It’s not an exaggeration to call this year’s coaching cycle the wildest of all time. When the Buffalo Bills fired HC Sean McDermott after their divisional round loss, it tied an NFL record with 10 vacancies. And while this is harder to quantify, it feels like the impact of the changes made this year is at an all-time high. Three of the league’s longest-tenured coaches won’t be back. The pool of candidates includes four coaches with winning percentages over 60 percent, a combined four Coach of the Year awards, five Super Bowl appearances and three rings. 

It would be fair to assume next year will be a bit of a letdown in comparison given there tends to be a natural ebb and flow to the league’s appetite for change. The last time there were 10 vacancies in 2022, the following season had just five. Historically the average falls between six and seven, though the last five years have averaged eight coaching changes annually. 

Former Steelers HC Mike Tomlin looms as a potential major target if he decides a year off from coaching is enough to recharge his batteries. The pool of candidates this year became deep, deep enough that deserving coaches will be left out and remain available in 2027. Stars will fall and rise like they always do, with the hunger for offensive play-calling coaches not likely to abate any time soon. 

Here is an absolutely way too early look at which coaches enter next year on the hot seat and which ones could find themselves there as the year progresses. 

Already Hot

Colts HC Shane Steichen

Steichen was on last year’s version of this same list after a disappointing 2024 season in which the team failed to take an expected step forward under his watch. He and GM Chris Ballard were retained for what figured to be a pivotal third season together, with new owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon taking over after her father, Jim Irsay, passed away. New ownership usually means big changes, especially when Irsay felt it was necessary to put out a statement at the end of 2024 that it wasn’t firing Steichen and Ballard. 

For the first half of the year, it looked like the duo was about to smash a home run after being called up to the plate. The Colts were 8-2 and humming along with the No. 1 offense in football. Ballard looked shrewd for his bet on Jones to come in and compete with former first-round QB Anthony Richardson, and Jones looked like an excellent fit with Steichen. Then it all started to crumble. The schedule got tougher and Jones suffered a break in his fibula. While trying to play through that injury, he tore his Achilles. 

Richardson was already out after breaking his orbital bone in a freak accident, and the Colts had to make a desperation play and sign QB Philip Rivers out of retirement as other injuries mounted. Indianapolis finished on a seven-game skid coming out of the bye week to land at 8-9 and out of the playoffs. 

Once again, ownership stood by the duo of Steichen and Ballard. But Irsay-Gordon made clear in her final press conference of the season that a lot is expected of Steichen and Ballard in 2026, essentially giving them a playoffs or bust mandate even if she didn’t specifically come right out and say that. Steichen might have a little more job security than Ballard, who will be trying to avoid a sixth year straight without a playoff berth in 2026. Both men are on notice, though. 

Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles

Coming into this season, Bowles had three straight NFC South titles under his belt, which probably earned him some benefit of the doubt when Tampa Bay underachieved and failed to close out a fourth this past season. While that may have saved his job, it did not stop a significant staff shakeup. Bowles fired OC Josh Grizzard after just a season and moved on from several other notable assistants, including on defense. The word is that Bowles may be required to hire a defensive coordinator and give up play-calling in 2026. 

Bowles is widely respected around the league for his defensive acumen and how tough his scheme is to prepare for. However, the Buccaneers have not ranked better than 18th in total defense the last three years and have been outside the top ten in scoring defense in three of Bowles’ four seasons, including 20th in 2025. In that context, the changes make some sense. However, there’s an argument that if the Buccaneers were going to require this drastic level of change around Bowles, they might have been better off just moving on and chasing one of the other big-name coaches in this pool. 

If Bowles can’t turn things around next year, that’s what could end up happening. Winning the NFC South is probably the minimum requirement to be back barring extreme circumstances. While the rest of the division is getting more competitive, Tampa Bay still has a core in place on the roster that it feels good about. Going into this year, the conversation was about becoming more serious power players in the NFC, and while the Bucs had stretches where they looked like that, the task for Bowles will be replicating that for a full season. 

Jets HC Aaron Glenn

Jets owner Woody Johnson was always going to have a long leash for Glenn in his first year. In a vacuum, the Jets didn’t have the best coaching vacancy last year, but still reeled in Glenn despite the coach having a ton of options. Glenn started his playing career with the Jets and that connection loomed large in his decision. It was not unlike how the Texans landed HC DeMeco Ryans despite coming off firing three coaches the previous three years. 

Johnson’s high opinion of Glenn factored into his decision to give him the benefit of the doubt for a dismal 3-14 debut but Johnson was also aware of why the Jets’ job wasn’t held in high esteem. Most of the misgivings around New York centered around Johnson and his reputation as an impulsive and meddlesome owner. Firing Glenn would have played right into that and made hiring a replacement difficult. 

Beyond this coming season, though, nothing is guaranteed. The Jets elected to strip the roster down to the studs and auction off their best players at the trade deadline in 2025, giving them plenty of picks to work with but major talent questions. More losses are inevitable with this kind of rebuilding project, especially because it’s unclear who the quarterback will be in 2026, let alone long-term. However, Glenn doesn’t have a huge margin for error after this past year. 

It’s not just about the losses, but the way in which the Jets lost. They ended the year on a five-game losing streak, all by at least 23 points. Defense was supposed to be Glenn’s forte but the Jets ended the year 31st in scoring defense and 25th in total defense. They also didn’t pick off a pass all year, setting an NFL record, and forced just four turnovers all season. New York is a tough media market to begin with, and Glenn didn’t do himself any favors by repeatedly clashing with local reporters over issues that, in the grand scheme of things, were small potatoes. 

A winning season isn’t a requirement for Glenn to return but he absolutely has to have the team showing signs of progress. The defense has to play better, the offense can’t look so hopeless, and the Jets better either have more than three wins or a lot more close losses than this past year. Those are non-negotiables. 

Warming Up

Bengals HC Zac Taylor

Taylor earned the distinction of becoming the only AFC North head coach to return in 2026 despite missing the playoffs for the third straight year with Joe Burrow at quarterback. Burrow has missed 15 games in that span, but even with Burrow in the lineup, the Bengals’ record is just 19-16. There’s no way to spin that as anything but underperforming for a team that has fancied itself as a legit Super Bowl contender since losing the big game in 2021. 

It may have surprised some folks that the Bengals retained Taylor with all the other movement on the coaching carousel this year. But this is the same franchise that held onto Marvin Lewis for 16 years without a playoff victory. Cincinnati just operates differently from the other 31 franchises. Taylor has the support of Burrow and that’s the biggest thing that mattered for his job security this past year. 

Maintaining that going forward will be important. There were some signs this past year that Burrow’s confidence in the team was starting to crack under the pressure of repeatedly failing to meet his goals. Another season out of the playoffs could accelerate that process and lead to some major changes. 

Commanders HC Dan Quinn

It might be a little jarring to see Quinn here after Washington’s run to the NFC Championship in his first season. However, a 4-13 follow-up this past year sapped a lot of that momentum. Head coaches who are completely secure don’t usually move on from both coordinators. Quinn had to fire DC Joe Whitt Jr. during the season with how poorly Washington’s defense was playing, but the departure of OC Kliff Kingsbury was more surprising. Promoting assistant QB coach David Blough to replace him was another move that came out of left field. 

Quinn is one of the lucky few coaches who can confidently say they have a franchise quarterback at their disposal, as when Jayden Daniels was on the field this year he was still an effective player. The other side of that coin is that expectations are higher and excuses are fewer. If the Commanders miss the playoffs again with Daniels under center, the idea of Quinn being on the hot seat won’t seem so farfetched. 

Dark Horse Firings If Expectations Aren’t Met

Panthers HC Dave Canales

The vibes are great in Carolina after snapping a seven-year playoff drought. There’s no question the Panthers benefited from playing in a weak NFC South, backing into the postseason despite losing two straight to end the regular season by virtue of winning a three-way tie at 8-9 with the Buccaneers and Falcons. By most measures, they were an average to below-average team. But the signs of progress are there. After two years under Canales, the Panthers are on a clear upward trajectory. 

The next step might be the most challenging, though. The NFL is built to pull bad teams back toward the middle. It’s much, much harder to take that leap from average to great, and from there to sustain it. The Panthers will need to take just as big a step forward from 2025 to 2026 as they have each of the last two years. If they stall out, that opens the door for owner Dave Tepper to get impatient and make a change. 

Tepper has done a good job of taking a step back and letting the football people he hired to run the team do their jobs, but old habits can die hard and the temptation to reassert himself will emerge. It’s also worth noting Tepper was a minority owner of the Steelers before taking over the Panthers and had a front-row seat to watch Tomlin work for years. Now that Tomlin’s available, there will be a pull to take a big swing and bring in a proven coaching commodity if Canales falters. 

Packers HC Matt LaFleur

Packers team president Ed Policy might be the only person who knows how close LaFleur came to leaving Green Bay after this season, if it was close at all. The job security speculation that was sparked in the summer with a lack of an extension for LaFleur ahead of his penultimate season crescendoed after the Packers flopped to end the season. They lost their last five games and surrendered an 18-point lead in a playoff matchup against the Bears. Multiple local reporters were openly wondering if this was it for LaFleur. 

Instead, he signed a new extension, though the exact years and value still aren’t known. The Packers internally are circling the wagons around LaFleur and downplaying any previous uncertainty. Perhaps Policy saw how well-regarded LaFleur was around the league and decided it wasn’t tenable from a PR perspective to move on. 

This can’t be stuffed back in the box, though. Absent a Super Bowl or deep playoff run, the questions about whether LaFleur is the right coach to get the Packers over the hump will return and intensify. The extension guarantees LaFleur will be back in 2026, but not much else beyond that. Recent history is filled with examples of teams signing coaches to extensions only to fire them a year later. 

Eagles HC Nick Sirianni

Ordinarily a coach with Sirianni’s resume would have ironclad job security for years to come. Philadelphia is not most markets, though. The standards are incredibly high. Sirianni was on a razor’s edge after the 2023 season when the Eagles collapsed following a 10-1 start. Philadelphia went on a tear to win the Super Bowl the following season, but the follow-up this past year had some eerie parallels to 2023. The offense never got in a groove all season and the Eagles were bounced in the first round of the playoffs because they couldn’t figure it out in time. 

There’s still a ton of talent on the roster and the Super Bowl expectations for the Eagles aren’t going anywhere. Sirianni will have some tricky situations to navigate, including finding a new architect for the offense and managing star players like QB Jalen Hurts and WR A.J. Brown who weren’t all that happy about how last season went. 

First-Time Head Coaches

The majority of the NFL’s 10 head coaching vacancies haven’t even been filled yet, and I can already tell you that a few of them will be on the hot seat within the next 10 months. From 2011 until now, there have only been three coaching cycles in which a first-time coach has not been fired (2014, 2017 and 2020). The last time there were 10 new hires, two of them were gone within a year. 

Keep an eye out for the usual suspects like Cleveland and Las Vegas, who are repeat offenders on this list. Other questionably run teams like the Cardinals, Dolphins and Titans would be on my radar, as well as the Bills. While it may have been the right time to move on from McDermott after so many years of failing to break through, he should have been a package deal with GM Brandon Beane, who somehow came out of this situation with consolidated authority. This is a great opening for prospective candidates but the pressure is high if it goes poorly.