The 2016 NFL season is still several weeks away from kicking off, but already, there are several coaches which find themselves on the chopping block, many of which avoided the fate of getting their pink slips at the end of last season.
NFL First Coach To Be Fired Odds at BookMaker.eu
Jim Caldwell ( Lions ) +600
Chuck Pagano ( Colts ) +900
Mike Mularkey ( Titans ) +900
Jeff Fisher ( Rams ) +1000
Gus Bradley ( Jaguars ) +1200
Mike McCoy ( Chargers ) +1200
Rex Ryan ( Bills ) +1500
Field ( Any Other Coach ) +2000
There aren’t all that many organizations which are willing to make major changes at the head coaching position in the middle of the year, but not surprisingly, most of the teams which are favored to fire their coaches first this season are ones which have made similar moves in recent years.
However, that's why we're taking Chuck Pagano out of the equation for the Colts. Sure, if Indianapolis gets off to a 1-5 start to the year, Pagano is going to get canned. However, owner Jim Irsay has been confident about maintaining the course with Andrew Luck, and hopefully, good health can lead his team back to its winning ways. The AFC South is still really bad, and so long as Luck stays healthy, there's no reason for the Colts to not make a return trip to the postseason this year. That should keep Pagano safe once again, though at some point, GM Ryan Grigson is going to have to pay for some shoddy decisions in his handling of the club.
The rest of these men on the list are all definitely viable candidates to be fired first. The Detroit Lions cleaned house in the middle of the season last year with everything but their head coach, and Jim Caldwell is surely the next to go. The Lions aren't going in the right direction at this point, and they've got a pretty nasty start to their season with three of their first four games on the road.
That said, if there's a reason to bet against Caldwell in this spot, it's that the Lions don't have their bye week until the middle of November. Is that a guarantee that Caldwell is safe until then? Of course it isn't. But with no Thursday games and no bye week for the first nine weeks of the year, there are going to be opportunities for other coaches to get canned first.
Like Mike Mularkey.
Why on earth the Titans brought Mularkey back this year is beyond us. He's a miserable coach, probably the worst in the league. Tennessee has done some things to make itself better for sure, but the franchise did Mularkey no favors by trading back in the NFL Draft a million times this year.
Sure, the Titans don't have a bye week until after the Lions do, but they do play on a Thursday night at home against Jacksonville on October 27. You hate to say that's the day which Mularkey gets fired, but if Tennessee is something like 1-7 through eight games at that point, changes are going to have to be made to try to protect the best asset the organization has, Marcus Mariota.
However, we have to wonder if Mularkey is on safer ground than his cohort in the AFC South, Gus Bradley. Shad Khan has made it clear that he expects the Jags to get into the postseason this year, and we just don't see it happening. Bradley has done a nice job on this reclamation project, but there's a ways to go yet to get the job done unless Blake Bortles really takes a massive step forward.
There's a really good chance Jacksonville is going to be 0-4 through four games against the Packers, Chargers, Ravens and Colts, and if that's the case with the team coming back from London, Khan made decide that enough is enough and show Bradley the door while the team is on bye in Week 5.
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