January 9 marks the first day of the offseason for the 18 NFL teams who failed to make the playoffs. It also marks the day most underwhelming head coaches find out whether they’re out of a job or have another year to turn things around.
The first Monday after Week 18 — also known as Black Monday — is typically the backdrop against which disappointed franchises announce they’re changing plans. This year’s crop of firings may be smaller than years’ past. That’s not because the league of chock full of great coaches, however. Instead, it’s because three coaches didn’t even make it through the 2022 season before being relieved of their duties.
Here’s a list of the coaches who have been fired to kick off 2023, as well as the three unfortunate playcallers who preceded them and sent their teams searching for replacements back in the fall:
1
Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona Cardinals
13 months ago, Kingsbury’s Cardinals were 10-2 and stood atop the NFC. In the 23 games since, he’s 5-18.
This would be surprising in a vacuum. Instead, it was a lingering symptom of Kingsbury’s inability to make vital adjustments. Arizona’s modus operandi under the former Texas Tech head coach was to impress early in the season before falling apart late. He couldn’t lock down the first half of that equation in 2022, so he had to go.
Sources: The Arizona Cardinals fired head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who 10 months ago signed a contract extension through the 2027 season.
The Cardinals still never have had a head coach – any head coach – last longer than six years while the team has existed for over 100 years. pic.twitter.com/kYWb1AfjIG
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 9, 2023
The move comes less than a year after Kingsbury signed a contract extension that prevented him from heading into the year as a lame duck head coach. It also came less than a year after Kyler Murray signed a contract extension with just under $190 million in guarantees, then promptly turned into a pumpkin en route to his least efficient season as a pro. Someone had to go in Arizona, and it wasn’t going to be the young quarterback carrying massive dead salary cap money on his current contract.
Whomever replaces Kingsbury will have a clear primary goal: fixing Murray.
2
Lovie Smith, Houston Texans
Smith was hired for one reason: to lose games and advance the Texans’ rebuild. But like David Culley before him, he was a failure at being a failure. Houston won one too many games and missed its opportunity for the top overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
That’s not why Smith was fired — he was almost certainly always going to be one-and-done like Culley — but it wasn’t a point in his favor. The Texans rallied to beat the Colts in Week 18, but they still finished 3-13-1 and the nicest thing you could say about their season is that it happened with minimal losses due to injury.
The #Texans have fired coach Lovie Smith, per me and @MikeGarafolo. Another one-and-done in Houston. pic.twitter.com/1Ld7PxCGUq
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 9, 2023
The next man up in Houston will inherit a roster with a handful of nice young defensive pieces and little else. The Texans will have to find a franchise quarterback with the second overall pick in this spring’s draft, which could be a selling point for Smith’s successor. He’ll also have to deal with holes across the roster and a disheveled ownership group that isn’t quite sure what it wants this team to be.
3
Nathaniel Hackett, Denver Broncos
Tenure: Less than one season (15 games)
Record: 4-11, zero playoff appearances
Hackett was a disaster through and through. The man who’d helped guide Aaron Rodgers to back-to-back MVP awards in 2020 and 2021 oversaw Russell Wilson’s plummet from “franchise cornerstone” to “borderline top 30 quarterback.” Rather than guide the Broncos back to the postseason, Hackett’s complete inability to generate offense tanked the 2022 season and ensured the first and second-round picks headed to the Seattle Seahawks as part of the Wilson trade will be wildly valuable.
Wilson, bad as he has been, signed a lucrative extension last offseason that ties him to Denver through at least 2025. Someone had to go, and the head coach unable to gameplan for his quarterback or manage in-game clock situations efficiently was the easiest choice.
4
Frank Reich, Indianapolis Colts
Tenure: Four-plus seasons (71 games)
Record: 40-33-1, 1-2 in the playoffs
Reich’s firing after Week 9 was a bit of a surprise. After all, he’d led a Colts team in constant need of consistent quarterbacking to a winning record and a pair of postseason berths. But his 2022 Indianapolis team underwhelmed en route to a 3-5-1 start, leading to his ousting.
Of course, the biggest surprise for the franchise was yet to come. Owner Jim Irsay used Reich’s departure to name former center Jeff Saturday — a man with zero coaching experience above the high school level — his interim head coach. Saturday has been a success in exactly one regard; he’s lost enough games to put the Colts in position to land their next franchise quarterback at the 2023 NFL Draft.
5
Matt Rhule, Carolina Panthers
Tenure: Two-plus seasons, 38 games
Record: 11-27, zero playoff appearances
Rhule was a fixer at the college level, leading Temple and Baylor to great heights with quick turnarounds. He couldn’t do the same in Carolina. While he was often limited by underwhelming quarterback play, his ignominious tenure looks even worse when you consider the success interim coach Steve Wilks has had in his stead.
Rhule was the first head coach fired during the 2022 regular season. He lasted only five weeks — and one win — into his third season coaching on Sundays.
