Matt Verderame’s previous hot seat rankings
Last week, we saw our first coach firing of the NFL season.
The Titans fired Brian Callahan after he went 4–19 over two seasons. Mike McCoy served as the interim coach in Tennessee’s loss to New England on Sunday. He will be in the position for the remainder of the campaign before first-year general manager Mike Borgonzi finds a permanent replacement.
Unfortunately, there’s a good chance Callahan isn’t the only coach who will be fired in-season. Mike McDaniel is in trouble with the Dolphins, while Kevin Stefanski is trying to survive another ugly year with the Browns.
But we’ll start in the swamps of northern New Jersey, where two coaches are in trouble, including one only seven games into his new post.
5. Aaron Glenn, New York Jets
Hot seat meter: 3
: N/A
Glenn shouldn’t be fired. Nobody should be expected to win with the Jets, who have Woody Johnson as an owner and Justin Fields as quarterback. Johnson has owned the team since 2000 and has seen the team make two AFC title game appearances across 25 seasons (and both now more than 15 years ago). Fields is arguably the worst starting quarterback in football, with 845 passing yards on 6.2 yards per attempt.
That said, Glenn might be the victim of circumstance. As the league’s lone winless team, the Jets are in line to get the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, giving them a chance to select a franchise quarterback. Will Johnson stick with a defensive-minded coach who only wins a few games in his first year to oversee a prized rookie quarterback, or have a clean break and go in an offensive direction?
While Glenn deserves patience and a real shot to win, there’s also something else to consider. The last four quarterbacks taken with the first pick (Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young and Trevor Lawrence) have all seen their initial coach fired before they completed their rookie seasons. The Jets don’t want to be the fifth team to keep that trend going.
4. Jonathan Gannon, Arizona Cardinals
Hot seat meter: 5
Previous meter: N/A
Gannon makes the meter for the first time, and deservedly so. Things began to truly fall apart in Week 5, when the Cardinals lost to the winless Titans. Instead of an easy win, Arizona gave the game away with an interception-turned-fumble-turned-Tennessee touchdown, along with running back Emari Demercado dropping the ball before crossing the goal line.
Demercado’s folly was met with Gannon becoming furious on the sideline, an action which the team fined him $100,000 for, something some in the league felt was tantamount to taking his power away.
At 2–5 and riding a five-game losing streak, Gannon might be starting to feel some heat. The Cardinals went 4–13 in his initial campaign and 8–9 in his second. However, Arizona is sliding backward, something that was unexpected after watching general manager Monti Ossenfort added edge rusher Josh Sweat (four years, $76.4 million), defensive tackle Calais Campbell (one year, $5.5 million) and rookie first-round pick Walter Nolen to the front this offseason.
3. Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns
Hot seat meter: 6
Previous meter: 6
The Browns (2–5) can’t find a quarterback to believe in long-term. But will Stefanski get a seventh year with Cleveland despite just two postseason appearances in that span? We’ll see.
Cleveland finally scored 20 points in a game for the first time on Sunday, hanging 31 against the Dolphins (more on them below). Going forward, the Browns will try to get Dillon Gabriel playing consistently, with the rookie quarterback averaging 4.9 yards per attempt while completing 59.8% of his passes.
The case for keeping Stefanski is he’s found success occasionally, as evidenced by his 42–48 record despite having to start 12 different quarterbacks. The case against him is needing a change for a team that hasn’t been a contender since before coming back into the league as an expansion team in 1999.
2. Brian Daboll, New York Giants
Hot seat meter: 8
Previous meter: 7
Daboll’s meter number looked as though it was going to be decreasing, but then the fourth quarter happened in Denver. The Giants went from a 19–0 lead to losing 33–32 in the span of 15 minutes, putting Daboll back on the hot seat at 2–5.
New York was leading by three scores with less than six minutes remaining against the Broncos, only to lose thanks to a horrid Jaxson Dart interception and two missed extra points. In Week 2, Russell Wilson threw for 450 yards and New York lost, giving up 43 points to the Cowboys.
In 2022, the Giants made the playoffs and Daboll was named Coach of the Year. Since then, he has a 11–30 record, making him a prime candidate to be fired either during or right after this season ends.
Lastly, the next six games for the Giants? The Eagles, 49ers, Bears, Packers, Lions and Patriots.
1. Mike McDaniel, Miami Dolphins
Hot seat meter: 10
Previous meter: 8
If the meter went to 100, McDaniel would be at the century mark.
The Dolphins are 1–6 and look even worse. Tua Tagovailoa has alternated putting his foot in his mouth and the ball in the hands of the other team, leading the NFL with 10 interceptions while also throwing every teammate (and, ironically, himself) under the bus at postgame pressers. He couldn’t be worse this year, but he’s impossible to release or trade with a $212 million contract.
Unfortunately for McDaniel, it’s not as difficult to move on from him. After posting records of 9–8 and 11–6 while reaching the playoffs in both of his first two years, the Dolphins have gone 9–15 since. The record, combined with Tagovailoa’s regression and the clear direction of the team, makes moving on very easy for owner Stephen Ross.
Miami has the Falcons next before hosting the Ravens on Thursday night four days later. If McDaniel isn’t fired before those games, the mini-bye after Baltimore seems like an optimal moment to make a change.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Coaching Hot Seat Rankings: Five Coaches Who Could Follow Brian Callahan.