Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Denver Broncos @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Los Angeles Rams @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM New England Patriots @ San Francisco 49ers
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM Washington Commanders @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Cleveland Browns @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Los Angeles Chargers
Sun 2024-09-29 8:20PM Buffalo Bills @ Baltimore Ravens
Mon 2024-09-30 7:30PM Tennessee Titans @ Miami Dolphins
Mon 2024-09-30 8:15PM Seattle Seahawks @ Detroit Lions
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Notes -
I think you have too optimistic a view of replacement-level coaches. First, we need to define out terms, and since it's raining this morning, I took a look at every head coach who has coached since 2007, the year Mike Tomlin, the longest-tenured current head coach, was hired. The trouble with defining replacement-level is that head coaches are normally judged on one thing and one thing only: Wins. The median winning percentage for all head coaches is .427. The mean is only slightly higher, at .430. And this is average, meaning a full half of all coaches are going to have worse records. In order to divorce wins from the equation, I looked at the number of seasons each team coached, under the presumption that good coaches tend to coach longer than bad ones. I used the same coaches as before, but eliminated anyone currently coaching to reduce the sample size problem, e.g. it makes Mike McDonald look like the greatest head coach of all time, though no one thinks he's going to end his career anywhere near 1.000. I will also add that I included data from these coaches' entire careers, not just 2007 and later. The goal was just to limit the coaches sampled to ones who are reasonably recent (I don't want oddball data from the 20s and 30s skewering the results), and I want to be able to name "replacement level" coaches one would actually be familiar with.
The median coaching tenure among NFL head coaches is 4 years, including current head coaches, and the mean is 6.4 years, though this is heavily skewed by people like Bill Belechick who coach forever and by the fact that I didn't include anyone still on their first year. Numbers are similar for men no longer in the game; a median of 4.2 years and a mean of 6.3 years. What kind of guys coach for 4 years? Think Pat Shurmur, Frank Reich, Mike McCoy, Kliff Kingsbury, Jim Mora, and Matt Nagy. If you want average coaches in terms of win percentage you get guys like Todd Bowles, Tony Sparano, Herm Edwards, and Dick Jauron. Remember, this is an average. Dick Jauron coached 9 years with a losing record. Ken Wisenhunt coached 7.4 years with a .403 winning percentage.
The point of replacement level is that average guys are hard to find, since half the guys hired are going to be worse than that. When looking at replacement level coaches, I first looked at the shortest tenures (I didn't include interim coaches or interim stints in this, since these guys were only coaching out of necessity, even if they ended up with the job the next season). The guys with very short tenures are who'd expect, and I'll call these guys "below replacement". Urban Meyer, Bobby Petrino, and Nathanial Hackett didn't even last one season. Cam Cameron did, but at 1–15 he has the lowest winning percentage of any coach on the list. Every coach who lasted fewer than 2 seasons has a winning percentage below .400 with 2 exceptions: Mike Singeltary (.450) and Ben McAdoo (.464). The way I see it, the true replacement level guys are those who lasted 2 or 3 seasons and have records somewhere in the .300 to .400 neighborhood. These are guys like Matt Patricia, Greg Schiano, Brandon Staley, Rod Marinelli, and Tom Cable. Brandon Staley, with a .500 record is a steal. If any of these guys look attractive to you, then fire Sirianni, whose .667 winning percentage is behind only Jim Harbaugh, Matt LaFleur, and Tony Dungy among coaches surveyed, and ahead of Reid, Belichick, and Tomlin. Remember, if you're firing your coach, you're lucky if you get anyone better than Kliff Kingsbury.
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