The NFL is a cold business. Once you start to slip, your job is on the line.
Of course, that doesn’t entirely apply to head coaches. You can be an abject disaster and get fired, of course, but you can also work your way back into a top job regardless of credentials simply by sticking around or appearing interesting. Lovie Smith and Kyle Kingsbury were both fired after losing records as college head coaches and parlayed those struggled into top NFL roles within two seasons. Sure, neither one worked out, but there’s a lot more leeway once you’ve established your name as a play caller than there is as a player.
That leaves plenty of room for failure. Some coaches truly commit to exploring that space. This is a column about them.
By some combination of circumstance and poor decision making, these are the coaches who’ve racked up the most fireable offenses through three weeks. Some have the job security to shake off a rough start. Others may not. So let’s see who has disappointed the most through three games.
1
Sean Payton, Denver Broncos
Let’s slap the caveat right here so no one misses it. Sean Payton is not getting fired. He’s under contract for five years at something approaching $18 million annually. The Waltons own the Broncos. They aren’t going to toss that kind of cash and cache away after one, or two, years of underwhelming results.
Heck, even if he was some fairly anonymous coordinator he’d probably be safe. One-and-done coaches remain a rarity in the NFL and the only team to do it in back-to-back seasons in the past 30 years was the Houston Texans, who were deeply unserious about everything other than losing between 2021 and 2022. Nathaniel Hackett had to go because he was a mess in nearly every facet of his job and a relative unknown whose release wouldn’t spark an uproar. Payton is not that.
But he’s also not doing what he was hired to do. Payton lobbed some accurate criticism at Hackett’s playcalling and management during the offseason, but Hackett was 2-1 at this point and, notably, had given up 36 points total. Payton is 0-3 and had given up more than 36 points to the Miami Dolphins midway through the third quarter of their Week 3 blowout.
Let’s start with his most glaring failure. Fixing Russell Wilson has been a decidedly different task than managing the late stages of the other undersized, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Payton coached. While Wilson’s raw numbers are up significantly from his lost 2022 season he’s yet to convince the world he’s back. While Wilson has been strong working off Payton’s early, well-planned game scripts he’s fallen off hard in the more improvisational, audible-heavy environments that follow halftime.
Russell Wilson in the first half, Weeks 1-3: 9.0 yards per pass, five touchdowns, zero interceptions, 135.6 rating
0.458 expected points added (EPA) per play (second best in the NFL), 18.4 completion percentage over expected (CPOE, best in the NFL), Broncos outscored 47-59
Russell Wilson in the second half: 6.3 yards per pass, one touchdown, two interceptions, 63.4 rating
-0.111 EPA/play (30th), -4.3 CPOE (24th), Broncos outscored 63-22
It’s tough to call that a trend after three data points, especially when the third game’s second half boiled down to effectively 30 minutes of garbage time, but it’s still troubling.
What’s worse is that a defense that had been borderline elite in 2022 has backslid terribly. The Broncos gave Wilson the chance to win repeatedly in year one, holding opponents to 19 points or fewer nine times in their first 12 games (after which it became clear this was a disaster and the dam burst). That group ranked ninth in EPA/play allowed at a solid -0.042. This year, however, that number is 0.346. That’s dead last in the NFL by a wide margin.
That’s bad! That’s so bad!
Fortunately, Payton has engineered a defensive turnaround before; his Saints teams ranked 31st or 32nd in three of his final eight seasons. He was eventually able to right the ship and get New Orleans back to the postseason, though he also had current Saints head coach Dennis Allen on the sideline to guide his defense back to prominence. In 2023 he’s replaced rising star Ejiro Evero with Vance Joseph at defensive coordinator to little effect.
Joseph will be the one who shoulders the public blame and gets fired if this stinkfest continues, but the sheen of Payton’s Saints run will be dulled. There’s obviously still time for a fix, particularly with an offense that explodes in fits and starts, but it’s tough to imagine a worse start for the Sean Payton Denver Broncos.
2
Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns
The Browns have no parachute when it comes to the Deshaun Watson plane and its multiple flamed out engines. Handing him an unprecedented, fully guaranteed $230 million contract extension — despite more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL itself described as “predatory behavior” — effectively ties him to the team through 2026. All the franchise can do is change pilots.
That means Stefanski, architect behind the team’s only playoff win since its 1999 rebirth, might have to go. Fortunately for him, Watson is coming off his finest game as a Brown, Cleveland is 2-1 and the team’s defense is historically good.
That’s created a respite, but Stefanski isn’t out of the woods yet, especially if Watson’s Week 3 performance — which featured potentially the dumbest play of the year — proves to be an outlier instead of the beginning of a trend. The former Texan has been brutal through most of his Cleveland career. Even after Sunday’s strong 289 yard, two touchdown performance his -0.016 EPA/play ranks 30th out of 36 quarterbacks to play at least 300 snaps since 2022. That’s just behind Mac Jones and Justin Fields.
Watson shredded a Titans defense that currently ranks 30th in pass defense and 28th in passer rating allowed, so it’s fair to wonder how sustainable that will be. The Browns’ run offense struggled in its first full game without Nick Chubb, generating only 58 rushing yards on 19 carries from their tailbacks. But that could be another outlier, as Tennessee’s run defense is currently the best in the NFL (the Titans are a weird team, you guys).
Three top 12 defenses await with games against the Ravens, 49ers and Colts sandwiched around the team’s Week 5 bye. If the passing game isn’t fixed, it’ll all come down to a powerful defense to create a viable path to win a rock fight. That hasn’t been Stefanski’s forte in the past, and he was smart enough to bring a trusted veteran mind in to run that side of the ball in coordinator Jim Schwartz.
yeahhhh Za'Darius Smith will do that to you pic.twitter.com/dm6arfEyXm
— Derrik Klassen (@QBKlass) September 25, 2023
Stefanski cooled his hot seat by roughing up the Titans. Now he needs to prove his offensive improvements can last or else the heat will be rising again.
3
Brandon Staley, Los Angeles Chargers
No, of course blowing a 27-0 lead in the playoffs didn’t break Brandon Staley. Does this sound like a broken coach?
OK, yeah, that guy might be a little broken.
No team in NFL history had started the season by scoring 50-plus points and failing to turn the ball over while still, somehow, going 0-2. That’s where Staley was after two weeks, and he’s only entered the win column because the football gods found a team they hate more: the Minnesota Vikings.
K9 CAME UP CLUUTTCCHHHHH pic.twitter.com/SemU9gDfu8
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) September 24, 2023
The reason why the Vikings were in position to throw that end zone interception, after burning entirely too much clock and being unable to get a play call in because of the loudness of their own fans, was thanks to a brutal Staley call. The Chargers opted to go from it on fourth-and-one at their own 24-yard line with 1:51 to play. A first down would clinch the game against a timeout-less Minnesota team. A failure would put them 24 yards from a game-winning touchdown.
Statistically, this was the correct decision. Here’s what the numbers say, per The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin:
But the analytics didn’t take Staley’s specific play call into account. The third-year coach didn’t sneak the ball with his 6-foot-5 quarterback or try to fool the defense with a play-action pass. Instead he handed the ball off to Joshua Kelley — a player who, to that point, had rushed for 12 yards on 10 carries. Kelley was easily stopped and the stage was set for another glorious Chargers-ing, only to be interrupted by the Vikings’ improbable penchant for turning the ball over.
Staley’s game management perpetually leaves him stepping on rakes, with each decision — some good, many bad — serving to blow up in his face in major moments. He clearly brings talent and vision to the sideline, but he also finds a way to make things needlessly more difficult for a team that doesn’t need extra adversity.
He took the reins of a franchise whose historic luck has made its fandom an exercise in torture. That goes for the coaches as well, and it’s clearly beginning to wear on Staley.
4
Matt Eberflus, Chicago Bears
Hey franchise quarterback Justin Fields, what do you think is leading to your season-starting slump and the sudden abandonment of all the Bears’ preseason hype?
Justin Fields didn’t hold back.
Must watch. I love it. pic.twitter.com/bLMrdGXpKP
— Dave (@dave_bfr) September 20, 2023
Yeah, that’s not good. The Bears have wildly slumped below expectations and produced next to nothing in terms of silver linings along the way. Fields feels like the coaching staff is trying to fit him into an ineffective system instead of building to his strengths, forcing him to overthink, process slowly and just sorta stink in general. He’s got a solid point!
After an offseason of roster building and modest expectations, Chicago has vacated the hope that Fields and a young team could level up to respectability in 2023. Instead the offense has fallen apart as coordinator Luke Getsy slips into a routine of low-impact playcalls like a warm bath and Fields over-processes his way into a two yards at a time.
Eberflus’ team has been a disaster on both sides of the ball. The Bears are giving up more than 285 passing yards per game, a bottom-five number made even more impressive by the fact two of their losses were blowouts and all three have come by double digits. The offense’s point total and total yardage have decreased each week, though turnovers (two per game) remain stable.
DJ Moore was supposed to unlock the passing game after being acquired as part of the deal that sent the first overall pick to the Panthers last spring. Instead he has only 15 targets in three games (Rams rookie Puka Nacua had 15 in his NFL debut alone). This is especially egregious because Moore is averaging better than 11 yards per target and can do this regularly:
how is the Bears' playbook not "chuck it up to DJ Moore, let him sort it out" every play? pic.twitter.com/KL8IzEC5li
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) September 24, 2023
Fields is on pace to be sacked 70-plus times this season. A run game that led the league with 5.4 yards per carry in 2022 is down to 4.3 this fall. The offense makes no sense and the defense isn’t strong enough to patch the holes in a boat that’s effectively exploded into tiny pieces.
Chicago is careening toward a fresh start and full reset. That means Eberflus is gonna get tossed.
5
Josh McDaniels, Las Vegas Raiders
McDaniels wasted no time proving his crapulence in his 2022 Raiders debut. By this time last year, Las Vegas was 0-3 by alternating failed comebacks and blown leads under Derek Carr. This year, they’re 1-2, which is technically better but still somehow much worse. Why?
Well, because…
"We needed multiple possessions." #Raiders coach Josh McDaniels, on why he kicked the FG down 8 points. pic.twitter.com/rIvIWlYQyu
— Paul Gutierrez (@PGutierrezESPN) September 25, 2023
Those are the words of a man who, one drive after scoring eight points, acted like it couldn’t be done again. McDaniels, trailing by a touchdown and a two-point conversion in the waning minutes of a primetime game, twice opted to kick a field goal rather than take a fourth down shot at what could have been a game-tying touchdown. He opted to turn the reins over to the league’s 31st-ranked defense, then appeared surprised when this failed to pan out.
McDaniels is an albatross whether his team is winning or losing. In 2022 he wound up on the hot seat after blowing leads of 20-0, 17-0 and 17-0 all within the first eight games of the season. Now he’s found a new way to yank the rug from under his fans’ feet by ignoring how NFL scoring works.
In that regard, McDaniels deserves kudos for creativity. In every other regard he deserves none. This is a man who is 12-30 in his last 42 games as an NFL head coach. He’s found a way to retroactively make Tom Brady and Bill Belichick look even better by viewing their success through the dampening lens that was McDaniels’ presence.
Last year, deliverance was granted in a public vote of confidence from team owner Mark Davis. It’s hard to imagine that’ll happen again in 2023.
