The 13 worst coaching tenures in NFL history

The conclusion of the NFL regular season inevitably triggers an annual personnel bloodletting, as head coaches who failed to meet great expectations are dismissed.

So as this year’s class of fired coaches takes shape and those unfortunate figures are cast overboard as flotsam and jetsam, Touchdown Wire decided to rank the most disastrous coaching tenures in league history.

Hue Jackson, Urban Meyer, Bobby Petrino are just a few of the coaches who embarked with lofty goals only to watch them unravel in front of the entire sports world.

With all that in mind, we present a subjective list of the worst coaching tenures in NFL history. We factored team performance, level of dysfunction and bizarre happenings into our reasoning.

Did we overlook your favorite coaching failure? Add it to the comments section below.

Marty Mornhinweg

Former Detroit Lions head coach Marty Mornhinweg. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

One of the first things Matt Millen did during his reign of error as CEO and general manager of the Detroit Lions was to hire Marty Mornhinweg as his head coach. Mornhinweg would guide the Lions in 2001 and 2002, bridging the transition from the Pontiac Silverdome to Ford Field.

He’s probably best remembered by Lions fans for his dubious decision to give the ball to the opposing Chicago Bears to begin overtime on Nov. 24, 2002. The Lions would lose without touching the ball in the extra period.

Mornhinweg ended his stint in Detroit with eight consecutive losses.

David Shula

Former Cincinnati Bengals head coach David Shula. (AP Photo/Roberto Borea)

The son of Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, David Shula was seen as a rising star in the coaching ranks while serving as an assistant for the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys. He then rose to the top job with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1992, and team management showed extraordinary patience despite a slow start.

Shula supplanted John McKay as the fastest coach in NFL history to 50 losses — even though McKay had started his pro career 0-26 with the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Although the Bengals showed promise by going 7-9 in Shula’s fourth season in Cincinnati, he was sacked after a 1-6 start in 1996 and didn’t coach again until joining his alma mater, Dartmouth College, as an assistant in 2018.

Bert Bell

Former Philadelphia Eagles head coach and NFL commissioner Bert Bell. (AP Photo / Anthony Camerano)

Before he became NFL commissioner in 1946, Bell served as the unsuccessful head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles for five seasons. The Eagles won more than two games just once during his tenure, with a 5-6 campaign in 1938 serving as the high-water mark.

Philadelphia was outscored by a whopping 451 points during Bell’s 56-game stint guiding the Eagles.

Bell suffered a fatal heart attack while watching the Eagles play the Pittsburgh Steelers at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field on Oct. 11, 1959.

Bobby Petrino

Former Atlanta Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino. (Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports)

After compiling a 41-9 record at the University of Louisville, Bobby Petrino was hired to guide the Atlanta Falcons through the turbulent aftermath of the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. While Vick was embroiled in legal trouble, Petrino tried to make do with Joey Harrington under center.

It wasn’t pretty, as the Falcons ranked 29th in scoring offense and defense that season.

Petrino bolted Atlanta after the team fell to 3-10, accepting the head coaching gig for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. Falcons players learned of the news via notes left in their lockers. The team felt betrayed, and players were outspoken about their disgust in how Petrino handled his departure.

“He preached team and he preached family and then he quit on us,” Harrington said at the time. “That’s not what a man does. He lied to us.”

Lou Holtz

Former New York Jets and Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz. (Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)

A decade before he won a national championship with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Lou Holtz helmed the New York Jets during the first 13 games of their star-crossed 1976 season.

Holtz had been hired away from North Carolina State, and brought a rah-rah collegiate sensibility to the Jets. He even went so far as to write a cheesy fight song for the team.

Ultimately, Holtz lamented the difficulty of the professional game in contrast to the collegiate version. Just like Petrino, Holtz bailed out before the end of his first season (with an identical 3-10 record) to accept the University of Arkansas head coaching job.

“God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros,” Holtz memorably said after his resignation.

Pete McCulley

Newly acquired running back O.J. Simpson of the San Francisco 49ers laughs with head coach Pete McCulley during a press conference on July 23, 1978. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Pete McCulley became the San Francisco 49ers‘ fourth coach in as many seasons when the team hired him in 1978, but unlike his three predecessors, he didn’t even last an entire season in the Bay Area.

He was fired after the 49ers outgained Washington but still lost 38-20 on Oct. 29, 1978. When asked if he was surprised by the news, he deadpanned, “I haven’t been surprised since I found out ice cream cones weren’t filled all the way to the bottom.”

Interestingly, McCulley coached alongside both Bill Belichick (with the Baltimore Colts) and his father, Steve Belichick (at the Naval Academy), earlier in the 1970s.

Rod Marinelli

Former Detroit Lions head coach Rod Marinelli. (Leon Halip-USA TODAY Sports)

Rod Marinelli emerged as a hot coaching candidate while serving as defensive line coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the early 2000s.

He became the third (and final) head coach hired by Matt Millen during his disastrous reign as CEO and general manager of the Detroit Lions. With Jon Kitna as his quarterback, Marinelli guided the Lions to a 3-13 mark in 2006 and a 7-9 record in 2007.

Then came the unthinkable — the first 0-16 campaign in NFL history. Detroit was outscored 517-268 in 2008, a season punctuated by the infamous Dan Orlovsky safety.

Even as the Lions lost game after game that season, Marinelli appeared resolute in his dogmatic fight. He delivered occasionally wild quotes in press conferences as media pressure increased through the season.

“You’re in this dark tunnel and you’ve got no way out. … What do you do?” Marinelli said after the Lions dropped to 0-9. “You start digging and getting out. … See, I’ve always believed you stay in the tunnel and you keep digging when you expect no light. … It’s dark and I’m going to dig through. My shovel is sharp and my pick is sharp and my will is outstanding.”

Weeks later, after the team dropped to 0-13, Marinelli said, “I believe in the invisible. I think you go on and you have faith in what you do. If you don’t have it, you’re nothing. You’re not a man.”

Rich Kotite

Former New York Jets head coach Rich Kotite. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

Rich Kotite went 36-28 in four seasons at the helm of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1991-94, including two 10-win seasons and a playoff berth. But when the Eagles lost their last seven games of the 1994 season, perhaps it was a future indicator.

Undaunted, the New York Jets tapped Kotite to replace the fired Pete Carroll in 1995 and signed free-agent quarterback Neil O’Donnell to a lucrative contract. Two craptastic seasons ensued, as the Jets ranked near the bottom of the league in points scored and points allowed both years.

Kotite, a onetime sparring partner of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, stepped down as coach following the Jets’ 1-15 finish in 1996.

Cam Cameron

Former Miami Dolphins head coach Cam Cameron. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Cam Cameron was hired by the Miami Dolphins in 2007 to replace the departed Nick Saban, who left to build what turned into a college football empire with the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Cameron had parlayed a successful run as offensive coordinator of the high-scoring San Diego Chargers into the opportunity. He was picked for the job among at least 13 candidates and given a four-year contract.

A year later, he was gone.

With a quarterbacking trio of Trent Green, Cleo Lemon and John Beck, the Dolphins lost six games by exactly a field goal that season and won their only game in overtime.

Maybe the team wasn’t as bad as its record would suggest. Miami went 11-5 and made the playoffs under Tony Sparano the following year.

Rod Rust

Former New England Patriots head coach Rod Rust. (AP Photo/Paul R. Benoit)

A longtime NFL defensive coordinator, Rod Rust got his big break when the New England Patriots hired him as head coach in 1990. But what ensued was the worst season in franchise history.

The Pats scored just 181 points for Rust, the fewest in a 16-game schedule to that point in NFL history. The defense wasn’t much better, ranking 27th of 28 teams in points allowed. The team was no better off the field, evidenced by a harassment scandal involving the mistreatment of a female reporter.

New England would replace Rust after one season with longtime Syracuse University head coach Dick MacPherson.

Bill Peterson

Former Houston Oilers head coach Bill Peterson. (AP Photo/Greg Smith)

The Houston Oilers poached Peterson away from Rice University in 1972, hoping to turn around a team that had won a total of just seven games in the previous two seasons.

Instead, the team plunged even further into the AFC Central division basement. The 1972 Oilers went 1-13 and were outscored 380-164, ranking 25th of 26 NFL teams in points scored and points allowed.

After an 0-5 start to the 1973 season, Peterson was fired with 3½ years left on his contract. Houston replaced him with longtime San Diego Chargers head coach and future Hall of Famer Sid Gillman.

Hue Jackson

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson. (Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

It’s probably not fair to judge Hue Jackson simply by his tenure at the helm of the Cleveland Browns. After all, the team had been mired in disorder long before his arrival.

That said, it’s difficult to put a positive spin on a 3-36-1 record. The Browns went 1-15 in 2016 and 0-16 in 2017, Jackson’s first two seasons with the team, but owner Jimmy Haslam chose to retain the coach. That patience, however, ran out after a 2-5-1 start in 2018, and Jackson was dismissed after a loss to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers.

Jackson went 4-7 in his first season as head coach at Grambling State in 2021.

Urban Meyer

Former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer. (Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports)

Maybe there’s recency bias involved, but the sheer number of missteps, gaffes and embarrassments committed by Urban Meyer during his 11-month tenure with the Jacksonville Jaguars lands him in our No. 1 spot.

A sampling of those blunders:

• Hired strength coach Chris Doyle despite a pattern of alleged racist and bullying behavior at the University of Iowa

• Caused the team to be penalized by the NFL for excessive contact during OTAs

• Berated assistant coaches, whom he hired in the first place, by calling them “losers” in a staff meeting

• Publicly threatened to fire anyone caught leaking information to the media

• The Tim Tebow experiment

• Allegedly kicked place-kicker Josh Lambo during warmups before a preseason game

• Benched running back James Robinson, one of the team’s most effective players, purportedly because of injury only to be later contradicted by quarterback Trevor Lawrence

• Publicly stateed that the team factored vaccination status into its roster cuts, leading to an NFLPA investigation

• Created a major distraction by staying in Ohio and socializing with a woman other than his wife on video after a Thursday night loss in Cincinnati instead of traveling home with the team

Ouch.

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