It’s too late for Robert Saleh, Dennis Allen and Matt Eberflus, but with five weeks left in the 2024 regular season, there’s still plenty left to prove for NFL coaches, and it’s not only about avoiding the fates that befell those three already.
There’s no doubt jobs are on the line in the season’s final month. Saleh, Allen and Eberflus were fired in-season, in part, to give their team owners a head start toward hiring the next guy. That said, some owners are almost certainly still making up their minds and using this final sprint to assess if their current regime is salvageable. Is their current coach still able to motivate his players? Do the results improve even if the playoffs are hopelessly out of reach? Those questions can continue to be answered and could go a long way toward determining a coach’s future.
Even for coaches whose jobs are almost certainly safe -- and even for those whose teams could go to the postseason -- the final weeks of the regular season may provide an opportunity to clean up mistakes, to improve skill sets, to alter the trajectory of a unit.
Here are 10 coaches with something to show as the season races to an end.
Nearly six weeks ago, New York Giants president John Mara said he would not change his head coach or general manager during the season, and he did not anticipate making a change after the season, either. Mara surely didn’t anticipate that as December began, the Giants would be mired in a seven-game losing streak that dropped them to 2-10, that they would have endured an awkward divorce from quarterback Daniel Jones and that they would have players' frustrations with play-calling (via receiver Malik Nabers) and effort (via Nabers, defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence and others) leaking out. Mara made clear that he knows he can’t fire coaches every two years, but if he is reconsidering -- and it would be hard to blame him if he is -- Daboll, at the very least, has to show players are not tuning him out and will still play hard for him to give Mara pause about making any moves.
The Miami coach signed a new multi-year contract in August, a reward for getting the Dolphins to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Plenty was made about Miami's inability to win in cold weather after the Thanksgiving night loss to the Green Bay Packers, but even more concerning is the Dolphins’ inability to beat winning teams. McDaniel’s squad is 1-10 in his past 11 games against winning teams. The good news for the long-shot playoff hopes of the 5-7 Dolphins is they have just one team remaining on the schedule that currently has a winning record: the Houston Texans. But to be taken seriously as contenders -- and the Dolphins certainly have an offense good enough to be in that category -- McDaniel has to figure out how to get them to meet the level of their best opponents.
At 5-7 and riding a two-game winning streak, the Cowboys are still alive, and so is McCarthy, who does not have a contract beyond this season. Owner Jerry Jones recently said it is not crazy to imagine McCarthy stays, and after a series of embarrassing losses, starting with a pounding at home at the hands of the Lions, the Cowboys at least played hard in wins over the Commanders and Giants, with backup Cooper Rush filling in for injured star quarterback Dak Prescott. The Cowboys still have marquee games against the Bengals and Bucs (both will be in prime time) and against the Eagles (in the late-afternoon window). And while the roster might have big holes, McCarthy can prove that he is the best coach for the job by keeping Dallas in the playoff mix as long as possible.
In his first season, Mayo has overseen a rebuilding team saddled with noticeable roster holes. So what can Mayo prove in these final few weeks? That he is improving in areas where he, and many new coaches, struggle. It was encouraging to hear that after Mayo watched the Bears’ catastrophic Thanksgiving Day clock-management blunder, he called the Patriots’ director of game management to talk about how they would have approached that situation. Mayo has had his own clock-management errors and has also made other questionable in-game decisions. The offseason will be all about making the roster of this 3-10 team better, but this final month can be about Mayo making himself better.
He’s gone from the Bears’ passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator to interim head coach in the blink of an eye. Now, Brown has an enormous opportunity to show that Caleb Williams is improving under his tutelage. The offense and Williams have performed better in the three games since Brown began calling the plays. With the 4-8 Bears embarking on a search for a new head coach, Brown essentially has an extended interview in this final month. A strong showing by Williams and the Bears could bolster Brown's candidacy for the permanent job, or -- if he does not return to Chicago -- with another team seeking a rising offensive coach.
The Saints’ interim head coach has long been a well-regarded special teams guru, and he won his first two games after taking over from Dennis Allen. This one is straightforward: Rizzi, who was a candidate before Allen got the job in 2022, has an opportunity to show why he should be a serious contender as part of the Saints’ search. To do that, he has to keep doing what he has been -- motivating a team that looked completely dead a few weeks ago but is still alive in the NFC South at 4-8. A few more wins would help make his case.
The first-year Carolina Panthers coach made one of the biggest decisions of the season when he benched starting quarterback Bryce Young after just two games. The good news is, the benching seems to have helped Young, who is completing more passes, including for touchdowns, throwing fewer interceptions, taking fewer sacks and generally looking more decisive since returning to the QB1 role. He even went toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes and then led a go-ahead drive with less than 2 minutes remaining in regulation against the Bucs, in which he looked as assured as he has as a pro. This isn’t so much what Canales has to prove about himself, but about what his coaching can prove about Young -- that he can develop into the franchise quarterback the Panthers thought they drafted No. 1 overall last year.
Bowles is in his third season as the Bucs head coach, and they went to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, winning a playoff game last season, the first since Tom Brady retired. In the weak NFC South, though, the Bucs have never won 10 games in a season under Bowles, and this season, with a cascade of injuries, the Bucs lost four in a row. They have also lost both games to the Falcons, and their defense, entering Week 13, had allowed, on average, the fourth-most overall yards and passing yards in the league. Still, Bowles has a chance to get the Bucs to the playoffs again, thanks to Atlanta's inability to pull away in the division. An improved defense will be required. The unit got off to a good start following Tampa's Week 11 bye by allowing just seven points to the Giants in Week 12, but on Sunday, the Bucs allowed Bryce Young to pilot a two-minute drive and take the lead for Carolina late in regulation. Then, in overtime, the D forced a turnover that led to Tampa's winning field goal. The Bucs have a very manageable schedule, and they and the Falcons are both 6-6 atop the division.
The Commanders offensive coordinator has worked wonders with rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, and he is likely to be a head coaching candidate next offseason, particularly for the Chicago Bears, whose Caleb Williams worked with Kingsbury while at USC. But Kingsbury is again being dogged by questions about whether opponents catch up to his offense by the second half of the season. Entering Week 13, the Commanders and Daniels had faded. Daniels’ completion percentage in Weeks 8-12 (61%) dropped by 15 full percentage points from what it had been in Weeks 1-7 (76%), while his total touchdowns (seven) were down (from 10 in the first seven games), along with his rushing output (184 yards, from 372). Offense wasn’t a problem Sunday against the Titans, when the Commanders rolled up 42 points and a season-high 267 rushing yards. Kingsbury is 19-46 in November or later as either offensive coordinator or head coach in the NFL and college since 2013. In the NFL, his offenses have averaged nearly five fewer points and 42 fewer yards in games played in November or later (not including the Week 13 win over the Titans) compared to games played in September and October. The pasting of the Titans is a start, but with the Commanders still battling for a playoff spot and four NFC opponents on the upcoming schedule following their Week 14 bye, Kingsbury has a spotlight to show that his offense can adjust enough to keep opponents off balance, as they were when Daniels was lighting up the league earlier this season.
In the Steelers’ victory over the Bengals on Sunday, Russell Wilson played his best game of the season, throwing for 414 yards and three touchdowns, while Pittsburgh exploded for a season-high 44 points. Wilson averaged 10.9 yards per pass attempt and gave the Steelers the kind of downfield, big-play ability that Mike Tomlin hoped for when he made Wilson the starter. Despite their record, the Steelers had struggled in the red zone entering Week 13, ranked 30th in the league in red-zone percentage. The Steelers clearly have a championship-caliber defense. It’s up to Smith to get the most out of the offense, which includes figuring out an effective package of plays for Justin Fields, who was used to close out Sunday's game.