PREDICTING THE FIRST NFL HEAD COACH TO BE FIRED

BY ADAM GREENE

At the end of any given NFL season we can usually count on about five head coaches getting fired. Last year was unique as we had seven head men hit the streets, with the Houston Texans’ Bill O’Brien being the first to go and the only one fired during the season.

The rest, Dan Quinn of the Atlanta Falcons, Matt Patricia of the Detroit Lions, Adam Gase of the New York Jets, Doug Marrone of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Anthony Lynn of the Los Angeles Chargers and Doug Pederson of the Philadelphia Eagles all made it past Christmas to enjoy their final game of the season. All of them, with the exception of Pederson, deserved it.

In fact, two of them — Quinn and Patricia, nearly got fired the year before. They were kept with the caveats that major improvements would have to come and neither guy had the ability to make it happen. They rarely ever do. They were dead men walking the whole time.

We don’t have anyone like that this season, a guy given an extra chance when they didn’t deserve it. We also don’t have a loser like O’Brien, who should have been fired years before hanging around.

We do have a guy like Anthony Lynn, a dude that was out of his depth and shouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Frankly, we’ve got a few of them — Mike McCarthy, David Culley and Dan Campbell, but two of those guys would have to be one-and-done and while it’s possible and even probable that one of them could go, I don’t see it being first. We will definitely talk about McCarthy before it’s over.

Here’s your contenders according to the odds:

Vic Fangio +500

Mike McCarthy +600

Kliff Kingsbury +750

Matt Nagy +750

Zac Taylor +850

Mike Zimmer +900

Jon Gruden +1200

David Culley +1800

Mike Vrabel +2000

Matt Rhule +2200

Mike Tomlin +2500

Pete Carroll +2500

Matt LaFleur +2500

Dan Campbell +2800

Joe Judge +2800

Ron Rivera +2800

Sean Payton +2800

John Harbaugh +2800

Sean McVay +2800

Brian Fores +3300

Frank Reich +3300

Kyle Shanahan +3300

Robert Saleh +5000

Arthur Smith +5000

Urban Meyer +5000

Nick Sirianni +5000

Brandon Staley +5000

Sean McDermott +10000

Kevin Stefanski +10000

Bill Belichick +20000

Bruce Arians +20000

Andy Reid +20000

First off, let’s see if there’s any real money to be made here. Are there any guys in the +four digit range that could be in any real danger? Here’s the thing. It’s easy to see a guy like Matt Rhule (+2200) getting fired at the end of the year, but will be the first guy? I see him lasting through the end, regardless. You’d have to win by hoping he’d be the first announced and no one gets loaded up into the trebuchet until after Week 18.

Will we get anyone fired in the season? I don’t really see it happening, but I think we have three real contenders – McCarthy (+600), Taylor (+850) and Zimmer (+900). McCarthy, as previously noted, should have never been hired to begin with. Being featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks has spelled doom for all but two head coaches (Jon Gruden and Sean McVay) in recent history. In fact, four out of the last five seasons have seen coaches fired the very season their teams were featured on the show. McCarthy’s days are numbered.

What works in his favor is Jerry Jones, who hates to admit he makes mistakes (though that could be changing). He has fired only one head coach during the season since he took over the team, Wade Phillips in 2010 after the team started 1-7. If something like that happens under McCarthy, he could do the same thing and elevate defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to the interim job.

Taylor is on thin ice this season. I think he can survive with a losing record, but it’s got to be a competitive one. Something like 7-10 or 8-9. If this team starts 0-5, it could be curtains. Mike Brown has chucked two guys early in the season before, firing Dave Shula in 1996 after a 1-6 record and Bruce Coslett in 2000 after an 0-3 start with two shutouts. But I like Taylor and hope, for his sake, he can hang around. Cincy is tough place and that’s a rough division.

Zimmer is one of those guys that’s just been around and done nothing special for far too long. His team is led by one of the NFL’s worst plague rats, Kirk Cousins, and that acquisition alone has not gone as planned. A slow start in the NFC North and the Vikings could go ahead and cut bait.

The other single digit guys — Fangio (+500), the odds on favorite, Kingsbury (+750) and Nagy (+750) I think will all be safe. I really see the Denver Broncos competing for a playoff spot. The Arizona Cardinals are probably still a year away, but they’ve played well in the NFC West for Kingsbury. They’re just in the toughest division in the sport. It might take some extra time to build a team that can win there.

Nagy made the playoffs in two of the last four seasons with Mitchell Trubisky as his quarterback with the Chicago Bears. What else does he have to prove? He’s earned the shot to ride with Justin Fields for at least a couple of seasons. You think teams like the Jets, Bengals and Lions wouldn’t kill to have that kind of success? Nagy’s 28-20 as a head coach with two postseason appearances. Let’s relax on that urge to fire the guy. Who could you hire that would be better?

Who’s our best bet? I say Zimmer, followed by Taylor, then McCarthy, then Rhule as far as first fired. I do think there’s a good chance Taylor won’t be fired at all. If I had to predict who will be fired at the end of the season, I’ll go Zimmer, McCarthy, Rhule, Culley (+1800), who should be one-and-done really, and Jon Gruden (+1200) who has been a monster waste of money since the Las Vegas Raiders signed him to a 10-year, $100 million contract in 2018.

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