The 2023 season has been unkind to some of the league’s most storied head coaches.
Sure, Andy Reid and Pete Carroll are still going strong, but Bill Belichick and Sean Payton? Two wins between them.
The New England Patriots and Denver Broncos have sunk to the bottom of the AFC, plumbing new depths of despair for two future Hall of Fame coaches (Payton is obviously the more divisive of the two when it comes to Canton, but winning a Super Bowl and leading the former doormat New Orleans Saints to prosperity will almost certainly lead him to enshrinement, regardless of how badly he wets the bed in Colorado). Belichick is getting next to nothing from his quarterback room as Mac Jones remains broken. Payton’s rehabilitation job on Russell Wilson has led to empty stats and an awful record.
It’s unlikely either would be fired given their status, but both have put forth the kind of effort that would put a no-name playcaller firmly on the hot seat. Let’s see who else is joining them after Week 5.
Matt Eberflus, Chicago Bears
You know what? He got 40 points out of his offense and proved he can utilize Justin Fields and DJ Moore. He gets a pass this week, even if he remains the odds-on favorite to be the first head coach fired.
Enjoy the respite, ‘Flus. Keep it up and you might just make it another year.
Bill Belichick, New England Patriots
The New England Patriots will not fire Bill Belichick. They might, firmly and politely, remind him he is 71 years old, has nothing left to prove and likely wants no part of an arduous rebuild. Hey, those all sound like good reasons to hang up your cut-off hoodie and spend some quality time in Nantucket, right?
Belichick is mired in a state of disaster the likes of which he’s never seen in four decades of NFL coaching. The aggregate score from his last two games is 72-3. His offense is responsible for twice as many turnovers as points scored in that span. It’s the worst unit in the NFL by a significant margin.
Things may get worse before they get better. A defense that stood as the team’s backbone lost established star Matthew Judon and rising star Christian Gonzalez in Week 4, setting the stage for a deluge of points from which there was no return. But more damaging was Mac Jones’ inability to command an offense or protect the ball, which creates constant short fields and gives that defense little time to rest up between stands. On Sunday, for example, the Saints scored a touchdown on a pick-six and kicked two field goals on drives that went negative-six and negative-two yards.
Jones briefly suggested he might improve back toward the “… he’s fine” status of his rookie season under new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. But now he’s been twice benched for Bailey Zappe, who’d outperformed expectations as a rookie. He hasn’t since; Jones ranks 34th out of 40 quarterbacks to have played at least 18 snaps with a -0.129 adjusted expected points added (EPA) per play. Zappe is 40th of 40 at -0.556.
Unless Will Grier or Malik Cunningham are secretly great, this is the offense with which New England is stuck. It is very bad, and the only way out may be to climb into the crevasse, tank toward the top of a 2024 draft class loaded with solid quarterback prospects and hope for the best.
Belichick is 71. You think he’s gonna want to do that?
Sean Payton, Denver Broncos
The most fun part about parsing the Broncos’ 1-4 start is, of course, the schadenfreude. Payton tossed Nathaniel Hackett under the bus and told the world his predecessor’s work “might have been one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.” Through five weeks he’s guided Denver to a worse record than it had in 2022, oversees a historically terrible defense and, notably, just lost to a team for which Hackett is the current offensive coordinator.
Jets players and staffers, lining up to dap up Nathaniel Hackett for beating the Broncos and the head coach who trashed him this offseason pic.twitter.com/DquVsTUOqc
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 8, 2023
The second funniest part about this Broncos team, assuming you aren’t a long-suffering fan shuffling your way through a dark age foretold only by golden era Simpsons writers, is figuring out who is more to blame for the team’s doofus-brained offensive decisions: Payton or Russell Wilson. For example, who was the brains behind this third-and-goal playcall late in the first half against the Jets, in which Wilson takes a draw upfield into an immediate five-on-six disadvantage and gets easily stopped for a loss?
Am I losing my mind? Is Russ? I don't understand how an empty draw was ever supposed to work here, you're outnumbered no matter what pic.twitter.com/LMaNrTYdwD
— Derrik Klassen (@QBKlass) October 9, 2023
That’s a play that could work given room to operate, particularly with Wilson having success on the ground throughout the first half. Instead, everyone is compressed near the goal line and the 35-year-old has to somehow run for five yards in a situation where no one is more than five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. This isn’t a failure of execution, it’s a simple math problem the Broncos offense stared down and comprehensively failed.
This fundamental break relates to how Wilson and Payton both fail once the opening game script is out of their hands. Here’s Wilson’s expected points added (EPA) per play by quarter to start 2023:
- first quarter: 0.788 (best among starting quarterbacks)
- second: 0.102 (16th)
- third: -0.293 (29th)
- fourth: 0.093 (18th)
You see the problem there, right? Even that fourth quarter rebound can be explained away by some garbage time heroics in Week 2 against the Washington Commanders and whatever he was doing at the end of a 70-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins. Limit those fourth quarter stats to only plays where the Broncos had at least a 20 percent chance of winning and his EPA/play drops to a league-worst -0.416, per RBSDM.com. Denver, behind Russ’s research and execution, is outscoring opponents 41-29 in the first quarter. Then it’s getting outscored 152-80 in the three that follow.
That’s horrific and confusing all at once. You have a head coach and quarterback who are still capable of devising and executing a useful gameplan. Once that player piano runs out of script, it quickly catches fire, launching discordant notes into an uncaring saloon where no one is interested in putting it out.
Payton promised better results out of Wilson, and while that’s manifested in a significant statistical improvement — his passer rating has risen from 84.4 to 106.1 — those numbers are empty. Wilson stinks, the Broncos stink and Payton hasn’t shown the capability to think on the fly to fix things. He has too much name value to be fired this early — especially with plenty of time and cash remaining on a contract valued at around $18 million annually — but he may be hearing a little more chatter about retirement now that his comeback threatens to launch his legacy into a dumpster.
Ron Rivera, Washington Commanders
Look, you give up 40 points to a Bears team that scored 47 over the first three weeks of the season, you end up here.
Rivera has only brought mere whiffs of his Carolina success with him to Washington. He has a playoff appearance (in his debut season, 2020) but that was because the NFC East was bad enough to allow a 7-9 team to win it. He has one non-losing record and it was an 8-8-1 campaign. A promising 2-0 start has been unraveled by three straight losses, two of which came by at least 20 points.
On the plus side, Rivera has been able to coax 2022 fifth round pick Sam Howell into some modest development. While he’s not a consistent starter yet, he’s shown he can be a mid-tier player and has room to grow. When you further consider that either Howell or Taylor Heinicke are the best quarterback Rivera has had to work with as a Commander, well, you feel a little better about his 24-30-1 record.
But this year’s defense has backslid mightily. The 2022 team ranked seventh in the NFL in points allowed and third in yards given up. This year’s squad clocks in at 31th and 26th, respectively. Washington has a lineup dotted with former first round picks and Pro Bowlers and has been worse than the Arizona Cardinals — a team whose defensive leaders include Dennis Gardeck, Victor Dimukeje and Jalen Thompson.
This is the kind of performance that will, at the very least, end with a defensive coordinator canned. But Jack Del Rio may have company come Black Monday.
Rivera is an inherited coach for a new franchise owner looking to wash away the fetid stink of the Daniel Snyder era, pleading with the football gods and hoping against hope that it hasn’t irreparably taken root inside the team facilities. He’s also a respected leader who hasn’t gotten a fair shake and *also* could use a fresh start after putting up with Snyder’s complete lack of leadership and accountability over the years. That’ll help. It might not save him.
Brandon Staley, Los Angeles Chargers
A bye week means we only have one more game’s worth of data to analyze from Staley’s last appearance on this list. Fortunately, one call is all it took to prove Staley is still waging a losing battle against fourth downs.
The numbers may have said to sneak it there, but how much can advanced stats account for the fact Aidan O’Connell, a fourth-round rookie in his first regular season appearance, was waiting on the other side of the ball and staring down an 80-ish yard touchdown drive to tie the game? Los Angeles flattened his learning curve with that botched sneak and was fortunate to escape without further damage following an Asante Samuel Jr. end zone interception.
The one unalienable feature of Staley’s Chargers teams is an uncanny ability to let lesser opponents hang around and, occasionally, offer up devastating mistakes to keep them in the game. The Minnesota Vikings couldn’t capitalize on a failed fourth-and-short late in Week 3. The Las Vegas Raiders couldn’t either in Week 4. But those are bad teams who play bad football, and the league’s actual contenders would happily pluck every single piece of fruit from Staley’s low-hanging branches in order to keep this team’s fans miserable.
In that sense, Staley is a perfect Chargers head coach. In the much more tangible sense of actually being good at his job, he is not. His penchant for too-cute playcalling would make him an analytical and SportsCenter darling if his calls worked the majority of the time, but they do not. If there is a way to make the right decision and wrong call at the same instant, Brandon Staley will find it.
Josh McDaniels, Las Vegas Raiders
One of McDaniels’ most endearing qualities is his stoic inability to breed confidence, even in a win. This was on full display Monday night, as he embraced all the worst parts of the Brandon Staley era and made a fourth-quarter, fourth-down decision that gave his opponent the opportunity to mount what could have been a devastating comeback.
Up 17-13 at the two-minute warning, McDaniels faced fourth-and-1 at the Green Bay Packers’ 34-yard line. All-Pro tailback Josh Jacobs was in the midst of his best game of 2023 thanks in part to a Packer defense that’s perpetually deficient against the run. While he’d only run for 69 yards on 20 carries, his prior 10 handoffs had produced seven gains of at least two yards. Meanwhile, kicker Daniel Carlson had already missed a 53-yard field goal attempt thanks to a potent Green Bay push up front.
Common sense said go for it. Odds were in Vegas’ favor to pick up the yard and even a successful field goal would push the Packers from needing to drive for a touchdown in the final two minutes to … needing to drive for a touchdown in the final two minutes. Advanced stats agreed.
—> GB (13) @ LV (17) <—
LV has 4th & 2 at the GB 34, Q4 02:00Recommendation (MEDIUM): 👉 Go for it (+1.9 WP)
Actual play: 👟🏈 D.Carlson 52 yard field goal is No Good, Hit Right Upright, Center-J.Bobenmoyer, Holder-A.Cole. pic.twitter.com/x63nnp5J1Y— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) October 10, 2023
This was not what Josh McDaniels did. Daniel Carlson clanked his 52-yard attempt off the upright and Green Bay got the ball where it would have if Jacobs had gotten stuffed.
A poorly lofted Jordan Love pass and subsequent interception bailed out the Raiders, but it’s clear this team is a collection of talent made less than the sum of its parts through coaching.
