I did not plan to write my fireable coach rankings after only one week of the season. I wanted to take a month’s worth of evidence, sort through the stupid and powerful decisions each team leader made through four games, and draw conclusions after that.
But I make plans and the NFL laughs. Specifically, the Denver Broncos and first year head coach Nathaniel Hackett.
Hackett’s team not only lost in Seattle as six-point favorites, but did so in baffling fashion. It wasn’t just that the Broncos executed poorly, committed 12 penalties for 106 yards and dropped to 0-1 despite outgaining the Seahawks 433 yards to 253. It Hackett’s late game decision to take the ball out of Russell Wilson’s hands and leave his fate to a 64-yard field goal attempt that, historically, has roughly a five percent chance of success.
That leaves me with no choice but to talk about Week 1’s worst coaches. Scroll down if you want to see the obvious No. 1. The gulf between Hackett and the rest of the league’s hot seaters is roughly the size of the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s overreact to some snap decisions.
Oh, and let me note this isn’t a hot seat ranking — it couldn’t be, because poor Matt Rhule isn’t on here. This is merely a reaction to the bad choices that defined losses (or ties) in the first week of regular season action.
5 Lovie Smith, Houston Texans
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Smith’s debut in Houston went better than expected. Despite being a seven-point underdog to the Indianapolis Colts, he left NRG Stadium without a loss and, somehow, a place atop the AFC South.
Why is he kicking off this list? Because he was content to settle for a tie.
Unlike Brian Daboll in New York, Smith saw his no-lose situation — there are effectively zero expectations for this rebuilding Texans team — and decided half a win was better than defeat. Rather than go for it on fourth-and-three at just over midfield with 20 seconds remaining in overtime of a 20-20 game, Smith opted to kick the ball away and secure the draw.
I get the sentiment, but it’s the 2022 Texans. Rather than make a statement about how this team isn’t going to roll over — especially after opening a 20-3 lead on the Colts — Smith opted to roll over.
It worked out like he planned. It just wasn’t an especially inspiring plan.
4 Mike Vrabel, Tennessee Titans
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Vrabel has been a very good head coach in Nashville. He will almost certainly not be fired in 2022. His defense managed to sack or hit Daniel Jones on 13 of his 26 dropbacks despite the absence of Harold Landry, who’ll miss the entire season due to injury.
However his Titans, defined for years by a run-heavy mentality, fell to 0-1 Sunday on a day where they handed the ball off only 24 times. In a game where they held the lead for approximately 53 minutes.
Granted, some of that boils down to Derrick Henry’s slow start. The All-Pro tailback averaged fewer than four yards per carry in his season debut. However, facing third-and-one near midfield in the fourth quarter of a 20-12 game, Henry didn’t get the call. Instead, that went to rookie tight end Chig Okonkwo.
This call was a relic from the Johnny Smith days in Tennessee. While Okonkwo has the athleticism to pull it off, it didn’t pan out against the Giants. New York took the ensuing possession and drove 73 yards in 12 plays to score what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown.
3 Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona Cardinals
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Last season showed the NFL Patrick Mahomes’ weak spot. After years of trying, and failing, to throw a wrench into the gears of the Chiefs’ offense with blitzes, opposing coordinators flooded the secondary with defenders instead. Kansas City faced a deluge of three- and four-man pass rushes and Mahomes had his least efficient season as a quarterback.
This is not a difficult blueprint to follow. Kingsbury decided to tear down that foundation and build his own strategy. It caught fire almost immediately and was declared uninhabitable midway in the second quarter after the Chiefs scored their third touchdown.
Arizona brought pressure consistently. Arizona got roasted consistently.
Kingsbury signed a contract extension this offseason, but that was more to prevent him from being a lame duck head coach than a glowing sigil of his team’s faith. Letting defensive coordinator Vance Joseph work out a strategy that had proven unsuccessful over and over again against Kansas City is something Cardinals leadership can hold against him in his next round of performance reviews.
2 Zac Taylor, Cincinnati Bengals
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Several factors went into Cincinnati’s surprising Week 1 loss to the Steelers. Many can be traced back to Taylor, who went into 2021 on the hot seat before engineering a stunning run to Super Bowl 56.
The Bengals offense was disjointed and sloppy. Joe Burrow turned the ball over five times. He was sacked or hit 18 times. This could be traced back to Burrow’s preseason absence as he recovered from appendicitis (understandable) as well as Taylor’s decision to sit his entire starting offense for every snap of the exhibition season (a little less so).
Despite all this, Cincinnati has a more talented team than Pittsburgh. The Bengals were in a position to win this game multiple times. One of those times came after Ja’Marr Chase broke the plane of the end zone on a Burrow pass with 2:48 left in the fourth quarter, but was ruled short. Taylor did not challenge and the Steeler defense held strong to preserve a 20-14 lead.
This was an egregious mistake, but the Bengals rallied to send the game to overtime anyway. An overtime in which Taylor’s clock management created the opportunity for Pittsburgh to steal a win.
Taylor failed to manage his starters, challenges, and clock correctly Sunday. The outcome was a 0-1 start and a loss to an AFC North rival.
1 Nathaniel Hackett, Denver Broncos
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Hackett’s Broncos trailed 17-16 with a minute to play when he faced fourth-and-five at the Seattle 46-yard line. Rather than trust Russell Wilson, the quarterback his franchise traded multiple first round picks for, then handed a $240 million contract, he opted for a 64-yard field goal attempt.
I’m going to let Jon Bois’ tweet explain just how stupid that was, because I’m not sure the utter hopelessness of Hackett’s decision can be better explained:
Hackett had multiple chances to change his mind. He got to see kicker Brandon McManus, who’d never made a field goal from 62-plus yards, fail after the Seahawks inexplicably decided to ice him by calling a timeout before his first attempt. But he not only pushed ahead, he maintained it was the right decision DESPITE THE MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE SUGGESTING OTHERWISE.
If Hackett were a doctor, his malpractice insurance premiums would have quadrupled. This was the football equivalent of treating a gaping head wound with milk and cookies. Nothing about this was correct, and the first year coach’s decision to attempt to justify his decision and suggest he’d do it again rather than fess up to his boneheaded process and learn from it is such a horrible, terrible, very bad, no good sign for the Broncos.
Few coaches get fired after one season, let alone one game. Hackett, somehow, gave Denver a reason in his sideline debut.
Update: Good news; Hackett is ready to admit the obvious, which suggests he’s learned from this and may not be irreparably broken.
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