NFL’s longest tenured head coaches after firings, plus 6 wild coaching trends

With the departure of Bill Belichick from the New England Patriots and the new role for Pete Carroll with the Seattle Seahawks, the list of longest-tenured NFL head coaches has drastically altered since the end of the 2023 regular season. Here are some numbers that show the churn that is the NFL head coaching ranks:

Belichick was hired in 2000 (ironically) to replace Carroll as the coach of the Patriots. After a successful stint at USC, Carroll took over the Seahawks in 2010. Belichick was the longest-tenured coach in the NFL by a considerable margin while Carroll was fourth on the list.

At least eight of the 32 teams will have a new man on the sideline for the 2024 season opener. The number was only five in 2023. In 2022, it was nine coaches, seven in 2021, five in 2020, and eight in 2019. On average, the modern NFL turns over seven coaches per hiring cycle.

Only six NFL head coaches have been with their current team for six seasons or more. With most head coach contracts being five years, that means the vast majority don’t get to sign on the dotted line twice. In fact, 75 percent of the league has at least one new coach since 2019 — and some have had more than that.

Obviously in the NFL, the Lombardi trophy is the ultimate goal. Of those six coaches that have been around for more than six years, only Sean McDermott and Kyle Shanahan don’t have a Super Bowl victory and only McDermott doesn’t have a Super Bowl appearance. (In addition to one NFC Championship, Shanahan has two additional conference title game appearances while McDermott has just one conference championship appearance.)

The Carolina Panthers are hiring their second head coach in two offseasons after firing Frank Reich in late November. He coached only 11 games. The Denver Broncos hired Sean Payton in 2023 after firing Nathaniel Hackett 15 games into his tenure. Urban Meyer was fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars after 13 games in 2021.

Ironically, Belichick also has the shortest tenure of any NFL head coach. In 2000, he was hired by the New York Jets but resigned the next day to take over the Patriots. New England owner Bob Kraft would send a first-round pick to the Jets in exchange for Belichick, and it turned out to be a good move for the Patriots. Per ESPN, the other 31 NFL teams have hired 162 head coaches for 224 total stints since Belichick went to New England.

Vacant: Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, Washington Commanders