2022 NFL coaching carousel: Five teams most likely to change head coaches after the season
An early look at potential offseason moves on the sidelines
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3 min read
With Week 7 in the books, we're almost halfway through the 2022 NFL season. One team has already dismissed its head coach, and odds are, the Panthers will remain the lone club to do so during the regular-season schedule. But now that we're near the midway point, it's a little easier to forecast which teams might join them in searching for a new head honcho this offseason.
Not counting Carolina, which is already bound to enter the hiring cycle after axing Matt Rhule and promoting Steve Wilks to the interim position, here are five teams we view as most likely to change coaches in 2023:
Broncos
With each week, this becomes less an exaggerated public narrative and more a reality: Nathaniel Hackett doesn't seem to have any answers as overseer of the NFL's lowest-scoring offense. Russell Wilson, the team's superstar addition under center, may or may not be a shell of his former self, but Hackett's predictable and conservative approach has only appeared to accelerate the quarterback's decline. Wilson's mega contract ensures he won't be positively expendable until 2025, which means Denver's new ownership group could be motivated to give him a new schemer and play-caller if the 2-5 record doesn't improve much. It's not unprecedented, by the way, for teams to can a coach after just one year; it's happened seven times in the last 11 years.
Colts
Frank Reich all but advertised his lack of job security with Tuesday's announcement to bench Matt Ryan just seven games into his Colts career. Ryan may be hurting after taking repeated beatings behind an unreliable line, but the permanent switch to Sam Ehlinger, the 2021 sixth-rounder who's never thrown an NFL pass, suggests a desperate effort not only to spark a flat offense in the short term but maybe luck into a long-term arm in a city where the strategy under center has been to annually recycle mid-tier has-beens. It's certainly not all Reich's fault he's endured such QB turnover, but at 3-3-1, in danger of missing the playoffs in a bad AFC South, he's staring at a five-year haul of exactly one postseason victory. Owner Jim Irsay won't stand for it.
Commanders
The best thing Ron Rivera has going for him is a very public role in the apparent cultural turnaround of a controversy-ridden franchise. There's little doubt he remains a respected leader. What he isn't -- and hasn't been for a half-decade -- is a winning football coach. Perhaps he's not primarily at fault for Washington's failed gambles at QB, but not even his specialty, defense, has rubbed off on Washington the last two years. At 3-4, it'll be a shock if his team doesn't finish last in an upstart NFC East, likely giving Rivera three losing seasons in as many years at the helm. Don't be surprised if a mutual split occurs in that scenario.
Saints
As the internal successor to Sean Payton, endorsed by Payton himself, Dennis Allen would seem to be guaranteed more than a single run as the head man in New Orleans. Or would he? Allen can't be solely faulted for the QB output -- settling for Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton after attempts at splashier moves -- or the team's rash of injuries. But his watch has produced one of the most conservative yet undisciplined teams in the NFL en route to a 2-5 start in a bad NFC South. Worse yet, his once-vaunted defense has been a sieve. A flop as Raiders coach earlier in his career, he's another candidate for a "mutual" parting of ways in the event New Orleans goes bigger to really replace Payton in 2023, when the latter may be traded to a new home.
Texans
When they hired Lovie Smith, 65 next year, did they envision him being the one to handpick the team's next face of the franchise under center? It seems doubtful, considering how quickly they discarded of David Culley, his aging predecessor. Odds are, at 1-4-1, they will be in the QB market after another middling run by Davis Mills, and that could spell flirtations with a younger offensive mind. Smith's kept the squad competitive, to be sure, but Houston brass has done too much sniffing around the concept of Josh McCown at head coach to cap a potential third straight season out of the playoffs by recommitting to Lovie.
