NFL Hot Seat: Bengals, Colts feel fallout from Week 1

The NFL Hot Seat is on fire after only one week of games. The Bengals’ Marvin Lewis and Colts’ Chuck Pagano missed the memo.

It doesn’t take long for the NFL hot seat to start smoking. The fallout from Week 1 is huge, as the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts played really poor football games. But they weren’t the only teams that came up small.

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Marvin Lewis and Chuck Pagano highlight Week 1’s NFL Hot Seat, but we have three chairs to fill. Which coaches are also on notice? Can they reverse course in NFL Week 2?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the NFL Hot Seat in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem

Is it finally time to put Marvin Lewis at the head of the coaches’ hot seat? He has been on the periphery of the group for a while now. But the Cincinnati Bengals looked like the worst team in the NFL in Week 1. Though it’s only been one game, Lewis is the second-longest tenured coach in the sport and has yet to find any success beyond the regular season. That is a deathly combination.

Most coaches are given a few years to develop something. Lewis has been given more than a decade. If 2017 is another bad year, shouldn’t this be the end of the line? Most of the time, I am of the opinion that one week shouldn’t matter in the large scheme of a career. But the surrounding details make this one week for Lewis vitally impactful.

The other hottest seat around the league belongs to a bad team that may be worse than we thought. Maybe you’ll argue in favor of the Colts’ Chuck Pagano, but I was strongly of the opinion that Indianapolis would not be a good team this season, Andrew Luck or not. Perhaps they are worse than that thanks to the head coach. Or maybe Pagano should be given a reprieve until Luck returns to full health. He is feeling the heat, but ironically, the worst injury to his franchise could be saving his job.

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Tennessee, Washington and Houston had bad games in Week 1 off of tremendous preseason expectations. It isn’t enough to put any of the coaches on the hot seat yet, but even more than bad teams looking terrible, supposed good teams looking bad is the surest sign that a coach’s future is up in the air. Those three heads should be worried about the next few weeks. Under performing heavy expectations is a death sentence.

Dan Salem

Its sad but true. The NFL Hot Seat is fire red and scalding. Half the league is winless after Week 1 and many quarterbacks looked terribly awful, but only a couple of coaches are firmly on the hot seat. As a New York Jets fan, I’m proud to say that my team was far and away not the worst. Not by a long shot. The Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts hit both bulls-eyes, managing to both play awful and defy pre-season expectations.

Marvin Lewis’ job is in serious jeopardy. He likely would be out of a job if he was with a different football team, but the Bengals have continued to keep him as their head coach. Multiple people in the media are already calling for him to be fired. I see no way that Cincinnati is good this year. Their offensive line has too many holes. Lewis is on the hot seat and will not survive the season.

Chuck Pagano holds the second NFL hot seat of our big three. I was in agreement that the Colts would be bad, but there is no excuse for getting destroyed by an average football team. The Los Angeles Rams have talent and may be very good in years to come, but they are still young and a work in progress. Yet the Colts made the Rams look like the Patriots from last season. Pagano can not survive unless something drastically changes. It will not.

You failed to call out a third coach, yet did offer up several strong contending teams. Tennessee may have played the best team in the AFC, so their loss to Oakland gets a pass from me in week 1. Both Houston and Washington are strong contenders, but our third hot seat must go to Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians.

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If his team continues to blow leads like it did in week 1, then Arians is not long for his job. The Cardinals made too many mistakes and their defense was just awful against a questionable Detroit Lions team. If David Johnson misses significant time, it will be a long season in Arizona. I’m not sure Arians is allowed to stick around for the end of it.