A Third Of NFL Head Coaches Are Fired Within Two Years—Why It Matters

The NFL offseason hasn’t even fully begun, and there’s already been turmoil throughout the league’s coaching circles. A record 10 head coaching positions became available over the last few weeks, including three of the longest-tenured coaches leaving in one way or another in Sean McDermott in Buffalo, Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, and John Harbaugh in Baltimore.

With those three dismissals, the average tenure of current NFL head coaches—not counting the ones hired in Tennessee, New York, Atlanta, and Miami—is 3.9 years. Over the last five years, there have been 20 coaches that were let go within three years of taking the job.

Of those 19, 12 were fired within two years. It’s a sign that the NFL stands for “Not For Long” not only for players, but head coaches as well.

Coaching Tenures Are Shrinking

What makes those numbers jarring is that this wasn’t always the norm. For decades, hiring a head coach was viewed as a long-term investment by an organization. Teams expected growing pains and they understood rebuilds took time. Coaches were hired with the idea that year one would be messy, year two would, hopefully, show progress, and year three would begin to reveal whether the vision was working.

That timeline no longer exists.

Teams today hire to win almost immediately. There rarely seems to be an understanding or expectation for development. It’s become an excuse NFL teams say they believe in right up until they don’t.

Now, this wasn’t a shift that happened overnight. But there’s no denying it’s been accelerated by a league that’s become full of inpatient owners and fan bases that expect quick turnarounds. When a rookie quarterback hits right away or a new coach flips a team from last place to the playoffs in a single season, it resets expectations everywhere else. Owners look around the league and wonder why it isn’t happening for them too.

The problem is that those success stories—like Ben Johnson in Chicago, Liam Coen in Jacksonville, and Mike Vrabel in New England—are the exception. They’re not the rule. But instead of treating them that way, many in the league have used them as the new standard.

If a team doesn’t show clear, tangible progress by, at the earliest, the end of the first year, the seat already starts to get warm.

The Cost of Constant Turnover

That pressure then trickles down to every decision a coach makes. Whether it’s not letting a young quarterback sit and learn long enough before starting or, on the other side, pulling a young player too soon before they can even get their footing, long-term development gives way to short-term survival.

When nearly half of recent coaching hires don’t survive three years, it stops being about individual failures. It becomes a structural problem.

Constant turnover creates constant resets. New coaches get rosters built for different philosophies and styles while quarterbacks are asked to learn new offenses every year or two. Defensive schemes change before players can master them and front offices pivot directions before previous decisions can even be properly evaluated.

The NFL will often sell fans parity as one of its strengths, but a churn rate like this with head coaches undermines that argument. Stability, not chaos, is what allows teams to close the gap. The most consistently successful franchises are rarely the ones cycling through coaches every two or three seasons.

It’s Not Just an Issue at The Top

There’s also a ripple effect on the coaching pipeline itself. Sure, there are only 32 of these jobs in the world and many would jump at the opportunity to lead a team either once again or for the first time. However, you are seeing situations where assistant coaches are being fast-tracked into head coaching roles likely sooner than they should. And it’s not because they are the best option in the long-term, but because of the pressure to take a swing at finding a quick fix.

In that type of environment, patience can get punished. Coaches can be quick to make a drastic change either to the staff or lineup knowing that one bad season could be their last. There’s also the risk of a lack of true innovation or experimentation. Adding new wrinkles to a playbook or philosophy can take time, and that’s something they don’t have anymore. It’s all about trying to get results as fast as possible. That can lead to coaches playing it safe, which, ironically enough, could also lead to their firing.

Even when teams do identify the right coach, the timeline often works against them. Cultural change does not happen in one season. Neither does player development. By the time things start to click, many coaches are already coaching for their jobs, if they still have them at all.

The NFL isn’t wrong for demanding results. After all, this has been, and always will be, a results-driven league, and always will be. But there is a difference between accountability and impatience, and right now the balance is tilted too far in the wrong direction.

If the average time on the job for head coaches continues to shrink, teams are going to find themselves stuck in a never-ending loop of hiring and firing every couple of years. Each cycle promises change, but delivers more of the same.

At some point, the league has to ask whether the problem is really the coaches, or the expectations being placed on them. Because if two or three years is no longer enough time to prove a vision, then the NFL isn’t building toward the future. It’s just constantly chasing the present.

And that’s not sustainable for anyone.