NFL Hot Seat Week 13

After Week 13 of the NFL season, three head coaching vacancies have already emerged with the Bears dismissal of Matt Eberflus after their thanksgiving loss to the Lions.

As the season rolls on, more coaches and general managers of bad teams find themselves on the hot seat. Here are the top 3 coaches/GMs vying to save their job.

# 3: Zac Taylor, Head Coach, Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals are struggling at 4-8 through their first twelve games of the season, and their defense is one of the worst in the league.

Under Zac Taylor the Bengals had been known to get off to slow starts. This season the team started 1-4 and managed to get their record to 3-4 going into week 8, however they have lost four out of their last five games.

Quarterback Joe Burrow is having a career season, leading the league in completions (302), passing yards (3337), and passing touchdowns (30) through 12 games. With Burrow throwing to Ja’marr Chase and Tee Higgins, albeit Higgins has missed 5 games and the emergence of running back Chase Brown, the Bengals offense is too talented for the team to be 4-8

The defense is abysmal under Zac Taylor and has made history in the worst ways. The Bengals are allowing 27.8 points per game lost this season, the highest of all-time.

The Bengals are in danger of missing their second straight postseason and are too talented on offense to do so.

Taylor’s seat is getting hotter each week and these last five games of the season will be his opportunity to prove that he deserves to keep his job.

#2: Doug Pederson, Head Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars

No one expected the Jaguars to fall this far after making the postseason two seasons ago and finishing 9-8 last season.

Through 12 games the Jaguars are 2-10 and every aspect of the team has regressed.

This is not the first time that Doug Pederson has found his name on CommRadio’s NFL hot seat this season. It’s not the second time either. He has been on this list multiple times this season, rightfully so.

Trevor Lawrence, the first overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, has seemingly regressed back to where he was as a rookie, on-pace for career lows in every statistic except interceptions, however he has missed two games this season and will be for a third time in week 14 after suffering a concussion on a dirty hit in the Jags’ week 13 loss to the Texans.

The Jaguars offense ranks #28 in the league and has the second worst third down percentage in all of football. Their defense ranks dead last in the NFL.

Simply put, the Jaguars look lost on both sides of the ball and will miss out on their second postseason in a row. Not only that, they currently hold the number one pick in the draft when people were expecting them to finish the season over .500 at a bare minimum.

In his first two seasons in Jacksonville, Pederson did just enough to win the AFC South and a playoff game in 2022, plus get his team to 9-8 last season. Now his team has fallen and is in contention for the number one pick and all fingers point at the Jaguars coaching staff.

Doug Pederson will likely be out after the season ends, maybe even beforehand, but either way his team has failed to live up to expectations two years in a row and does not deserve to keep his job.

#1: The Entire New York Giants organization

The New York Giants are a mess and that description might be generous.

The team is currently 2-10 after a Thanksgiving day loss to the Dallas Cowboys, and a lot of the players have checked out and their best player Dexter Lawrence II is out for the season.

Head coach Brian Daboll made the decision to bench Daniel Jones during the Giants’ bye week two weeks ago in favor of Tommy DeVito. DeVito started the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, however injured his shoulder, forcing Daboll to turn to veteran Drew Lock for the game with the Cowboys.

The Giants are a team that have lost seven straight and have not won a game since October. In the last 50 days the Mets and Yankees have won more games than the Giants. The Mets and Yankees have not played since the MLB postseason in October and have won more recently than the Giants.

Flat out embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing, general manager Joe Schoen rewarded Daniel Jones with an undeserved 4-year $160 million dollar contract in the 2023 off-season, only for Jones to be released not even two years into his contract. And then there’s Saquon Barkley…

How did Schoen think it was a good idea to let Saquon Barkley walk to the Philadelphia Eagles, your division rival. Barkley is playing football at an MVP level and is on pace for over 2,000 rushing yards this season and is the first running back since Jim Brown to run for 1,475+ yards, have 10+ rushing touchdowns, and average 6+ yards per carry through 12 games of the season.

“You’re paying the guy $40 million. It’s not to hand the ball off to a $12 million back”, said Schoen in a scene of HBO’s Hard Knocks Offseason With The New York Giants.

The $40 million QB was cut almost two weeks ago and the $12 million back is having a historical season for a division rival, while Joe Schoen’s 2022 and 2023 draft classes look like duds and the G-Men are 2-10. The team has hit rock bottom and it’s only a matter of time until owner John Mara decides it’s time to clean house again after 3 years of the Schoen/Daboll regime.

Ian Rothenberg is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email imr5327@psu.edu