0 of 6
Jeff Haynes/Associated Press
With two NFL teams already making changes before the regular season ends, 2021 feels like it could be one of the biggest years for head coaching turnover in modern league history.
Jon Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders after emails from his past revealed he used racist, misogynistic and anti-gay language. Interim head coach Rich Bisaccia now leads the team. The second domino to fall was Urban Meyer, who was fired this week by the Jacksonville Jaguars.
These moves prompted us to look back at some of the worst coaching hires of the 2000s. The process has to be slightly weighted, with only especially egregious outliers making this cut.
And while other teams might make changes at head coach this offseason, none of those scenarios come close to matching the ineptitude of the following hall-of-shame members.
1 of 6
Rick Scuteri/Associated Press
The following dishonorable mentions stick out as some of the worst hires in recent memory thanks to a blend of performance, contract and overarching situation. But they weren’t always franchise-derailing moments or ruined long-term rebuilds in the same vein as the top-five catastrophes of the 2000s.
Jon Gruden, Las Vegas Raiders (2018-2021)
Gruden returned to the Raiders in 2018 on a gaudy 10-year deal worth $100 million and had a hand in some head-scratching moves, including trading away star players like Khalil Mack. He underwhelmed at 4-12, 7-9 and 8-8 before his resignation. He just misses the cut because, while his Raiders didn’t meet expectations, they were trending the right way, albeit at a crawl (the team had hit above .500 once since 2011 otherwise).
Rod Marinelli, Detroit Lions (2006-2008)
Marinelli has the stench of an 0-16 season on him from that disaster of a 2008 campaign. But much of the blame goes to a miserable stretch from then-general manager Matt Millen. It’s easy to forget Marinelli coaxed a 7-9 record out of the league’s most extensive rebuild in 2007, up from his three-win debut in 2006. And frankly, nobody but Jim Caldwell has won consistently in Detroit since the mid-’90s.
Josh McDaniels, Denver Broncos (2009-2010)
McDaniels’ 11-17 record in Denver wasn’t so bad. It was the standoff with quarterback Jay Cutler before shipping him out of town. It was starting 6-0 in 2009 before missing the playoffs at 8-8, then shipping away star wideout Brandon Marshall. It was starting 3-9 in 2010 after using a first-round pick to draft quarterback Tim Tebow and getting enveloped in a videotaping scandal before getting fired.
Steve Spagnuolo, Los Angeles Rams (2009-2011)
It’s a little easy to forget about Steve Spagnuolo’s tenure with the Rams while they didn’t squeak above .500 from 2005 to 2016. After being tabbed as the guy to turn around the floundering franchise, Spagnuolo went a franchise-worst 1-15, then 7-9 and 2-14. This, in part, harmed No. 1 pick Sam Bradford’s trajectory, and he stayed in town just four seasons.
Adam Gase, New York Jets (2019-2020)
Adam Gase was a perplexing hire right out of the gates for the Jets considering he only went 23-25 over three seasons in Miami right before picking up the job in the Big Apple. Tasked with developing 2018 third overall pick Sam Darnold, he led the Jets to a 7-9 record in 2019 and a franchise-worst 0-13 start in 2020, giving up play-calling duties in the middle of the season, firing a defensive coordinator and ultimately finishing 2-14.
2 of 6
David J. Phillip/Associated Press
Gus Bradley’s tenure with the Jaguars is notable for several reasons.
For one, he was the first of the defensive coordinators from the Pete Carroll coaching tree to get a big chance. Over four seasons, his team went 14-48, with the highest win percentage (.313) coming in 2015 with five victories.
Two, the Jaguars were banking on him bringing the franchise back to Jack Del Rio-levels of relevancy after a 2-14 season from Mike Mularkey. He was given an extended amount of time to rebuild, including four picks in the top five of the draft, only to produce disastrous results.
Granted, Bradley had Blake Bortles as his quarterback after the team took him third overall in 2014. But his defensive acumen didn’t translate to the field. His defenses never surrendered fewer than 25.0 points per game in a season (bottom-10 marks each year).
With a .226 win percentage, Bradley has one of the worst head-coaching tenures of all time among coaches given 50 chances. The Jaguars finally pulled the plug on the Bradley experiment after a nine-game losing streak that dropped the team to 2-12.
And the season after Bradley’s early exit, the Jaguars won 10 games and made it to the AFC title game under Doug Marrone.
3 of 6
J. Pat Carter/Associated Press
There were several notable one-and-done coaching tenures in the 2000s, and it seems like it’s becoming more commonplace.
But Cam Cameron’s stint with the Miami Dolphins in 2007 sticks out for all the wrong reasons.
Miami asked Cameron, a former college quarterback and well-established offensive coach in the NFL, to take over after Nick Saban’s departure from the team (he went 15-17, but his first season featured nine wins). Cameron’s first and only season featured the Dolphins regressing from a six-win mark to 1-15, the worst record in the team’s 40 years of existence.
Despite Cameron’s offensive acumen, the passing game averaged just 5.9 yards per attempt while quarterbacks Trent Green, Cleo Lemon and John Beck took 42 sacks. The offense averaged just 287.5 yards per game and 16.7 points, while the ground game averaged less than 100 yards per contest—all bottom-10 marks.
This team almost went one 0-16 too. Miami needed a Week 15 overtime victory over the then-four-win Baltimore Ravens to avoid a winless season. In hindsight, the Dolphins made the wrong choice considering they had also interviewed Mike Tomlin for the job before he ultimately led the Pittsburgh Steelers to a championship.
When Tony Sparano took over the year after Cameron’s tenure, the Dolphins went 11-5 and made the playoffs.
4 of 6
Ron Schwane/Associated Press
On one hand, it’s hard to knock nearly any head coach of the reincarnated Cleveland Browns considering the franchise has been to the playoffs twice since 1999 and has just three winning seasons over that span.
On the other, Hue Jackson went 1-15, 0-16 in back-to-back years and ultimately finished 3-36-1 with an 0-20 mark on the road.
Jackson was dealt a terrible hand by a front office that blew up the roster, but as an offensive-minded coach, his units were just never competitive. His quarterbacks threw only 15 touchdowns and 14 interceptions in 2016. The following year, they had a 15-28 touchdown-to-interception ratio as DeShone Kizer went 0-15 as a rookie.
The only thing that stopped Jackson from going 0-32 over his first two seasons was a Christmas Eve home game against the then-San Diego Chargers, who had five wins. During the 20-17 triumph, Browns quarterbacks managed only 127 yards through the air.
While the former Cleveland coach has said he felt he was the “fall guy,” it was strange that he returned following a 2017 campaign that was the only time in franchise history the team didn’t win a game. He also failed to maximize the talent of the roster and reportedly had a tense relationship with 2018 top overall selection Baker Mayfield.
Gregg Williams went 5-3 after taking over for Jackson in the middle of 2018, while Freddie Kitchens won six games the year after. Kevin Stefanski then took the Browns to the playoffs last season for the first time since 2002.
5 of 6
John Amis/Associated Press
There are one-and-done coaches, and then there are early exits.
Bobby Petrino is the latter. He has one of the shortest stints for an NFL head coach after his resignation in 2007 after a 3-10 start. The Atlanta Falcons had brought him on to develop quarterback Michael Vick.
Vick, however, never played a down that season after pleading guilty to federal charges related to a dog-fighting ring, so Petrino started a combination Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, and Chris Redman. Petrino’s three wins came against teams that wouldn’t finish with winning records, but his off-field approach left much to be desired.
As Sports Illustrated detailed at the time, Falcons owner Arthur Blank was under the impression Petrino wasn’t going anywhere before his abrupt resignation to go coach at Arkansas.
Petrino also reportedly handled his relationships with players poorly. On his way out, he left notes in his players’ lockers instead of addressing the team.
Petrino hasn’t left the college scene again. Rallying around Matt Ryan and new head coach Mike Smith, Atlanta went out and won 11 games the next season, making the playoffs.
6 of 6
Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
Now for the reason we’re all here.
Urban Meyer, last seen as Ohio State’s head coach in 2018, was hired by the Jaguars last offseason to rebuild the program and had the luxury of taking consensus No. 1 pick Trevor Lawrence. But he made a series of poor decisions.
In February, Meyer brought on former Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle, who was fired by the Hawkeyes in June 2020 after former players reported he made frequent racist comments. Doyle resigned less than 48 hours after the hiring.
In July, the NFL fined Meyer $100,000 for violations during OTAs.
There was also the signing of a 34-year-old Tim Tebow, who hadn’t played in the NFL in nearly a decade. The move felt like a publicity stunt, and Tebow had some infamously poor blocks during the preseason before being cut.
Meyer also said vaccination status was a consideration in making roster moves before the team issued a statement backtracking on those comments.
Before the season started, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reported that Meyer’s temper and approach to coaching at the pro level was “rubbing the Jacksonville Jaguars staff and players the wrong way.”
After a Week 4 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Meyer didn’t fly home with the team, and a video showing a woman dancing against Meyer at a bar went viral. His wife, Shelley, was reportedly babysitting at the time. He apologized, but Jaguars owner Shad Khan issued a statement that said Meyer “must regain our trust and respect.”
Fast forward to December, when reports of tensions between Meyer and players surfaced again. He had to publicly address the allegation that he called assistant coaches “losers.” Former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo then told Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday that Meyer had kicked him. Jacksonville announced he was fired early the next morning.
Darrell Bevell, the interim head coach, also said Meyer left before meetings that night, so the team had to game-plan without him.
The Jaguars were 2-11 at the time of Meyer’s firing with a minus-160 point differential, the third-worst mark in the league. That Meyer blew it with a potentially generational quarterback prospect was stunning. That he did it in this fashion means he’s likely cemented his place as the worst hire in league history.
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
