The 6 most fireable NFL coaches heading into the 2019 season

There are 32 men currently employed as NFL head coaches. Not all 32 will still be employed by their teams when the 2019 season ends.

Several coaches are fighting to keep their jobs this season, as a confluence of weak resumes and underwhelming rosters will create some sought-after job openings come winter. Last year saw eight head coaches get the boot, with one — Adam Gase — going directly from being fired by the Dolphins to being hired by the Jets. That’s earned him a brief respite from the hot seat, but several of his contemporaries won’t have a similar grace period this fall.

Several long-tenured coaches could face a forced vacation if they can’t meet expectations in 2019, including some well-known leaders of recent division champions. So who are the coaches most likely to earn their walking papers? Here are six, in no particular order.

The good news for Gruden is that he’s only had one distinctly bad season as an NFL head coach. The bad news is that he’s had exactly zero inarguably good ones.

The sixth-year Washington playcaller has hovered between seven and nine wins in each of the past four seasons. He guided his team to the playoffs in 2016 and turned Kirk Cousins into the kind of quarterback worthy of a fully guaranteed contract in the process. 2019 doesn’t seem ripe for that kind of happy ending, though.

Alex Smith’s broken leg means Washington will head into the regular season with journeyman Case Keenum as its starting quarterback. Rookie Dwayne Haskins and an already-injured Colt McCoy will be there to pick up the pieces if he can’t return to his “2017 Vikings” peak.

It will be tough for any of them to thrive. Trent Williams’ extended holdout means whomever is taking snaps could deal with blindside pressure every week. Without an experienced and productive receiving corps, all three of the team’s passers could struggle mightily this season. It’s Gruden’s responsibility to fix this. If he can’t make the playoffs, he’s probably gone — and the veteran coach knows that.

How does he save his job?: With a winning record and a confident quarterback.

No one is expecting much from Washington; the club has the league’s fourth-worst odds to win the Super Bowl, according to bookmakers. Getting his team back to the happy side of .500 after two straight 7-9 seasons could be enough for owner Dan Snyder to stick with the devil he knows rather than roll the dice with a new hire. It will likely take more than that.

If Haskins doesn’t grasp the reins as a rookie, Gruden can still prove his worth by coaxing a big season out of Keenum or McCoy. While neither of those players will likely impact the future of the franchise moving forward, re-establishing that the veteran coach can push passers to reach their full potential could be enough to buy another year coaching up the former Heisman finalist from Ohio State.

Shurmur is stuck in no-man’s land. His Giants are rebuilding in 2019, and he’ll almost certainly finish the year with his second straight losing record. With Eli Manning inching toward retirement, jettisoning a coach who’s low on victories could be the first step in restoring the team’s identity.

The former Browns head coach (and interim Eagles HC) went 5-11 last fall, then saw some of the best players from that team depart this offseason. Odell Beckham Jr. and Olivier Vernon were both traded to the Browns. Landon Collins escaped in free agency. Now Shurmur has to hope additions like Golden Tate (who will miss the first four games of the season due to a PED suspension), Kevin Zeitler, Jabrill Peppers, and preseason all-star Daniel Jones can improve on last year’s lost season.

How does he save his job?: By making Daniel Jones look like the franchise’s savior.

Jones appeared worthy of 2019’s No. 6 overall pick through four good-to-great preseason performances. If he can live up to expectations as a rookie, he’ll cement Shurmur’s reputation as a quarterback’s best friend — and buy him some extra time in north Jersey.

The clock is ticking on the final year of Garrett’s contract in Dallas, so he may be more “unextendable” than “fireable” right now. Even so, a slow start in a winnable NFC East could doom a veteran coach with only two playoff victories in nine seasons at the helm.

The good news for the oft-debated Cowboys coach is that most of the core of a team that finished the 2018 regular season on a 7-1 heater will return for 2019. Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper, Leighton Vander Esch, Jaylon Smith, and DeMarcus Lawrence will all suit up to start the season. The same can’t be said for Ezekiel Elliott, who is holding out for a lucrative extension despite having one more year and a team option remaining on his rookie contract.

Garrett has struggled without Elliott in the past; he’s 28-12 with his star tailback in the lineup the past three years and 4-4 without him. An underwhelming start could shatter whatever remaining confidence team owner Jerry Jones has in his longtime coach. Of course, Jones could also grade Garrett on a curve if he’s forced to fend without Zeke for an extended period — he’s been pretty lenient with his sideline general in the past.

How does he save his job?: By winning the NFC East.

And a playoff game, just to be safe. Bonus points (and a bigger extension) if he can do this while missing Elliott for an extended chunk of the season.

We’ll jump from Garrett to another relatively long-tenured coach in the Lone Star State coming off a playoff berth. O’Brien has three division titles in his five years in Houston, but his only postseason win came over a Raiders team reduced to starting Connor Cook in 2017.

O’Brien comes into 2019 with a typically strong defense and a slight upgrade over his typically shoddy offensive line. Before last weekend’s trades, no team in the league may have had a bigger discrepancy in the trenches than the Texans, with J.J. Watt anchoring one side of the ball and, uh, Matt Kalil on the other. Now Kalil is gone and they’ve got Laremy Tunsil to hold down the left tackle spot; all it cost was a pair of first-round picks (and, in another unrelated and baffling trade, Jadeveon Clowney).

Those are some all-in moves from a team that, theoretically, is still ascendent, but there’s work to be done. O’Brien’s biggest task remains building an offense that not only takes advantage of Deshaun Watson’s prodigious talents, but also keeps him upright for a full season. Losing starting running back Lamar Miller to a torn ACL this preseason only makes that more difficult — and replacement Carlos Hyde (3.3 yards per carry in 2018) doesn’t look like a viable answer.

On the plus side, the rest of the AFC South has dropped off around him. The Colts no longer have Andrew Luck — a problem that resulted in a 4-12 campaign two seasons ago. While they’ve made several improvements that should prevent a bottoming out, they’re still worse than they were in 2018 ... when they finished second in the division to the Texans. The Titans and Jaguars also have major questions to answer behind center, leaving a door open for O’Brien’s fourth division title in five years.

How does he save his job?: By guiding the Texans back to the playoffs.

Adding a playoff win over an actual contender — or at the very least securing a first-round bye to avoid Wild Card Round embarrassment — would make the Houston higher-ups a lot more confident in a coach they’ve got signed through 2022.

When Riverboat Ron wins, he wins big. While he only has three seasons of +.500 play in his eight years as Carolina’s head coach, his overall record with the Panthers is a healthy 71-56-1. That’s better than anyone else on this list but Garrett. His overall body of work — four playoff appearances, three division titles, and an NFC championship — is solid, but his complete lack of consistency could make 2019 his final year on the sideline in Charlotte.

Since 2012, Rivera has alternated losing seasons with winning ones. This most recently manifested as Carolina slid from 11-5 in 2017 to 7-9 in 2018 — a record made all the more exasperating by his team’s 6-2 start and subsequent plummet back through the atmosphere and into the conference’s also-rans. Another losing season would mark the first time the team missed the postseason in consecutive years since Cam Newton’s second season in the pros. It could also convince owner David Tepper, who took over the team in 2018, to install his own guy as head coach.

How does he save his job?: By keeping Cam Newton healthy enough to get back to the postseason.

Outshooting the Falcons and especially the Saints would do wonders for Rivera in Tepper’s eyes. His leash got a little shorter with last year’s losing record and a new owner who was a cutthroat hedge fund manager in a previous life.

Marrone stood guard as Jacksonville shocked the rest of the AFC and came within one quarter of a Super Bowl 51 appearance in 2017. Then, in 2018, all the progress from that affirming season unraveled noisily as the Jaguars reverted to form and sunk to the bottom of their division once more.

Expectations for a rebound are high. Failure to execute could lead to Marrone’s dismissal. The Jaguars spent big to lure Nick Foles south, giving him $50 million in guarantees despite the fact he’s never started more than 11 games in a season and has a career passer rating of 74.2 when he’s not an Eagle. If he can’t make the offense a league-average unit — and with major holes at the skill positions, that’ll be tough — then 2019 could be Marrone’s last season in teal.

Marrone’s track record suggests he’s able to outperform expectations, as he did in both Buffalo and Jacksonville, but also that he isn’t able to sustain those gains. Earning another playoff berth with the Jags — just the team’s second since 2008 — would provide considerably more job security than he had coming into 2019.

How does he save his job?: By building an offense around Nick Foles that can exist in the same statistical galaxy of his defense.

The Jaguars should be a defensive juggernaut once again this season. A frontline trio of Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue, and rookie Josh Allen should shrink pockets in record time and allow defensive backs like Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye to feast. This, of course, won’t matter if they field an offense that’s held to single-digit points on six different weeks, as was the case in 2018.