The National Football League has a firings gap. Though still the worldwide leader in commercial interruptions and enormous American flags, the NFL has fallen shamefully behind its college cousin at the vital measure of in-season coach firings; that figure is currently eight, and Mike Norvell, Hugh Freeze, Bill Belichick, and Luke Fickell haven’t gotten done yet. The Premier League has seen two guys fired by the same team in the past six weeks. THE SAME TEAM. Every week the NFL allows Brian Daboll to yell into a headset while loitering outside the brain tent is another week it falls further behind.
Before we begin assessing the dregs of the league and their chances of helping the league close this gap, we can eliminate the Tennessee Titans from our considerations. They, alone among their peers in the NFL’s dumpster tier, have taken the first tepid step toward self-realization by firing coach Brian Callahan while retaining football operations head Chad Brinker and general manager Mike Borgonzi. That’s not the same as the simultaneously arcane and lyrical phrase of “blowing it up,” but it is something. The Titans indirectly acknowledged that they may have aimed too low by sending interim coach Mike McCoy out for an 18-point loss to New England on Sunday; admitting the depth of the problem will necessarily take some time. But at least they have acknowledged what can’t be denied.
