Coaching Shakeups: 5 NFL teams part ways with head coaches
The position of head coach in the NFL is crucial to a team's success. There are numerous tasks that must be managed to ensure a team's success, and the head coach is responsible for overseeing the majority of them.
When a team experiences a poor run of form or a lack of cohesion among players, the coach is often the first to be held accountable and is subsequently terminated.
Several coaches have achieved success in the league, including Andy Reid, Mike Tomlin, and Bill Belichick. However, others have struggled to progress beyond a single season.
The following is a list of the five coaches who were fired during the 2022 NFL season.
#1 - Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona Cardinals
Kliff Kingsbury was appointed to head the Arizona Cardinals on January 8, 2019. Prior to his appointment, he had experience as a high school and college offensive coordinator.
In his first season with the Cardinals, he finished with a losing record of 5-10-1, placing them fourth in the NFC West division.
However, in his second season, Kingsbury led the team to an improved record of 8-8. In the 2021 season, he led the Cardinals to a winning record of 11-6, securing the team's return to the playoffs and earning his first playoff appearance.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals lost in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl winner, the Los Angeles Rams.
Prior to the start of the 2022 season, Kingsbury signed an extension to his contract until 2027.
The 2022 season saw the team struggle. They finished with a losing record of 4-13, which was the worst record of his tenure with the Cardinals. As a result, he was fired on January 9, 2023.
#2 - Lovie Smith, Houston Texans
Lovie Smith has been a head coach in the NFL since 2004 when he was hired by the Chicago Bears. During his nine seasons with the team, he led them to three playoff appearances, two NFC championship games, and a Super Bowl appearance (which they lost to the Green Bay Packers).
In 2014 and 2015, Lovie also had a two-year stint as head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he won just 8 of 32 games.
@ChicagoBears THANK YOU TO LOVIE SMITH AND THE TEXANS WOOOOOOO https://t.co/vACmOkywYX
Prior to the 2022 season, the Houston Texans hired him to head the team after a five-year tenure with the University of Illinois football team. Unfortunately, Lovie was fired on January 8, 2023, after a 3-13-1 losing season.
#3 - Nathaniel Hackett, Denver Broncos
Nathaniel Hackett was hired in 2013 by the Buffalo Bills as the offensive coordinator under Doug Marrone. In 2014, Marrone left the Bills to join the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Hackett went with him, where he became the quarterback coach before being confirmed as the offensive coordinator in 2017.
In January 2019, the Green Bay Packers hired Hackett to be their offensive coordinator, where he amassed a huge amount of success with quarterback Aaron Rodgers by having the best-scoring offense in the league in 2020.
Hackett was interviewed for the Denver Broncos job and was hired after the Broncos fired Vic Fangio prior to the 2022 season. Along with the signing of quarterback Russell Wilson, the Broncos hope to improve on their offense and challenge for the AFC West division title.
However, Hackett lost his first game due to a bad decision to attempt a 64-yard field goal, which they missed and lost the game to the Seattle Seahawks. He was criticized for poor clock management and the team's poor run of form.
Hackett was fired on December 26, after a loss to the Los Angeles Rams with a score of 51-14. Hackett left the Broncos with a record of 4-11 and became the fifth head coach in NFL history to not finish his first season.
#4 - Franck Reich, Indianapolis Colts
Frank Reich was a quarterback in the NFL and was drafted in the third round of the 1985 NFL Draft as a backup to Jim Kelly. Reich had some impressive games as a starting quarterback when Kelly was injured.
He held the record for orchestrating the largest comeback in NFL history, a record that stood until the Minnesota Vikings broke it in 2022.
Reich began his coaching career as an offensive coordinator assistant for the Colts before being promoted to quarterback coach in the 2008 season. He then served as the offensive coordinator for the Cardinals, San Diego Chargers, and Philadelphia Eagles, where he won a Super Bowl with the team in 2017.
Rookie HC’s with a playoff win since 2014:
• Frank Reich (2018)
• Matt LaFleur (2019)
• Kevin Stefanski (2020)
• BRIAN DABOLL (2022)
The Giants got themselves a STUD in their new HC 🔥 https://t.co/Qgk4MM62zT
On February 11, 2018, Reich was hired by the Colts to head the team. Under his leadership, the team made two playoff appearances but lost to the Chiefs and Bills in the Wild Card and divisional rounds, respectively.
Unfortunately, Reich was fired in 2022 after the team's poor performance, with a record of 3-5-1 in the first nine weeks of the season.
#5. Matt Rhule - Carolina Panthers
Matt Rhule, a coach with experience in the defensive line, special teams, and quarterbacks in college, was appointed as the offensive coordinator for Temple in 2008. In 2012, he left Temple to become an assistant coach for the NFL's New York Giants.
However, a year later, Rhule returned to Temple as head coach and led the team to a 10-win season, the first time the team had achieved such a feat since 1979.
He repeated this success in the following season by winning the American Athletic Conference title and leading the team to back-to-back Bowl appearances for the first time in the program's history.
In 2020, Rhule was hired to head the Carolina Panthers, and in his first two seasons, he had a record of 10-23. However, he was fired during the 2022 regular season after a 1-4 start to the campaign.
Rhule recently signed an eight-year contract to head the team at the University of Nebraska.