Head Coaches fired mid-season:
Dallas Cowboys - Wade Phillips
Minnesota Vikings - Brad Childress
Denver Broncos - Josh McDaniels
San Francisco 49ers - Mike Singletary
Head Coaches fired after the season:
Cleveland Browns - Eric Mangini
Oakland Raiders - Tom Cable
Carolina Panthers - John Fox
Head Coaches that will be fired soon if the Dolphins can land Jim Harbaugh:
Miami Dolphins - Tony Sparano
Some of the other coaches fired, according to ESPN:
San Diego Chargers - fired special teams coach Steve Crosby
Houston Texans - fired defensive coordinator Frank Bush (and most of the rest of the defensive staff
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The Cowboys and Vikings kept their respective interim coaches as permanent (Wade Garrett and Leslie Frazier, respectively).
Wade Phillips was hired as the Texans’ Defensive Coordinator.
Bengals coach Marvin Lewis got an extension, despite being considered on the hot seat.
My team: the 49ers:
Jim Harbaugh met with the 49ers and even reportedly had a deal ready, but now the Dolphins are reportedly offering truly insane amounts of money. If the 49ers are willing to match that, or at least come close, they can probably hire Harbaugh, but anyone else at this point will be a forth choice on the list, disappointing everyone even before a game is played. Jon Gruden might be the only one to stave off eye rolling amongst fans. (I would actually prefer Gruden by a small margin.)
Jed York said money would be no object, but paying a college coach more than Belichick? Performance first; pay Harbaugh more than Pete Carroll, not Belichick, then pay bonuses for playoff wins.
Given the salary cap, big coaching salaries are one of the only ways a rich and dedicated owner can flex his financial muscle. I’m surprised more teams haven’t done it. I thought we’d end up having a coaching contract arms race that would result in a coaching salary cap eventually, but while salaries are slowly and steadily escalating, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
I’ve thought about it, but it didn’t seem to help the Dallas Mavericks a lot when they had their ‘all star’ coaching staff with what seemed like a dozen former head coaches. Dropping $10 million on the next great college thing or NFL retread won’t assure you of getting a Jimmy Johnson or Bill Belichick over a Nick Saban or George Siefert.
It’s been a stupid-crazy week here in 49ersland. It thought the figure would have had to be higher after the reports of both Miami and Stanford beating the 49ers’ offer. It would have been truly embarrassing if we didn’t get Harbaugh, and it still is a little because it took so long and we almost got outbid.
I also heard that Miami owner Ross was insulted or something that Harbaugh didn’t immediately accept his too-high offer sheet. Tony Sparano must feel really wanted right about now.
Technically, Jeff Fisher could be added to the Hot Seat because the owner of the Titans has said he’s evalutating the coaching staff and the Titans woefully underperformed this year. But a couple of things indicate they will probably keep him:
He has one year left on his contract which owner Bud Adams won’t want to pay
The Titans are getting rid of Vince Young
Adams won’t want to hire a new coach in case there is a lockout next year
It was reported today that the Panthers are going to hire Ron Rivera, who is currently an assistant for the Charger. Later that was revised to say Rivera is getting a second interview. I think he’d be an excellent choice.
The Broncos are interested in interviewing Fox, which makes me confused. On the one hand, my beloved Panthers went 2 and 14 this year and have not done great for a while under his leadership (although he did take them to the Super Bowl). On the other hand, if he’s hired and does poorly, I’ll have to read about him for the next two years until Bowlen fires him. On still another hand, if he’s hired and does well, I’ll have to deal with my personal resentment reaction of “why the hell couldn’t you do this while you were still at Carolina, ya bastid?”
With no openings in New York, Carolina, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, or Miami, it looks like Cowher isn’t coming back. I think he’s playing his cards a little too tight to the vest if he’s serious about coming back to coach, and if he’s not careful he may never coach again. Who wants a coach that the game may have passed by? He’d better get back to it soon or it’ll be a repeat of Joe Gibbs’ failure when he returned to the Redskins (with a lot of help from Dan Snyder, admittedly).
My memory is for crap now that I’m near 50, but the name kind of sounds familiar. Are there any other Schurmer’s in the NFL? I keep thinking I know the name.
Eh. There’s nothing the NFL loves more than coaching retreads. A guy with a long, successful track record can probably get hired even if he’s been out of the game for five years. Gibbs was retired for 15 years, which is a lot longer.
I’m not sure who you’re talking about other than Heckert, and as far as I know he wasn’t a castoff - he was held in good esteem when he left.
And yeah, actually, the same agent thing bugs me.
Why do you think it’s a smart move? I’d like to hear something that’d make me enthusiastic about this.
As of now, the best I can say is “he’s not Marty Morningwheg”, but then maybe they just floated his name out there for exactly this reason - so anyone else would sound good in comparison.
Cowher may just not have the coaching bug anymore. He’s made enough money and he’s got a nice safe highpaying gig with TV now, so why risk that? On the other hand, if he goes back into coaching he may be like Dick Vermeil who came back after 20 years and won a championship.
His father, Fritz Shurmer, was the defensive co-ordinator for the Packers under Mike Holmgren (who is now, of course, running the Browns) from '94 to '98. He followed Holmgren to Seattle in '99, but passed away before the start of the '99 season.
If he were DYING to coach this year, there’s little doubt he could have SOME job, SOMEwhere. But there seem to be only a few jobs he’s really open to taking. It’s long been speculated that he wanted the Carolina Panthers job, but their owner, Jerry Richardson, is a known tightwad who isn’t likely to pay the kind of money Cowher wants.
Cowher has SUPPOSEDLY put out the word through intermediaries that he’d be open to coaching the Giants, Texans or Dolphins, but all of those teams elected to keep their current coaches.
So, unless he’s willing to take less money or go to a city that wasn’t on his short list, he may have to wait a while.