In last year’s version of this column, I wrote, “With 15 hires in the past two years, 2026 is shaping up to be an ebb [in the hiring cycle].” Spoiler alert: that’s not quite how things turned out. There were 10 head coaching changes this past offseason, tying the NFL record and marking the fifth time there has been that much turnover. 

Maybe we were just a year early. It feels highly unlikely we’ll get 10 coaching changes again but the historical average is seven. Given there are just 12 coaches who remain in their current positions from three years ago in 2023, it feels like we’re due to hit the under on that number. Then again, change is the only constant in the NFL. 

There are a few coaches who enter this season already feeling some pressure. A few more need big seasons to secure their job security, and it seems there are always a few surprise firings, including with the crew of first-year hires. 

Here’s a look around the league to set the table for which coaches have the most on the line to avoid making headlines on Black Monday. 

Red Hot

Colts HC Shane Steichen

Steichen was on this list last year after the Colts extended their playoff drought in embarrassing fashion to close the 2024 season, dropping two of the final four games with their playoff destiny in their hands. But he staved off the reaper with a successful gamble on veteran reclamation project QB Daniel Jones, or so it appeared at least in the first half of the season. Jones seemingly never trailed in a competition with former first-round QB Anthony Richardson, and with him at the helm, the Colts were the league’s No. 1 offense through eight games. 

Things fell apart again, though. Jones got banged up — a consistent theme throughout his career unfortunately — picking up a fractured fibula in Week 12 that he was playing through before a torn Achilles finished him off in Week 14. The Colts lost seven straight coming out of their bye in Week 11, sliding from 8-2 and vying for the top seed in the AFC to out of the dance completely. Even a Hail Mary by Steichen to bring Philip Rivers out of retirement to play quarterback when Jones was hurt didn’t spark a win. 

Brand-new Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon granted Steichen and GM Chris Ballard a stay of execution at the end of the season. Irsay-Gordon has been embedded in the football operations of the Colts for years, including playing a key role in the hiring process for both Ballard and Steichen. So this wasn’t exactly a fresh face coming in looking to change things up for the sake of change. Irsay-Gordon pointed to the results in the first half of the season before injuries took their toll to explain her decision.  

Still, she was abundantly clear without coming out and saying it directly that Steichen and Ballard have a playoff-or-bust mandate. Indianapolis paid up to retain key members of the offense this year, signing Jones to a lucrative new deal while also paying up to retain WR Alec Pierce. They were limited in the draft after Ballard dealt two first-round picks ahead of the deadline last year to acquire CB Sauce Gardner, a move that reflects both the confidence in the defense being just one piece away and the team’s confidence in Jones. 

There just can’t be any excuses. Ballard has been in his post since 2017 with just two playoff appearances in nine years to show for it, and none in the past five. Steichen’s been around for the last three years of that drought. If it extends to six years, Irsay-Gordon will have little choice but to do a clean sweep and bring in some fresh faces. 

Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles

Bowles deserves credit for exceeding the meager expectations a lot of folks (myself included) had for him when Super Bowl-winning HC Bruce Arians tabbed him as his replacement. His first stint as a lead man with the Jets was underwhelming, with a 24-40 record in four seasons. He was a quality defensive coordinator who was a key piece of the Buccaneers’ Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs, but NFL history is full of coaches who were better coordinators than head coaches. 

However, Bowles has been measurably better with the Buccaneers. We have an identical four-season sample to compare, and Bowles is 35-33 with (crucially) three playoff appearances. Tampa Bay won the NFC South for three straight seasons until that streak was snapped this past season. 

Last year, Tampa Bay was angling to take a meaningful step forward and go from frisky competitor to legitimate contender in the NFC. They were 6-2 midway through the season and QB Baker Mayfield was getting buzz for MVP. Then injuries and attrition piled up, and Tampa Bay choked to a 2-7 record down the stretch, including painful collapses against the Falcons, Panthers and Dolphins. 

Bowles is getting more scrutiny now. The Buccaneers have essentially been the same team for four years with a bounce or two of the football separating their record. Tampa Bay went 8-9 in Bowles’ first season, 9-8 in his second, 10-7 in his third and 8-9 in his fourth. If the Bucs weren’t in the NFC South, they might not have been so fortunate. 

Expectations are also different. Bowles isn’t a bad coach, but it’s looking more and more like his ceiling is capped at where the team is now. For a coach branded as a defensive mastermind who still serves as the acting defensive coordinator, it’s also concerning how the Bucs’ performance on that side of the ball has been declining. They have gone from No. 7 to No. 16 to No. 23 in scoring defense the past three years. 

With so many established coaches like Ravens HC John Harbaugh and Bills HC Sean McDermott getting fired (and becoming available), there was a lot of curiosity about whether the Buccaneers would pull the trigger and try to upgrade from Bowles even after extending him before the 2025 season. If Tampa Bay misses the playoffs again, expect that noise to get a lot louder. 

Jets HC Aaron Glenn

Being in a piranha-infested media market like New York didn’t help, but Glenn’s first season would have been a disaster for all other 31 teams, too. It’s tough to distill it all succinctly. The product on the field was poor — a seven-game losing streak to start the season, three wins all year, three different starting quarterbacks, the 29th-ranked offense and a defense that somehow managed to be worse. The Jets were 31st in scoring defense and went the entire season without intercepting a pass, setting an NFL record. 

Glenn’s foibles extended off the field. He was talking a big game when he was first hired, then took a particularly combative tone with the media. Neither did him any favors as the season spiraled. His insistence on playing coy with the starting quarterback once it became clear Justin Fields, his hand-picked option, wasn’t the guy became a weekly distraction. 

Not many people would have batted an eye if owner Woody Johnson made Glenn a one-and-done hire. But Johnson, perhaps sensitive to criticisms about how quickly he moved on from previous HC Robert Saleh in 2024, perhaps significantly more invested in Glenn as “his guy,” chose to bring Glenn back for another season. There were still significant changes. 

Glenn dramatically remade his coaching staff, firing OC Tanner Engstrand after initially looking to strip him of play-calling duties in favor of a senior offensive assistant. As you can guess, it wasn’t a particularly in-demand job and Glenn ended up with former Panthers and Colts HC Frank Reich in the role. Former DC Steve Wilks didn’t make it through the 2025 season. Glenn initially seemed to be conducting interviews with the goal of hiring an established defensive play-caller, but abruptly pivoted midway through the process and will call the plays himself in 2026. 

The Jets have three first-round picks in 2027 after selling off cornerstones like DT Quinnen Williams and CB Sauce Gardner, so they already have spilled the beans about expectations not being super high this season. Still, there’s a line Glenn has to walk. Reports have indicated that Johnson believes in Glenn and is going to give him some patience to start the season. It’s up to him not to squander that benefit of the doubt. 

No one is expecting a winning season but the Jets cannot be as big of a dumpster fire as they were in 2025. There have to be signs of progress to prove Glenn is the right person to continue to shepherd a developing team in 2027, one that will in all likelihood include a highly-drafted rookie quarterback. 

Medium Hot

Bengals HC Zac Taylor

Several AFC teams made big coaching changes this offseason. The Ravens and Bills moved on from Harbaugh and McDermott after failing to make the playoffs in Harbaugh’s case, failing to advance to the Super Bowl in McDermott’s. Steelers HC Mike Tomlin resigned after Pittsburgh made the postseason but was unable to snap a playoff victory drought that stretches back to 2017. Even the Chiefs changed offensive coordinators after falling short of the playoffs, letting Matt Nagy walk and bringing back Eric Bieniemy. 

The Bengals missed the playoffs as well but there was never any serious buzz about a coaching change in Cincinnati. Owner Mike Brown and his family are infamously patient. Longtime HC Marvin Lewis coached 16 years and never won a playoff game. Taylor was just 6-25-1 in his first two seasons. 

However, there are signs that the urgency is beginning to ramp up for the Bengals with three straight years out of the playoffs despite having QB Joe Burrow under center. Cincinnati was far more aggressive this offseason adding to the roster, including trading the No. 10 pick for DT Dexter Lawrence. The tone from Burrow has been pointed, including openly wondering about his long-term future with the Bengals late last season. 

A fourth season out of the playoffs would create some hard conversations for the Bengals. Even in a tough division and a tough conference, there’s no way that should happen with a quarterback like Burrow. 

Commanders HC Dan Quinn

Last year sucked a lot of the spark out of Washington following a charmed run to the NFC title game in Quinn’s first season in 2024. Injuries, especially to QB Jayden Daniels, dogged the Commanders persistently and they finished 5-12 — just one win better than when Quinn and GM Adam Peters took over. 

It raised a lot of eyebrows around the league this offseason when Quinn, who already relieved DC Joe Whitt Jr. of his responsibilities during the season, elected to do a clean coordinator sweep and move on from OC Kliff Kingsbury, a flawed but proven commodity who had major head coaching buzz after 2024. He’s betting big on a pair of young assistants in DC Daronte Jones and OC David Blough, who jumped all the way up from assistant QB coach last year. 

Those are both big buttons for a head coach to press and suggest Quinn is feeling some heat. If they don’t work, the finger of blame doesn’t have many other places to point besides him. Getting a healthy season from Daniels would go a long way toward helping Washington get back on track, and that was part of the reason for the shift at play-caller to get Daniels in a scheme that protected him more. 

There are still big questions on the roster, though, and Quinn wouldn’t be the first coach to start off hot before fizzling out. 

Panthers HC Dave Canales

This might be a little spicy since the Panthers are coming off a playoff berth last year and are viewed as a team on the rise. They were active in free agency and exercised QB Bryce Young’s fifth-year option for 2027. The expectation internally is for Carolina to be a playoff team; owner Dave Tepper said as much at one point this offseason. 

However, what gets coaches fired more than anything else isn’t just losing games, it’s failing to meet expectations. There are mounting signs that 2026 could be a challenging season. Carolina was just 8-9 last year and its point differential and record in one-score games suggest they were probably worse than that record. Despite the moves in free agency and the draft, injuries have already hit the roster hard, with five projected starters likely to be on the injured list in one form or another when Week 1 hits. 

I think Canales should get some leash because of how poor the team was when he and GM Dan Morgan took over. This is a multi-year rebuilding job that honestly probably still has at least a year to go. The Panthers have gone from awful to average and are looking to make another jump. The concern is whether the owner’s expectations are in line with that. Tepper has done better the past few years about butting out after some early blunders when he influenced football decisions too strongly. Has he really turned a corner, or would a disappointing season reignite some of his worst urges? 

First-year hires

Part of the reason the turnover in the coaching ranks in the NFL is so high is because there’s so little patience, and the best illustration of that is with first-year coaches. Starting in 2011, there has been at least one coach fired after just one season in all but three years (2014, 2017 and 2020). The full list: 

With 10 new hires this year, the odds are high that the streak will continue. Here’s a quicker look at how I’d rank the probabilities for each coach, from least likely to most likely. 

• Ravens HC Jesse Minter: A former Baltimore assistant who’s back after a few years away. The Ravens are also one of the league’s best-run franchises and don’t make rash moves. 
• Steelers HC Mike McCarthy: Gets the benefit of coaching for another organization that believes in the power of stability. 
• Raiders HC Klint Kubiak: Las Vegas owner Mark Davis is a wild card — but Tom Brady feels like he’s calling more of the shots these days and Kubiak is his guy. 
• Dolphins HC Jeff Hafley: Record dead money hit this year shows Miami is serious about a two-year rebuilding window, so Hafley will get time. 
• Giants HC John Harbaugh: The prize of this past coaching cycle. The Giants invested a ton to bring Harbaugh aboard and won’t move on unless it’s a complete, abject disaster. 
• Bills HC Joe Brady: Buffalo got a late start in the coaching cycle and there was a lot of appeal to keeping the offense the same around QB Josh Allen. If the Bills still can’t break through, I could see owner Terry Pegula weighing deeper changes. 
• Titans HC Robert Saleh: Given how owner Amy Adams Strunk has done 180-degree turns on key hires for a few years straight now, it’s tough to feel 100 percent about Saleh. He should get at least one year, though. 
• Falcons HC Kevin Stefanski: Was moving on from former HC Raheem Morris a sign the Falcons are feeling some urgency, or a move to avoid mismatched timelines after firing former GM Terry Fontenot? If it’s the former, Stefanski might have a sneaky high bar he needs to clear in Year 1. 
• Cardinals HC Mike LaFleur: You can usually bet on dysfunctional teams to do dysfunctional things, and Arizona qualifies as a dysfunctional franchise. 
• Browns HC Todd Monken: I don’t think Cleveland was at the top of the pile for coaching candidates this past offseason for a variety of reasons. That could change next year with extra draft capital and a better draft class for quarterbacks, and the Browns might have a wandering eye if Monken doesn’t distinguish himself. There’s also the possibility of owner Jimmy Haslam cleaning house completely.