The 2024 NFL hiring cycle wrapped up last week with Washington making the final hire, settling on Cowboys DC Dan Quinn, while seven other teams filled vacancies at the position. It’s safe to say this was one of the most unique cycles we’ve had in a while with almost an overload of high-profile moves and candidates.

And yet even though a quarter of the NFL made a change at head coach, there are still a ton of loose ends that might not stop waving around until the next hiring cycle:

• Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel and Pete Carroll have been heavy hitters in the coaching ranks for years. None of them were hired and none of them will coach in 2024. 
• Despite persistent speculation, Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy, Eagles HC Nick Sirianni and Steelers HC Mike Tomlin are all back with their respective teams. But McCarthy and Sirianni are definitively on the hot seat, and both McCarthy and Tomlin aren’t under contract beyond 2024 at this moment. 
• Arguably the hottest candidate of all, Lions OC Ben Johnson, withdrew himself from the process for the second straight year suddenly and without warning. Johnson won’t lose all his shine after back-to-back seasons coordinating top-five offenses unless the Lions completely flop, but there are more questions about him as a candidate than there were before. 

For as active as this past hiring wave was, the 2025 coaching cycle could blow it out of the water. Between the plethora of big names available and numerous uncertain situations with other franchises who elected not to make a change this year, we are looking at a particularly volatile coaching environment.

Another eight changes seem well within reach and it’s possible we could even get into double digits. There are three groups of coaches with varying degrees of heat on their seat heading into this season:

Pressure’s On

Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy

McCarthy’s job security has been an annual hot topic since his first season in Dallas. Until now, that speculation has been overblown. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones still lives off his reputation from the 90s and is not nearly as impulsive or meddlesome as people think. Historically he’s shown a lot of patience and a long leash with his coaches. 

However, this time I think the kerfuffle about McCarthy’s job is warranted. He’s entering the final year of his contract and all indications are he will not receive an extension. McCarthy has one more year to make his case for the job, and it has to center around advancing deep into the playoffs and competing at the level the Cowboys should given the talent on the roster. Another 12-win season alone isn’t good enough. McCarthy has stacked three of those in a row. All three have been capped by embarrassing playoff losses — the most recent one against the Packers the worst of all. 

Frankly Jones would have been justified in pulling the plug given how the 2023 season ended. A lot of people around the NFL expected that to happen, but in the end, McCarthy’s total resume was enough to sway Jones into giving him one more chance. Going into 2024, expectations are sky-high and McCarthy will have to coach his tail off to meet them. 

Jets HC Robert Saleh

It’s a close call on which coach has more pressure on them entering the 2024 season: McCarthy or Saleh. The Jets seem to be moving forward under the premise that most of the problems from this past season can be fixed by a healthy Aaron Rodgers, and Saleh and GM Joe Douglas are still the right guys to fix everything else. 

But given how things played out in 2023, I don’t think a healthy Rodgers would have made the Jets Super Bowl contenders. Their problems were bigger than just shaky quarterback play, even if that was the biggest one. The offensive line was porous and the Jets had a shortage of skill talent outside of WR Garrett Wilson and RB Breece Hall. Jets OC Nathaniel Hackett looked predictably overmatched, and even if Rodgers will call a major chunk of the plays when he’s back, that was the source of some of the Packers’ problems on offense at different points of his career in Green Bay. 

Last year, I predicted the Jets would be a big disappointment, citing the tough schedule, the learning curve with Rodgers, offensive line problems and attrition on defense. This year, they still have potential problems on the offensive line — a problem point Douglas has been trying to fix since he took the job in 2019 — and will face more attrition on defense with some pending free agents, most notably DE Bryce Huff. 

Between that and the high bar for success the Jets have set for themselves, there’s a ton of pressure in New York. Arguably more than usual. 

Giants HC Brian Daboll

Both New York teams have head coaches with major questions, and it’s fair to say this is not where the Giants thought they would be a year ago with the 2022 Coach of the Year. Daboll earned the award because the Giants obliterated expectations in the first year of what was supposed to be a significant rebuilding project, making the playoffs despite a depleted roster and while Daboll helped QB Daniel Jones look like a viable starter for the first time in his career. 

It was a magical season. But for as charmed as 2022 was in New York, 2023 was equally cursed. Jones regressed and got hurt, tearing his ACL in his first game back from the second neck injury of his NFL career. Injuries slammed both sides of the ball. The coaching staff ripped apart at the seams and a lot of ugly behind-the-scenes tension became public, not just the rift between Daboll and respected DC Wink Martindale that led to his exit.

All the losing put a microscope on Daboll, including his temperament on the sidelines and the working environment he created behind the scenes. He had a temper in 2022 as well, but winning covers up a lot. The coaching staff exodus in New York this offseason is proof the Giants have a problem, and had they not blocked OC Mike Kafka from an interview with the Seahawks — even if there’s a real chance Kafka is stripped of play-calling duties this year — they could have lost all three coordinators. 

Giants owner John Mara did warn Daboll things can change on a dime in New York, telling reporters last May, “In this business, it doesn’t take long to go from Bono to Bozo.” He was joking when he said it, but Daboll is dangerously close to becoming a Bozo with another poor season. If 2024 is filled with losses and backdoor drama, there’s a good chance the Mara’s pull the plug. 

Saints HC Dennis Allen

When the Saints chose to promote Allen from defensive coordinator to head coach to replace Sean Payton, the rationale was he would provide continuity to allow New Orleans to keep competing in the NFC South. To be fair to Allen, the Saints improved from 7-10 his first season to 9-8 last year and have stayed competitive. They missed the playoffs both years, however, despite being the preseason favorites in 2023. 

Three years without a playoff berth would be tough to sell to the fanbase. The NFC South might be a little bit better in 2024 but it’s still a division that should be up for grabs. The Panthers look like a multi-year rebuilding project. The Buccaneers have a lot of roster questions to answer. The Falcons might be in the best position but they still need to find a quarterback and will have new schemes on both sides of the ball. 

The Saints have major problems of their own but winning the division absolutely is a fair expectation. If they don’t, that could be the final spark that ignites major changes in New Orleans. 

Eagles HC Nick Sirianni

In most cities, a coach with Sirianni’s track record so far being on the hot seat would be a ludicrous proposition. Philadelphia is not like most sports cities, however. In less than a calendar year, Sirianni went from the pinnacle of the sport, which included a Super Bowl appearance and a 10-1 record through 11 weeks in 2023, to an epic 1-6 collapse that legitimately put his job in danger. 

Sirianni already got his stay of execution by sacrificing both coordinators — three if you count Matt Patricia in addition to Sean Desai on defense. If the Eagles aren’t back to contending next season, he’s out of excuses. Philadelphia can’t look as overmatched and stale as the Eagles looked in the late-season slide, which is why Sirianni hired OC Kellen Moore and DC Vic Fangio to help revamp the schemes on either side of the ball. 

While there are legitimate holes on the roster to solve, the Eagles do still have enough talent to be a force in the NFC, and that’s the expectation Sirianni has to live up to — or else. 

Bears HC Matt Eberflus

To talk about Eberflus in 2024, we have to back up first. In his first year on the job after being hired alongside GM Ryan Poles, things were rough. The Bears earned the No. 1 pick outright, which they traded to help patch up a Swiss cheese roster that went 3-14. In Year 2, things started rough again for Eberflus. Chicago won three games in three months and there was significant chatter that Eberflus’ job was in jeopardy. 

Fortunately for Eberflus, he was able to steady the ship. The defense in particular stepped up in the second half of the season and the Bears finished with a 7-10 record and an outside chance at the playoffs at the end of the year. By the time Black Monday rolled around, there was little heat on Eberflus. 

Now it’s time for Year 3, which is when the rebuild for the Bears should kick into another gear. Poles has a wealth of assets to continue fortifying the roster, including the No. 1 and No. 9 pick and a ton of cap space. Eberflus and the Bears understand they will be expected to take a significant step forward in 2024. 

What exactly that step forward looks like is a little more murky. The Bears could use the No. 1 pick on a new starting quarterback, and historically speaking it’s been an anomaly for rookie quarterbacks to lead playoff runs. So Eberflus might not necessarily have a playoff mandate this year. As long as the vibes are good and it seems like the Bears are heading in the right direction, Eberflus should be safe. 

However, if things look more like the first half of this past season or 2022, Eberflus could find himself on the hot seat in a hurry. I wouldn’t say he’s feeling the same amount of pressure as some of the other coaches leading this section but anytime your job security is an open question in one year, it lingers into the next. 

Warm & Might Get Warmer

Bills HC Sean McDermott

Heading into December, the Bills were 6-6, out of the playoff picture and under fire on multiple fronts. They had fired OC Ken Dorsey and a bombshell article about HC Sean McDermott had dropped, questioning everything from his people management skills to an anecdote about how he used the 9/11 hijackers as an example of teamwork in a team meeting. Reporters were poking around Bills ownership and its circle to gauge McDermott’s job security. 

By now you know how things ended. The Bills rattled off a five-game win streak to close the season and earn the No. 2 seed in the AFC, winning a playoff game before being foiled yet again by the Chiefs in the divisional round of the playoffs, only this time at home in Buffalo. That sapped a lot of the goodwill McDermott regained during the win streak, and the questions came roaring back.

There are fears in Buffalo that the window is closing. The team has some challenges to overcome with an aging roster and less financial flexibility due to huge contracts for veterans like QB Josh Allen, WR Stefon Diggs and DE Von Miller. In addition, McDermott’s staff has been hit with attrition. Former DC Leslie Frazier left before last season and McDermott took over as defensive coordinator as well as head coach. Though Dorsey took the fall, it was McDermott’s defense that struggled the most in the first two or three months of the season before righting the ship at the end. 

It might be premature to say 2024 is a make-or-break season for McDermott but it’s notable how high the heat ratcheted this past season before the wins quieted the critics — for a little while. The AFC is a meatgrinder and it feels like the Bills are being sucked in instead of remaining out in front of the pack. It leads to questions about everything, even McDermott. 

In seven years in Buffalo, McDermott has six winning seasons and six playoff berths. It’s an impressive track record. However, an inability to advance to the Super Bowl with Allen at quarterback is a notable failure. At some point, he has to get over that hump.

Browns HC Kevin Stefanski

Out of all the coaches on this list, I would argue Stefanski least belongs here. He helped the Browns to their first playoff berth in decades back in 2020, and won a game to boot. He led Cleveland back to the postseason this year despite a rash of injuries, including to QB Deshaun Watson, RB Nick Chubb, a plethora of offensive tackles and more. There’s a good chance he’s named coach of the year for his work, though it’s a crowded field this year. 

Still, Stefanski has a unique problem, one most other NFL coaches haven’t had to face. He might find helpful advice in the ranks of the NBA where coaches have to negotiate a different power dynamic between them and the players. Stefanski coaches an NFL player with an NBA contract — Watson. 

Cleveland famously gave Watson a five-year, fully guaranteed contract in the trade to acquire him from the Texans. If Browns GM Andrew Berry was still working in finance, the ROI from the first two years of that deal would have gotten him cussed out by the boss and fired on the spot. Watson played just six games due to suspension in 2022 and just six games in 2023 before injuring his throwing shoulder, and didn’t play very well in either season. 

Cleveland has three more years and $138 million left on the deal, so the Browns don’t have much of a choice besides figuring out a way to make it work. That means Watson has a lot more job security than Stefanski, which is likely why he felt the need to shake up his staff this offseason, replacing former OC Alex Van Pelt with former Bills OC Ken Dorsey. Stefanski made an effort this year to change his scheme to accommodate Watson, using more spread formations as opposed to the multiple tight end looks he’d built his system around before. Hiring Dorsey looks like another step in that direction. 

The other wildcard here is owner Jimmy Haslam, who has been known to stick his nose into things and make executive decisions in the past. If the Browns and Watson struggle in 2024, it would not be entirely shocking to see Haslam decide he needs a coach who “fits” Watson better. 

Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles

Quietly, Bowles has put together a sneaky resume with the Buccaneers since getting a second crack at a head coaching gig. Tampa Bay has made the playoffs both years and won the NFC South, although all it took was an 8-9 record in 2022 and a 9-8 record this past season. The Bucs even upset the Eagles in the wildcard round after losing to them earlier in the year. 

For that reason, I think Bowles enters the 2024 season with more leash than the average fan might think. The Bucs have some talent but they’re still in the reloading phase of the build after the Super Bowl window. They overperformed expectations despite being a below-average team for the bulk of the season and got a big boost from resurgent QB Baker Mayfield. Ownership and the front office will want to give Bowles a chance to build on that. 

However, he’ll have some challenges. Mayfield won’t be nearly as cheap and there are some other key free agents like WR Mike Evans and S Antoine Winfield Jr. Tampa Bay will still be navigating the cap ramifications of the Super Bowl contending era, though not to the degree they were this past season with something like $60-plus million in dead money. 

The Bucs should still be able to compete in the NFC South, but if they can’t that will send up some red flags. If Mayfield can’t sustain his level of play with a new offensive coordinator, that puts quarterback back on the needs list, although with the added complication of a new contract potentially. There are still choppy waters ahead for Bowles to navigate. I don’t think a six or seven-win season would doom him, but if things bottom out, I could see the Buccaneers deciding they need a fresh start. 

Jaguars HC Doug Pederson

The last time Jaguars GM Trent Baalke held this kind of power for an NFL team, he got into a power struggle with the head coach that ended up running both of them out of town. There have been some warning signs that a similar situation could be brewing in Jacksonville. There were reports Baalke sat in on interview with Pederson when he was looking for a new defensive coordinator, which is unusual for most GMs who allow coaches to run those searches. 

Baalke also put the buck squarely on the coaching staff in his end-of-season press conference for how some of their rookies have failed to have much of an impact in the past couple of seasons. He dismissed questions about the Jaguars not going after better edge rusher depth or help on the offensive line and put the onus on QB Trevor Lawrence to improve after some inconsistencies played a role in Jacksonville’s collapse down the stretch last season. 

The other factor to note is the coaching staff angst. Both the offense and the defense played a part in the Jaguars failing to win the AFC South after taking a commanding lead in the divisional race midseason. But at the end of the year, it was the defensive side that was overhauled, with Pederson retaining OC Press Taylor whom he’s been fiercely loyal to at multiple coaching stops. Pederson handed play-calling duties over to Taylor this past season, and while Jacksonville’s struggles on offense go beyond who was calling the plays, it’s fair to say Pederson would probably be better at the role than Taylor. 

I wouldn’t necessarily put Pederson and the Jaguars on red alert yet but things don’t feel as rosy as they did entering last season. Jacksonville has a short window to maximize Lawrence’s rookie contract, maybe just one or two more years. And Lawrence still has some work to do to prove he’s worthy of the NFL supermax quarterback extension. 

Wildcards

Chiefs HC Andy Reid

Any time Reid has been asked about retirement over the past few years, he’s downplayed the idea and said he still loves coaching players like QB Patrick Mahomes. But the fact is, Reid turns 66 this year and will not coach forever. He has to walk away at some point, and a report from Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio in January indicated the Chiefs thought it might be enough of a possibility to warrant sharpening their succession plans. 

Belichick and Carroll were both 72 this past year, so if Reid coached that long it would give him another six years. Perhaps another Super Bowl win is enough for him to decide to go out on top. Reid might be the only person who knows the answer to that question. 

Rams HC Sean McVay

McVay got ahead of the speculation this year to state his commitment to the Rams’ organization in 2024, and the team is in a much better spot than it was a year ago when McVay was seriously considering taking a lucrative TV job with Amazon and an NFL sabbatical. What will things look like in a year, though? 

In the past, McVay has indicated he wants to keep coaching players like QB Matthew Stafford, WR Cooper Kupp and DT Aaron Donald for as long as they’re in Los Angeles. All of those players are closer to the end of their careers than the beginning. Donald turns 33 this spring and is entering a contract year. Stafford turns 36 today, and a year ago had some serious injury concerns. Kupp turns 31 in June and has battled ankle and hamstring problems the past two seasons. 

Monitoring the future of those three could offer some clues as to what McVay will be planning. They’re at the age where the end can come suddenly and unexpectedly. 

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin

There was enough chatter about Tomlin toward the end of the season that it’s worth noting, even though he kept his streak of zero losing seasons alive and helped get the Steelers into the playoffs. He’s entering the final year of his contract in 2024. Both he and the Steelers have said an extension is on the docket this year but downplayed the urgency, which isn’t necessarily different from how they’ve handled it in previous seasons. 

The difference is it’s been seven years since the Steelers have won a playoff game, though they’ve qualified in four of those years. Steelers fans are certainly getting antsy despite Tomlin’s Hall of Fame-caliber resume, and it’s possible ownership will hit a breaking point as well.

There have also been rumors that Tomlin would be ready for a fresh start with another team, and could decline to accept an extension to become a coaching free agent. That would allow him to either take a sabbatical or pick his next destination. 

Take all of this together in totality, and it’s clear this is a big year in Pittsburgh. 

First-year head coaches

In the past 10 years going back to 2014, nine NFL coaches were fired after their first year — or sooner. With 69 total hires in the last 10 hiring cycles, that’s a 13 percent attrition rate. There have been just three years in the past 10 with no first-year coaches being canned. 

Statistically speaking, that means there’s a notable chance one of the eight coaches this year won’t remain in the role in 2025.

Some years, the lame ducks are obvious. A couple of years ago, it was clear Texans HC Lovie Smith was a band-aid hire to some degree. Frank Reich, Nathaniel Hackett and Urban Meyer were all so disastrous that they didn’t even make it through the full season with their teams. Predicting that level of dysfunction isn’t easy, and it’s not fair at this point in the NFL calendar either. 

What I will say, however, is some coaches landed in better situations than others. Panthers HC Dave Canales has an owner who has been tagged with a reputation for having an itchy trigger finger. Some of that is unfair — Panthers owner Dave Tepper kept Matt Rhule into his third season and gave Ron Rivera a second year in 2019, though he’s had a quicker hook with his MLS team’s managers and obviously with Reich — but some of it is warranted. Tepper is behind some of the quarterback instability in Carolina and infamously pulled out of the Rock Hill practice facility project in South Carolina when the relationship with local authorities broke down. 

Firing another coach after just one year would be an awful look and tank Tepper’s reputation even further, but it’s not without precedent. The Texans and 49ers have both fired coaches after just one year in back-to-back years in the past decade. If Canales is a disaster like Reich, Tepper won’t sit on his hands. Fortunately, that’s a low bar to clear. 

Raiders owner Mark Davis is always a wildcard and there’s no telling what he’ll do when an idea takes root. Part of the appeal for him in hiring Pierce was that he sparked more wins down the stretch and seemed to accelerate Las Vegas’ rebuilding process. But with Pierce’s inexperience and the questions the Raiders’ roster still has, it’s possible the interim magic could run out quicker than people expect. If the Raiders take a big step back, will Davis sit tight despite a bushel of big names potentially available? 

It’s also worth keeping an eye on the Falcons, where owner Arthur Blank was convinced to pass on Belichick to hire Raheem Morris by other key decision-makers in Atlanta. Morris is a terrific candidate and this was actually one of my favorite hires of the whole cycle. But if we’re discussing the full range of possibilities, there is some sneaky downside here. 

Coaches don’t just get fired for losing games, they lose their jobs primarily because they fail to meet expectations. It’s clear Blank believes the Falcons have a roster that can contend with better coaching and better quarterback play, which is why he was looking at proven coaches this past hiring cycle like Belichick and Harbaugh.

At 82 years old, Blank doesn’t have a whole lot of time left to try and win a Super Bowl. If the 2024 season plays out in a way that raises serious doubts about Morris’ ability to win a ring, Belichick is right there for Blank to go after again, and he’d be far less likely to be talked out of it a second time.