Two head coaches have already been chopped this season, with the Titans and Giants electing to move on from the guys they supposedly trusted enough to lead the ship back in August. More firings are coming, either sometime this month or on the infamous “Black Monday” the day after the end of the regular season in Week 18. 

The only question is how many. Change is the biggest constant in the NFL. On average, the 32 owners who run the different clubs tend to err on the side of impatience rather than restraint. Over the past 15 years, there have been an average of seven new head coaching hires per year. In that span, the fewest in any year was five new hires in 2020. Before that, the low-water mark was three in 2010. 

History says there should be another five or six firings. However, if you look around the league right now, it’s not necessarily easy to pinpoint another five or six coaches who feel like reliable bets to get canned. There are some mitigating factors to consider that could make this a slower-than-average hiring cycle. Certain owners have been vocal about trying to reduce the amount of cash teams pay in buyouts to fired coaches. It’s also not a banner year for candidates, with no clear frontrunners that teams will be jockeying for like Mike Vrabel or Ben Johnson. 

Still, there’s enough losing and dysfunction around the NFL that we probably won’t have just three firings like in 2010. Five feels like a pretty safe bet. Here’s a look around the league at the hot seat situations to watch this month. 

Raiders HC Pete Carroll

It’s hard to overstate how miserable this year has been for the Raiders. Las Vegas is just 2-10 on the season, earning a Week 1 fakeout win over the Patriots and the second victory over the equally miserable Titans. Outside of some individual brilliance from a couple of players like TE Brock Bowers and DE Maxx Crosby, there’s very little the Raiders do well. They’re 30th in total offense and 31st in scoring, while ranking No. 26 in scoring defense. They do a decent job stopping the run but they’re below average in most other defensive metrics. 

The big anchor is the offense, particularly the offensive line which has developed into an insurmountable obstacle for success. The Raiders were struggling to block things up even before losing their two best starters in LT Kolton Miller and OL Jackson Powers-Johnson to injury. They rank last in the NFL in yards per carry despite using the No. 6 overall pick on RB Ashton Jeanty. They’re also second-to-last in both sacks and sack rate. Raiders QB Geno Smith has been under pressure more often than any other quarterback not named Justin Herbert, but PFF has him ranked just eighth out of 41 qualifying players in QB responsibility for pressure. 

Smith hasn’t been great either, with his worst pressure-to-sack rate since he became a full-time starter and a league-leading 14 interceptions. Hand-picked by Carroll in a reunion this offseason, the vision for him in Las Vegas was closely tied to Carroll. No one had crazy expectations for the Raiders in a loaded AFC West, but the team brain trust — including owner Mark Davis and minority owner Tom Brady — believed Carroll and Smith could engineer a floor of respectability and competitiveness as the team rebuilt. They retained respected DC Patrick Graham even though he hadn’t worked with Carroll before, and Carroll went further outside his Rolodex to hire OC Chip Kelly with the biggest contract ever for a play-caller. 

The way the bottom has fallen out instead reminds me a lot of the 2023 Carolina Panthers and former HC Frank Reich. Like Carroll, albeit to a lesser degree, Reich was viewed as a solid, established coaching commodity who could help the floundering Panthers establish a foundation. Owner Dave Tepper, still new to making team-building decisions just like a certain Mr. Brady, pushed Reich to build a superstar coaching staff with a series of trendy names. After getting a new quarterback in No. 1 pick Bryce Young, Carolina was viewed as a potentially frisky team just like the 2025 Raiders were. 

Instead, Carolina underestimated the chemistry aspect of welding together different coaches with different philosophies, and the result was a team without an identity and a roster thin on talent that exacerbated the issue. Tepper fired Reich after just 11 games and the Panthers ended up sending the No. 1 pick to the Bears due to their trade up for Young. Calling it a disaster still doesn’t really do it justice. 

The Raiders might be on track for two wins as well, and while Carroll hasn’t lost his job yet, others have been thrown overboard. Carroll moved on from ST coordinator Tom McMahon who he had inherited from previous coaching staffs, then just a couple of weeks later canned Kelly. Dueling reports about who was more to blame have since followed, with one saying Kelly failed at basic aspects of the job while another blamed Carroll for meddling and preventing Kelly from running his actual scheme. 

None of it makes the Raiders or anyone involved look good. Observers like The Athletic columnist Mike Sando have also pointed out Carroll’s influence on the defense, as the unit moves away from the principles Graham has leaned on in his previous six years running a defense and more toward tenets typically associated with Carroll teams. Given that Carroll’s increasing influence is not leading to more wins, it is getting harder to see the team bringing him back for another season. Carroll set the record this year for the oldest person to coach a game at 74 years old, and this year has made it clear he’s not eager to reinvent himself. 

The 2025 Raiders seem poised to learn the same lessons the 2023 Panthers did. 1) Chemistry and philosophical coherence are non-negotiables for a coaching staff that can’t be sacrificed in the pursuit of schematic or cultural edges. 2) The league evolves fast. Past success is not a guarantee of future success, especially for older coaches. 

Falcons HC Raheem Morris

Atlanta’s disappointing season continued with a walkoff loss to the Jets on Sunday. The Falcons have taken their fair share of body blows this season, but this loss, like most of the ones this year, was self-inflicted. A muffed punt inside the five led directly to a Jets’ touchdown, and two other field goals were set up by long returns, including the game-winner. Atlanta got the ball twice inside the final two minutes of the game and managed one yard, with multiple potential chunk completions dropped. 

Overall since a 6-3 debut for Morris in 2024, the Falcons have gone just 6-14 since, despite pretending they were a much better team. Taking QB Michael Penix Jr. after spending big on QB Kirk Cousins was a luxury pick, much as they tried to defend it. The Falcons proceeded to trade their 2026 first for the right to move up for OLB James Pearce this past year, landing a pass rusher after passing on one to take Penix. Pearce has been fine but that pick is currently slated to be in the top ten…

It’s worth revisiting the context around when Falcons owner Arthur Blank hired Morris two years ago. Atlanta had moved on from former HC Arthur Smith after three straight 7-10 seasons, then looked long and hard at former Patriots HC Bill Belichick. Implicit in all that was that Blank and GM Terry Fontenot, who was hired at the same time as Smith, thought the Falcons had a pretty good roster that was just being held back by the lack of a quarterback and the need for better coaching. 

Blank (perhaps with some nudging from Fontenot) passed on Belichick to hire Morris. It’s fair to say the duo has since underachieved, and they’ve done it with a hefty dose of unearned arrogance. They bragged about building a deep staff because they were confident other teams would be poaching coaches once they inevitably had tons of success. Fontenot and Morris defended the Penix selection and the trade for Pearce by saying they didn’t plan to pick in the top ten anytime soon and wouldn’t be able to land top-ten talents. 

Blank is famously patient, so that will work in Morris’ favor (Fontenot might have less of a leash after five years). But nothing gets a coach fired quicker than unmet expectations. Morris could really use some momentum in the last month of the season, especially because the ways in which the Falcons are losing (turnovers, special teams) implicate the coaching staff. The current pace feels unsustainable if Morris hopes to be back in 2026. 

Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel

McDaniel’s seat was raging hot earlier this season, and Miami’s struggles to start the year did result in longtime GM Chris Grier getting fired back on October 31st. Since then, the Dolphins have rallied. They’re actually unbeaten since Grier left, toppling the Bills, Commanders and Saints to climb back to 5-7. Strange as it may seem, the Dolphins are still alive in the playoff hunt, and with three games upcoming against the Jets, Steelers and Bengals, they could even get above .500. 

A consistent refrain in reports about McDaniel’s job security over the last several weeks is that owner Stephen Ross does not want to fire him. That benefit of the doubt is important, as it shows Ross still believes in the coach he hired a few years ago and will be looking for reasons to keep him. Miami’s given him plenty already with the three-game winning streak. McDaniel is also still held in high regard as an offensive architect and would be in high demand from other teams, perhaps even for a second head coaching gig. Ross is aware of this dynamic and it sounds like he’d prefer to have any McDaniel revival happen under his watch. 

There’s still a month for things to change and the Dolphins still have some real problems that they’re dealing with. McDaniel entered the year facing big questions, and the firing of Grier will only put those off for so long. At this point, though, it seems like he and QB Tua Tagovailoa are going to get another year to try and silence the doubters. 

Browns HC Kevin Stefanski

Stefanski has come under fire on two different fronts in 2025. The first is what you’d expect for a head coach of a 3-9 team, particularly one who is overseeing a struggling offense and has a background on that side of the ball. Browns DE Myles Garrett is on pace to break the single-season sack record and the defense has been good enough that Cleveland would be in the playoff mix if they had even a below-average offense. 

Instead, the Browns are 29th in scoring and 31st in yards. They hit in the draft on guys like second-round RB Quinshon Judkins and third-round TE Harold Fannin, but they can’t pass the ball well enough to stop opponents from focusing on Judkins and they can’t block well enough to consistently open up holes for him anyway. Fannin has been great for a rookie, but other skill players like WR Jerry Jeudy and TE David Njoku haven’t played consistently and have been impacted by poor quarterback play. 

Quarterback was always going to be a challenge for the Browns in 2025 given the contract for Deshaun Watson and how it limited the resources they had to allocate to the position. The Browns traded for Kenny Pickett, signed Joe Flacco, then surprised a lot of people in the draft. Not only did they take Dillon Gabriel in the third round over more highly-regarded players like Shedeur Sanders, they then doubled back and took Sanders in the fifth round. 

So far, it’s been a twist on the old saying — if you have four quarterbacks, then you have none. Pickett was traded after the preseason, Flacco was benched after four starts and traded shortly after, and now Gabriel has ceded to Sanders after going down with a concussion. And that’s led to the second front for Stefanski: Sanders’ legion of supporters and the constant headlines. He’s been second-guessed for every decision he’s made with Sanders all year, including for things that wouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary for any other rookie fifth-round quarterback (not getting first-team reps as the backup or being subbed for the tight end on a QB push sneak). 

Despite all of that, there’s not necessarily a sense out of Cleveland that Stefanski or GM Andrew Berry are feeling a lot of heat from ownership right now. Rather than being scapegoated for the Watson trade, ownership seems to be willing to take some of the heat for that blunder and give Berry and Stefanski a chance to try and find their way out, even if it takes time. Stefanski is more accomplished than any Browns coach in recent memory, snapping a nearly two-decade playoff drought and winning Coach of the Year twice. He’d have suitors if the Browns let him go, and the team seems to be aware of that. This is Year 1 of a multi-year rebuilding project, and expectations might not shift until the bulk of Watson’s contract is finally off the books. 

Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon

By Year 3 for a new regime, it should be fair to expect positive results with consequences if those expectations aren’t met. The Cardinals are 3-9 so far in Gannon’s third season in charge in Arizona, but for the time being it seems like he and GM Monti Ossenfort will be able to pin the blame on QB Kyler Murray as the fall guy. Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill is still paying buyout money to former HC Kliff Kingsbury and there’s not much sense that he’s eager to add to the total. Gannon and Ossenfort will get the chance to reset with their hand-picked quarterback this offseason and stave off an order of execution for at least the time being. 

Bengals HC Zac Taylor

The Bengals are on pace to miss the playoffs for the third straight season. For most organizations, that would mean serious consideration of a change at head coach. But Taylor has a few important things going for him. First, the Bengals under owner Mike Brown and his heirs have been among the most patient and methodical operations in the league. Taylor’s predecessor, Marvin Lewis, was in the chair for 16 years and never won a playoff game. 

Second, while Taylor has arguably underachieved with Burrow, he also hasn’t had the benefit of a healthy Burrow for swathes of the past three years. Third and perhaps most importantly, Burrow is still in Taylor’s corner as a supporter. The quarterback’s voice carries a lot of weight in the organization, and as long as he supports Taylor, the coach will probably be in good standing. 

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin

Every year or two, there’s a wildcard coaching vacancy from a team most people aren’t expecting. Sometimes it’s a retirement like former Bucs HC Bruce Arians, other times it’s a surprise firing. There are a few situations worth monitoring that could quietly result in a shakeup: 

• Packers HC Matt LaFleur didn’t get an extension this past year and will be in the final year of his deal in 2026. If Green Bay underperforms, either by missing the playoffs or losing in the first round, Packers beat reporters have said LaFleur is not necessarily safe. 
• If the Bills can’t get over the hump this year when the AFC is as wide open as it’s been since Brady left and Patrick Mahomes arrived, it could intensify the heat on HC Sean McDermott to a point that he can’t come back from again. 
• Ravens HC John Harbaugh is in a somewhat similar dry spell, with the fanbase getting restless. 

But the Steelers may be the real team to watch here. There was a report from veteran NFL reporter Josina Anderson about a longtime current head coach who had been telling people he was contemplating a change of scenery. Anderson didn’t name names, and “longtime head coach” is a descriptor that could apply just as easily to a few different coaches like McDermott, LaFleur and Harbaugh. But Tomlin was an easy dot to connect because this same line of thinking has come up in the past. 

There’s definitely some sense that things have gotten stale in Pittsburgh. The Steelers have one of the oldest rosters in the league and are relying heavily on veterans across the roster. They haven’t been able to figure out the quarterback position since Ben Roethlisberger retired, with a mix of failed draft picks and band-aid options. At one point, Tomlin and the defense had a schematic advantage with longtime DC Dick LeBeau. That hasn’t been the case for a long time. Steelers fans are well aware of this, but Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016 — a drought that’s lasted for eight of his 18 seasons in charge. 

At 6-6, the Steelers are in the mix at the top of the AFC North, but there’s a sense that some kind of reset is looming next year for an aging roster. Does Tomlin want to stick around for that? One of his calling cards throughout his career has been the fact that he’s never had a losing season. It’s also meant the Steelers haven’t had a high draft pick to take a crack at a potential franchise quarterback and have had to get creative. If Tomlin is curious about charting a different path or having a chance to get a better quarterback, a change of scenery could be the best path for that. 

Adam Schefter reiterated this week something he and others have reported before. The Steelers won’t fire Tomlin. When he and/or the team decide they are ready for something different, it will be handled in a different way, perhaps with Tomlin resigning or retiring, or maybe even Pittsburgh trading Tomlin to a destination he’s hand-picked. He’s under contract through the 2027 season, and a trade would also be an elegant way for the Steelers to shed that obligation. 

Could that exit plan be enacted after this season? There’s certainly some smoke suggesting it’s possible.