NFL Head Coaches on the Hot Seat: Mike McCarthy, Brian Daboll, Doug Pederson and More

We hear all the time that people should be fired or forced to resign from their jobs based on an incident or whatever people want to come up with on a given day. For coaches in every sport, any perceived team underperformance is inevitably met with calls for that person to lose their job.

(Anyone in any situation who ever says someone else should be fired, just remind them what it would be like if they suddenly lost their own job on the whims of someone on the internet; it’s a stupid trend that should stop.)

Things move fast in the NFL, though, and coaches are given less time than ever to prove they can build a winner. Even a guy with a good regular season record can’t feel safe if he doesn’t do well enough in the playoffs.

More than halfway through the season, it’s a good time to look at teams who could be considering head coaching changes. There’s still a lot of time to go, and perceptions will change on at least a few of the guys listed below, but these head coaches have at least some reason to be weary of their status as we near Thanksgiving.

First-Year Coaches

• Dave Canales, Carolina Panthers (3-7)
• Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas Raiders (2-7)
• Jerod Mayo, New England Patriots (3-7)
• Brian Callahan, Tennessee Titans (2-7)

It’s tough to fire a coach after one season. It happens; five guys were fired after (or within) one season between 2021-2023: Urban Meyer (Jaguars), David Culley (Texans), Nathaniel Hackett (Broncos), Lovie Smith (Texans), and Frank Reich (Panthers).

It would be a surprise to see Canales, Mayo, or Callahan lose their jobs, but there have been rumblings about the Raiders’ locker room being unsettled. Pierce got the head job largely on the strength of a run at the end of last season after he took over for the fired Josh McDaniels. With a lot more losing and seemingly negative vibes, Pierce could see his time cut short, especially if the team drafts a quarterback in 2025 and wants to pair him with an offensive coach.

Canales, Mayo, and Callahan could find the most trouble related to the development of their young quarterbacks. Mayo is a defensive guy, and Drake Maye has played well, so he’s probably safe. Bryce Young (Canales) and Will Levis (Callahan) have not had success this year with their new coaches, though, which is especially concerning because those guys are offensive coaches.

Neither coach chose their quarterback, and they might get a chance to reset at the position this offseason. Each organization could easily blame the quarterback and not the coach, giving the head man another shot at finding success.

Pierce could conceivably last only one season, but the other three are probably safe barring a complete collapse in the second half.

Veteran Coaches in Trouble

The six guys listed below all have serious reason to worry about losing their jobs. Each team had the expectation of competing for the playoffs, but they all have losing records through 10 weeks.

Matt Eberflus, Chicago Bears (4-5)

The Bears were seen as a division contender a few weeks ago, but things have fallen apart fast. Chicago aided Jayden Daniels’ magical rookie season by allowing a game-losing Hail Mary, and the team just fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron to try saving 2024. If things don’t turn around, there will probably be bigger changes coming.

There are reports of unrest in the locker room, always a bad sign for the head coach. If the team continues losing, Eberflus will probably be fired before the end of the season with an eye on finding someone to help Caleb Williams flourish.

The defense has played well; that’s Eberflus’ specialty. He would be celebrated as the defensive coordinator. With negative vibes everywhere, though, Eberflus will be seen as the captain at the helm of an uneasy situation. The easiest move would be to change the head coach and get a new group in the building.

Eberflus might have more riding on the rest of the season than any other head coach. A hot streak at the end of 2023 saved his job, and he will need something similar to come back in 2025. The schedule is about to be as tough as any in the league to finish the season, though: Packers, Vikings, Lions, 49ers, Vikings, Lions, Seahawks, Packers.

Assuming a losing streak among that stretch, it will be easy to dismiss Eberflus with the intention of a big-time offensive head coaching hire this offseason. Don’t be surprised to see more changes coming soon for the Bears.

Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns (2-7)

The Deshaun Watson contract looms over everything. Cleveland is likely stuck with Watson for at least one more season and probably two, unless they want to take on epic amounts of dead money. Watson has killed Cleveland’s offense when he’s been in the game, though.

Entering Week 11, the Browns are averaging the fewest yards per pass attempt and 10th-least yards per rush attempt. Stefanski is an offensive coach; how can he survive putting up league-worst numbers?

There are a lot more questions to answer than just the head coaching spot, and Stefanski has been named Coach of the Year twice. It’s easy to chalk this up as everything going wrong at the same time and run it back in 2025 with a lot of talented players. A new coach probably can’t change much, as the roster is fairly locked in with high-priced players like Watson and Myles Garrett.

Stefanski might get a chance to bounce back or at least clean up some of the mess, but continued failure isn’t going to help him last much longer, especially if the offense continues to flounder.

Mike McCarthy, Dallas Cowboys (3-6)

McCarthy’s contract expires at the end of the season, so he might not get the ax, but there’s a good chance he won’t be retained if the season continues this way for Dallas. The Cowboys have generally won in the regular season under McCarthy, with a success rate near 60%.

The playoffs are a different story, though, where the team has won only one game under McCarthy for a 1-3 record. That lack of high-profile winning might be McCarthy’s ultimate downfall. The end of 2024 probably isn’t going to help him, either.

Dak Prescott is out the rest of the season, leaving Cooper Rush and Trey Lance to lead the offense. Dallas threw for just 66 yards last week against the Eagles, averaging less than 2.3 yards on 29 attempts. Dallas has another tough matchup against the Houston defense on Monday night.

The schedule lightens up after that, but McCarthy is likely coaching for his job with sub-par QB options. His best chance might be inserting Lance into the lineup and building the offense around his running; it can’t get any worse than it was in Week 10, right?

Doug Pederson, Jacksonville Jaguars (2-8)

Pederson was supposed to be the guy to come in and right the ship after a partial-season fiasco with Urban Meyer. The first season-and-a-half was great: Jacksonville won a playoff game and started 2023 8-3, in position to compete for the conference.

And it has completely fallen apart from there. The Jags went 1-5 down the stretch and lost an essential play-in game in Week 18 against Houston, and Jacksonville has started this season tied for the worst record in the league through 10 weeks.

Trevor Lawrence just signed a huge extension and isn’t going anywhere. That means the coach is the guy on the chopping block, and Pederson is likely to pay for his team’s losing ways if they don’t turn things around in 2024.

Pederson could be the next coach fired with back-to-back games against the Lions and Texans; things might get ugly enough to cause the team to make a change.

Brian Daboll, New York Giants (2-8)

It’s easy to start rooting for players and coaches if you watch HBO’s Hard Knocks. The Giants were featured in an offseason version of Hard Knocks that followed the moves made by GM Joe Schoen and his staff in free agency and through the draft. Schoen is a very likeable person, and a lot of what he was doing made sense.

Things have just not worked out, though, as Saquon Barkley has dominated with the division rival Eagles, Daniel Jones has looked middling-to-ineffective, and the team has looked like one of the worst in the league.

The expectation is that the team will bench Jones so that no injury guarantees trigger for 2025, allowing them to cut him with only a mild cap hit (by quarterback standards). New York is likely about to reset at the most important position.

The biggest question is whether Schoen and/or Daboll will be around to see that new era come into existence. It would be reasonable to give that pair the chance to start with their own guy. There is a lot of talent on the roster, including receiver Malik Nabers and pass rusher Brian Burns, both acquired during Hard Knocks.

I lean toward the duo both remaining, but the leash must be shortening. If the offense continues to sputter under Daboll, another offensive coach, there could be a scenario in which Schoen sacrifices the coach to save himself with the promise of a new quarterback/coach combination coming in.

Mike McDaniel, Miami Dolphins (3-6)

We’ll finish with the least likely guy to lose his job. Miami has had nothing but bad luck this season, particularly with Tua Tagovailoa suffering a concussion and missing four games. The offense was fairly inept during that time, and the team went 1-3 without their QB.

They are still just 2-3 with Tua, so it’s not like they’ve been running rampant on the league like the beginning of 2023. McDaniel’s offensive sets and run game have been some of the best in football over the past few years, and every team would pounce on trying to add McDaniels to their staff if he were to become a free agent, so to speak.

The Dolphins probably aren’t going to make a change, but it’s worth watching Miami’s trajectory the rest of the season given their poor record.