Jaguars (Previous ranking: 1st)
It is stunning, really, that the 56-year-old survived the bye week given the deteriorating circumstances with his team. They had lost four in a row, were blown out 52-6 by the Detroit Lions right before the break, and had scored just 13 points in the last two games.
So what is owner Shahid Khan waiting for? Why is he clinging to a coach that’s won just three of his last 16 games? Certainly, nobody around the NFL believes it’s because Pederson is safe. He is still a sure bet to be fired the day after the season is over, if not before. One theory making the rounds is that Khan wants to ride this stormy season out in hopes that his beleaguered team ends up with the No. 1 overall draft pick for the third time in the last five years.
That, the theory goes, will make the job more attractive to the coach he really wants to hire: Former Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
2. Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas Raiders (Previous ranking: 3rd)
The big coaching staff shakeup he made during the bye week didn’t work. They’ve lost twice since then and now have lost six straight games. They’ve also now lost starting quarterback Gardner Minshew for the season, so things aren’t likely going to get any better anytime soon.
Pierce was hired in large part because of the way he motivated his players and got them to rally around him when he was the interim coach. But they look lifeless now and it’ll be hard for him to rally them at all during the last six weeks of a miserable season.
Owner Mark Davis is almost certain to clean house and start over with a new coach for the new quarterback they have to take with their first-round pick. The only question is: When?
3. Brian Daboll, New York Giants (Previous ranking: 5th)
He already got the “vote of confidence” for the rest of the season and an almost-promise that he wouldn’t be fired in the offseason. But over the last decade, Giants owner John Mara has proven to be a very reactionary owner. And the disaster he witnessed on Sunday is the kind of thing that leads to those reactions.
It’s not just that the Giants were lifeless in a 30-7 loss at home to the Bucs. It’s that the players basically rebelled in the locker room afterward. Star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence called the team “soft.” Star rookie receiver Malik Nabers went further, calling them “soft as f—k”. He also questioned Daboll’s game plan, which included no passes being thrown his way in the first half.
Almost every player who spoke sounded defeated, deflated and completely void of hope. And the few fans who bothered to show up surely felt the same way.
Mara, according to multiple sources in the organization, really doesn’t want to fire Daboll after cycling through five coaches in the last nine years. But it might be hard to talk him out of it if this continues.
4. Matt Eberflus, Chicago Bears (Previous ranking: 2nd)
They showed a lot of promise taking the Minnesota Vikings to overtime on Sunday, but the result was still the same. They’ve now lost five straight games since they went into their bye week with a 4-2 record. And now they play four of their last six on the road and don’t face a single non-contender the rest of the way.
The good news is their young franchise quarterback, Caleb Williams, played the best game of his short career on Sunday, throwing for 340 yards and two touchdowns. He hadn’t thrown a touchdown pass since Oct. 13, though to be fair he also hasn’t thrown an interception since then either.
Williams has been very up and down all season long, though he obviously reacted well to Eberflus’ decision to change offensive coordinators two weeks ago. The bottom line for the coaching staff will be whether general manager Ryan Poles believes they are the right group — and Eberflus is the right man — to keep developing Williams. That’s the key to the Bears’ future and to whether Eberflus can keep his job.
5. Mike McCarthy, Dallas Cowboys (Previous ranking: 4th)
The Cowboys’ wild win in Washington certainly wasn’t pretty, but they’ll take any wins they can get nowadays. And they sure do look headed for another one on Thanksgiving Day against the deteriorating New York Giants. Don’t dismiss the significance of the Cowboys not falling to 0-6 at home on the season.
If that happens, the Cowboys would get to 5-7 overall. They’re not making a playoff run — not with Dak Prescott out for the season — but they don’t exactly have a tough schedule the rest of the way so they could still end up with a less-than-humiliating record. And showing a little fight the rest of the season could go a long way for owner Jerry Jones.
Would it be enough to save McCarthy? Jones can be stubborn with his coaches. Multiple league sources, though, still think it’s telling that Jones never offered McCarthy a contract extension beyond the end of the season and that a parting is inevitable. But the door for a return might be open slightly if they can pull off a few more wins.
6. Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals (Previous ranking: 6th)
What an absolute waste of talent this team has been this year. Both quarterback Joe Burrow and receiver Ja’Marr Chase are having phenomenal seasons and they’ve been good enough to take some of the NFL’s best teams right down to the wire.
Yet they constantly keep coming up short, like they did against the Chargers right before the bye, and the Ravens right before that (for the second time this season). Worse for Taylor, after they blew the end of the game against the Chargers, Chase was asked why the Bengals can’t finish games. His answer: “I don’t call plays for us.”
That doesn’t exactly exude confidence in his coach.
Their only hope now is to win at least five of their final six games, which at this point seems unreasonable to expect. When they fall short, owner Mike Brown has to take a hard look at Taylor and ask himself if he wants to waste another year of Burrow’s career.
7. Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns (Previous ranking: 7th)
Their win over the Steelers in the snow on Thursday night was definitely a big help for the fifth-year coach. Faith in him was teetering after they were blown out in New Orleans four days earlier when they came out of their bye, so he really needed this one.
His biggest problem, though, is that the Browns’ schedule the rest of the season is absolutely brutal. They play four of their last six games on the road — at Denver, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Baltimore. And their two home games are against the Dolphins and the Chiefs.
There’s not a soft spot anywhere. And an 0-6 finish, which would give them a 3-14 record, isn’t just possible — it actually seems likely.
It also doesn’t help Stefanski that he and Deshaun Watson, the franchise quarterback and albatross, haven’t found any success together yet. And with the franchise anchored to Watson for two more seasons, thanks to his nutty contract, the Browns might have to consider bringing someone in who can get a little more out of their $230 million (fully guaranteed) man.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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