6 NFL coaches entering the 2021 season on the hot seat
By Randy Gurzi
It’s the ultimate win-now league which means coaches can find themselves in trouble in a hurry. Which 6 are on the hot seat as the NFL 2021 season begins?
Every year in the NFL, there are a handful of head coaches who find themselves out of work. In the ultimate win-now league, leashes are often short and teams rarely operate the way the Pittsburgh Steelers do — where one coach sticks around for decades.
Instead, coaches for most teams are typically given three seasons — sometimes even less — to show they can be the leader of their respective franchise.
While it’s never fun to see anyone lose their job, it is a fact of life in a sports league. Here we look at the current stable of coaches and identify six of them who are entering the season on the hot seat.
6. David Culley, Houston Texans
This is already one of the rare cases where a coach might not get a shot beyond his rookie season to prove he can be the guy. David Culley is a very well-respected coach who started his career back in 1978 with Austin Peay as their running back coach. He’s bounced around in the NCAA and NFL but has never been a head coach.
Now at 65-years of age, he will be getting his first shot and while it’s not a given that an older coach will fail, it’s a tough ask to bring in someone of his age for a rebuild that will take several years.
On top of that, he was the passing game coordinator for Baltimore in 2019 and 2020 where they had a less-than-stellar passing game, and in 2018 he was the Buffalo Bills quarterbacks coach. Once he left that job, Josh Allen took a big step forward.
Again, not complete indictments but it felt like a weird hire, and on top of that, he has a rough roster to work with. Sadly, this could be a one-and-done for Culley.