Coaching legends who likely would have been fired in today’s NFL

Patience appears to no longer be a virtue, especially when it comes to NFL coaches. That was recently made clear with the Buffalo Bills’ decision to fire Sean McDermott after nine largely successful seasons. 

McDermott, however, is only the latest successful coach who was recently handed his walking papers. John Harbaugh (who has since resurfaced with the New York Giants) was also fired despite an 18-year run with the Ravens that included a Super Bowl title, 12 playoff appearances and eight road wins in the playoffs, an NFL record for a coach. 

Mike McDaniel and Kevin Stefanski (who has since become the Atlanta Falcons’ new coach) were also fired this month despite enjoying various levels of success with their respective former clubs. Raheem Morris was fired in Atlanta after just two years on the job. 

Prior to getting a contract extension, Packers coach Matt LaFleur was also rumored to be on the hot seat, a prospect that his former quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, deemed as laughable. 

“When I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversation about whether those guys were on the hot seat,” Rodgers said while alluding to LaFleur and Mike Tomlin, who stepped away last week after 19 seasons as the Steelers’ coach. “But the way that the league is covered now and the way that there’s snap decisions and the validity given to the Twitter experts and all the experts on TV now who make it seem like they know what the hell they’re talking about, to me that’s an absolute joke.”

The reality is that NFL coaches are no longer given the time they used to get in terms of having success. With that in mind, we decided to look back at the careers of 10 legendary coaches who — if they coached today — may not have been given the time necessary to build the careers that ultimately ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

Weeb Ewbank 

Ewbank is the shining example of what can happen when patience is exercised. Twice, Ewbank endured slow starts before guiding franchises to championships. The first time occurred with the Colts, who endured three consecutive losing seasons under his watch before capturing back-to-back NFL titles in 1958-59. The first title, a 23-17 win over the Giants, was the first NFL game that went to overtime and is still largely considered as the greatest game in league history. 

After nine years in Baltimore, Ewbank took over as the Jets’ coach in 1963. New York posted losing records in each of Ewbank’s first four seasons before going 8-5-1 in his fifth season. A year later, Ewbank led New York to the biggest upset in NFL history, as the 18-point underdog Jets posted a 16-7 win over Ewbank’s former team — the Colts — in Super Bowl III. 

Tom Landry 

The Cowboys’ early struggles under Landry is an example of how much things have changed. Landry took over an expansion team that didn’t win a game in its first season. The Cowboys then posted records of 4-9-1, 5-8-1, 4-10 and 5-8-1 before having their first non-losing season in 1965. Landry and the Cowboys didn’t have a winning season until 1966, his sixth year on the job. 

But even after they started to win, Landry started to earn the reputation as a great coach who couldn’t win the big one. That narrative was the byproduct of losses to the Packers in consecutive NFL Championship games and an excruciating loss to the Colts in Super Bowl V. 

The Cowboys finally broke through in Landry’s 12th year on the job, defeating the Dolphins in Super Bowl VI to secure the franchise’s first title. Landry’s midseason decision to put Roger Staubach in the starting lineup over Craig Morton was a critical decision that paid immediate dividends. 

Landry went on to enjoy a 29-year run with the Cowboys that included another Super Bowl win and a record 21 straight non-losing season. He was fired by Jerry Jones shortly after Jones purchased the franchise in 1989. 

Chuck Noll

Noll won his first game in Pittsburgh, but he didn’t win again that year as the 1969 Steelers went 1-13. Noll and the Steelers endured two more losing seasons before Pittsburgh finally broke through in 1972, winning the franchise’s first division title and playoff game by virtue of Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception.” 

Under Noll, the Steelers dominated the 1970s, winning four Super Bowls over a six-year span. Pittsburgh is still the only team to win back-to-back Super Bowls twice. The Steelers’ 1979 team is the only Super Bowl champion that was comprised solely of homegrown talent. 

Noll remained the Steelers’ coach through the 1991, and while his teams didn’t match their earlier level of success during the later years of his tenure, Noll was able to leave on his own terms while putting the next coach (Bill Cowher) in a position to succeed by handing him a roster comprised of young talent. 

John Madden

Madden was the modern-day McDermott during his first seven years with the Raiders. In fact, Madden and McDermott own two of the three highest winning percentages by a coach over a six-year span without a trip to the Super Bowl. 

During his first seven seasons, Madden’s Raiders lost five AFC Championship games. While the losses were difficult, Madden remained confident in his conviction that he and the Raiders would one day be champions. 

That day finally arrived on Jan. 9, 1977, when Madden was carried off the field by his players after the Raiders recorded a 32-14 win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI. The win capped off a dominant, 16-1 season for the Raiders and Madden, a 2006 Hall of Fame inductee whose .759 regular-season winning percentage is the highest in NFL history for coaches who coached in at least 100 games. 

Bill Walsh

Walsh didn’t get his first NFL head coaching job until he was 48 after getting passed over in Cincinnati following Paul Brown’s retirement from coaching. Initially, it appeared that Brown had made the right call as Walsh’s 49ers were just 2-14 in 1979 and 6-10 in 1980. 

Everything changed in 1981, though. Led by the emergence of third-year quarterback Joe Montana and a defense that featured three standout rookie defensive backs (including future Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott), the 49ers went 13-3 en route to capturing the franchise’s first Super Bowl title. In a twist of irony, the 49ers’ first Super Bowl win came against Brown’s Bengals. 

Despite winning another Super Bowl in 1984, Walsh was on the “hot seat” after the 49ers were stunned by the underdog Vikings in the 1987 playoffs. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and Walsh remained on the sideline for the 1988 season. The 49ers won their Super Bowl that year (defeating the Bengals, again), and Walsh retired shortly afterward. 

Bill Parcells 

It was noisy in the Big Apple after the Giants went just 3-12-1 in Parcells’ first year on the sideline. While he was retained for the 1984 season, Parcells knew that the Giants had to win that year if he was going to stick around. 

The Giants did just that, going 9-7 in the regular season before staging an upset win over Eric Dickerson’s Rams in the NFC wild card round. Parcells has often credited the ’84 team for essentially saving his career. 

Two years later, many members of that Giants team contributed to New York’s first Super Bowl-winning team. Parcells was carried off the field that day and again four years later after the Giants upset the Bills in the only Super Bowl decided by a single point. 

Parcells later enjoyed successful tenures with the Patriots, Jets and Cowboys and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. None that success probably wouldn’t have happened if the Giants canned him after the ’83 season. 

Jimmy Johnson 

Johnson and the Cowboys had an ugly divorce in 1994, but that was after he had guided the franchise to back-to-back Super Bowl wins. In a different scenario, it’s certainly possible that Johnson wouldn’t have been given the chance to lead the Cowboys to that success after he went 1-15 during his first season as coach. 

Jerry Jones, who was just starting his tenure as the team’s owner, was determined to have success with Johnson, the man he handpicked to replace the legendary Landry. Jones’ loyalty was quickly rewarded by Johnson, who headed the quickest turnaround in NFL history after the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVII just three years after winning one game. 

Johnson left after the 1993 season, but many of the players he brought to Dallas helped the Cowboys become the first team to win three years over a four-year span after they defeated the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX. Johnson’s contributions to those teams led to his Hall of Fame induction in 2021, four years after Jones received his gold jacket and bronze bust in Canton, Ohio. 

Bill Cowher 

Cowher enjoyed immediate success in Pittsburgh. He was the youngest coach to reach the Super Bowl and joined Paul Brown as the only coaches to reach the postseason in each of their first six seasons as coach. 

Things quickly went south in 1998, however, as free agency decimated the Steelers’ roster. Pittsburgh endured three straight non-playoff seasons that included the first two losing seasons of Cowher’s career. Despite that, then-Steelers owner Dan Rooney gave Cowher a three-year extension going into the 2001 season. 

Cowher quickly rewarded Rooney’s faith in him by leading the Steelers to a 13-3 record that season and an AFC title game appearance. Three years later, the Steelers won a franchise record 15 regular-season games with then-rookie Ben Roethlisberger leading the way. Cowher, Roethlisberger and the rest of the Steelers’ team made history a year later by becoming the first sixth seed to win it all. 

Cowher, whose 15 years in Pittsburgh included a whopping nine trips to the divisional round and six AFC Championship game appearances, retired from coaching after the 2006 season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2021. 

Dick Vermeil 

Vermeil could have received two pink slips during his Hall of Fame career. 

The Eagles won just nine games during his first two years before he led them to the postseason in 1978. Nearly two decades later, Vermeil once again own just nine games during his first two seasons with the Rams. 

While neither one started terribly well, Vermeil’s tenures with the Eagles and Rams would eventually include Super Bowl appearances. He was the first coach to lead the Eagles to the big one, and 19 years after Philadelphia lost to the Raiders in Super Bowl XV, Vermeil won his elusive Super Bowl ring after the Rams edged the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV. 

Vermeil ended his coaching career with the Chiefs and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022. 

Bill Belichick 

To the outside world, Belichick was just another veteran coach who had had success as a coordinator but had yet to prove himself as a head coach upon his arrival in New England. In that vein, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone if Robert Kraft decided to fire him after a 5-11 season in 2000. Kraft, after all, had just fired Pete Carroll despite the Patriots making the playoffs twice and not having a losing season in Carroll’s three seasons in Foxborough. 

Kraft stuck with Belichick, though, and the result was the most successful run in NFL history. Belichick, Kraft, and quarterback Tom Brady enjoyed an iconic partnership that included six Super Bowl wins during their 20 seasons together. 

Belichick and Kraft parted ways in 2023 as the most successful coach-owner duo in league history. It could have turned out much differently, however, if Kraft failed to exercise some patience after things didn’t initially go as planned.