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.
7
Jeff Saturday, Indianapolis Colts
Saturday shouldn’t qualify for this list as an interim head coach. But hoooo buddy, it’s time to take stock of just what a bad idea this was from a competitive standpoint. After beating another member of this list in Week 10, the Colts …
- blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead against the Eagles.
- blew a one-point fourth quarter lead against the then 3-7 Steelers.
- gave up 33 fourth quarter points in a 54-19 loss to the Cowboys.
- blew the biggest lead in NFL history by letting the Vikings battle back from a 33-0 halftime deficit.
- gained 173 total yards in a 20-3 loss to the Chargers and their 19th-ranked defense.
- lost 38-10 to the New York Giants.
On the plus side, the Colts have gone from the periphery of the playoff race to what’s currently projected to be the fifth overall pick. That’s likely high enough to snag a franchise quarterback in the first round of next year’s draft — and finally give Indianapolis a proper Andrew Luck replacement.
6
Dennis Allen, New Orleans Saints
The Saints are paying the bill after years of accruing salary cap debt by pushing player salaries onto future seasons, thanks to the creative accounting of general manager Mickey Loomis. New Orleans, already in rough shape, is estimated to be more than $65 million over next year’s projected $225 million cap, per Over The Cap. The only quarterback under contract is Jameis Winston and the team has already traded away its 2023 first round draft pick.
This is all to suggest that Allen, the man behind a frustrating 7-9 campaign, may get to keep his job for reasons beyond the team’s recent three-game winning streak. New Orleans exists in competitive limbo; too good to bottom out (though it wouldn’t have made a difference in 2022 without a pending Day 1 pick) and too bad to truly compete. This could provide a respite for Allen, the coordinator promoted to take Sean Payton’s vacated seat but unable to replicate his predecessor’s results.
That lack of expectations — a gap year in what Saints executives hope will be a resume of sustained success — could give Allen the opportunity to make chicken salad from chicken scratch. Or it could saddle him with another losing team and a fresh start for the coach that succeeds him with a chunk of cap space and a first round draft pick in 2024. Either way, replacing Allen right now doesn’t make much sense — even if his results on the field are uninspiring.
5
Ron Rivera, Washington Commanders
Rivera is a good head coach. He is respected in his locker room. He’s proven capable of making the Commanders more than the sum of their parts.
But he’s also never coached Washington to a winning record. His gamble to re-insert Carson Wentz back in the starting lineup for a must-win Week 17 game vs. the Cleveland Browns ended in a resounding thud and a 24-10 loss. Even worse, he appeared to be unaware the Commanders could be eliminated from the playoff race that afternoon.
Here is the video. I wanted to know if Howell is in consideration for next week. Turns out Rivera coached the entire day not knowing that WSH could be eliminated by night’s end.pic.twitter.com/3K2108VKYY.
— Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) January 1, 2023
Will that spell the end of Rivera’s tenure? Seeing as he’s one of the few bright spots for a toxic franchise he likely deserves another chance — especially if his team can sign a viable quarterback this offseason. But the results haven’t been there under Rivera. It could spell the end of his tenure in the D.C. area.
4
Josh McDaniels, Las Vegas Raiders
McDaniels has the support of team owner Mark Davis. He is also 6-10 in his Las Vegas debut, the architect of a middling offense and the only coach Jeff Saturday has beaten above the high school level.
The Raiders have been stacking come-from-ahead losses like cordwood under McDaniels, who is 4-9 in games decided by six points or fewer. This includes:
- allowing the Cardinals (currently 4-12) to come back from a 20-0 deficit.
- allowing the Chiefs to come back from 17-0.
- allowing the Jaguars to come back from 20-0.
- allowing Baker Mayfield and the Rams to come back from 16-3 in the game’s final 3:30 (!).
- allowing the Steelers to come back from 10-3 in the fourth quarter.
McDaniels has shown the ability to draw up useful game scripts. He found a way to turn Jarrett Stidham into a viable starting quarterback against the 49ers’ swarming defense in Week 17. He’s given Josh Jacobs the latitude to emerge as one of the NFL’s top running backs. There are several factors working in his favor as a head coach.
But he’s also unable to make in-game adjustments or build levees as the tide of a game shifts against him. McDaniels has taken his second turn as a head coach to prove he’s a man with good ideas and poor management. Davis seems keen to give him a second year — but if Sean Payton expresses interest in the job, would Las Vegas fight to keep the guy who finds ways to lose more than ways to win?
3
Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Bowles is a division champion for the first time in his six-year career as an NFL head coach. Unfortunately, that division is the 2022 NFC South.
Credit the Buccaneers for making the playoffs, but using Tom Brady to out-duel quarterbacks like Sam Darnold, Andy Dalton and Marcus Mariota is an especially low bar to clear. Tampa Bay crushed the Dallas Cowboys into a tiny pellet in Week 1 but are 1-6 against teams with records of .500 or better since. A home playoff game looms, but unless Brady can create more postseason magic — always a distinct possibility — the Bucs will be one-and-done in the Wild Card round.
Would Bowles, a fill-in option meant to provide stability following Bruce Arians’ surprising offseason retirement well after the coaching carousel had stopping spinning, shoulder the blame for any such disappointment? Would the franchise use the opportunity for a fresh coaching search — and the possible start of the post-Brady era — to install someone new?
To his credit, some of the reasons for Tampa’s decline are out of Bowles’ control. His offensive line was depleted by free agency, then injury as an aging Brady has constantly searched for shorter passes that get the ball out of his hands before he can get hit — Brady’s average target distance of 6.6 yards downfield is by far the lowest of his career since 2015 when SIS began tracking that stat. His run game is the least efficient in the NFL.
Additionally Bowles, the coordinator behind the defense that stifled the Chiefs in Super Bowl 55, has also overseen a top 10 unit that’s held half its opponents to 16 points or fewer this season. But that group has also been responsible for inconsistent performances that have helped quarterbacks like Brock Purdy and Sam Darnold put together strong games. Bowles deserves another round with a full offseason to plan as the team’s top guy. Whether or not he’ll get one after a disheveled year is a different story.
2
Lovie Smith, Houston Texans
Smith wasn’t brought to Houston to win games. He was hired to fill a gap, ensure a high draft pick and aid in a rebuild that will likely take place without him.
Granted, the Texans haven’t said as much, but it’s one of the few viable reasons the franchise would hire a coach who:
- went 8-24 in his previous NFL stint and
- had been fired by the University of Illinois after a 17-39 record in four-plus years.
Would Houston move on from the veteran head coach after one season? It did last year when David Culley, an even more off-the-radar hire than Smith, was served his walking papers after a somehow-above-expectations 4-13 campaign. The 2023 season will almost certainly feature a rookie quarterback who’ll need the right environment to develop. Smith’s record with young passers, from Jay Cutler to Mike Glennon to Jameis Winston and now Davis Mills isn’t especially optimistic.
On the other hand, this is a multi-year rebuild. The Texans are still an unlikely contender for next fall, even with some nice young players and more than $46 million in estimated salary cap space. Could another season of lowered expectations be in Houston’s plans?
1
Kliff Kingsbury
With Rhule and Hackett already gone, Kingsbury appears to be the only sure thing among this year’s crop of fireable coaches. While he was 11-6 just a year earlier, his track record of late-season slides and 2022’s bottoming-out should spell the end of his time in Arizona despite the fact he signed a contract extension last spring.
In four seasons with the Cardinals, Kingsbury is 6-15 in games played in December and January. In his last three years he’s 7-18 after November 7. He couldn’t keep Kyler Murray’s hot start to 2021 rolling and the young quarterback backslid considerably in 2022 before a torn ACL ended his season — his passer rating dropped from 100.6 to a career-worst 87.2 this fall.
But Murray just signed a contract extension with $189.5 million guaranteed, so he’s locked into the Cardinals until at least 2027. Jettisoning Kingsbury won’t be cheap, but paying whatever balance remains on his deal — coaching salaries aren’t made public — won’t have an effect on the team’s salary cap and can be offset should he get hired elsewhere. When push comes to shove (in the midst of a 4-12 season, it has) Kingsbury is much easier to leave behind than Murray.
That’s the most likely outcome after breaking a five-year playoff drought then shrinking to the worst record of the Kingsbury era. Rather than innovate NFL passing offenses, Kingsbury proved incapable of adjusting on the fly or keeping pace with the rest of the NFC. It’s time for a fresh start in Arizona.
