There’s a perception around the league and in the media that firing a head coach after just one season is an inherent negative for the franchise. It’s perceived as creating instability and scaring away quality candidates from jobs. I want to take a look at how true that has been since the turn of the century.
How Frequent Are One and Dones
Let’s start with how frequent this happens. Since 2001, there have been 18 one and done head coaches. That’s less than once a year, so it must not happen often right? Well, it’s a little more
complicated.
In the early part of the 2000s it was rare for a team to fire their head coach after one season. After all, it was an almost never seen taboo, with only one head coach fired after a single season in the entire 1990s.
From 2000-2005 only two one and done head coaches. The first, Al Groh, was a one and done by choice. The New York Jets were going to go through an entire hiring cycle after Groh coached the team in 2000 with the intern title following the departure of Bill Belichick. Groh didn’t want to stick around and potentially miss out on another job, so he instead resigned and left the team for the University of Virginia.
The other was Marty Schottenheimer. The legendary offensive mind was in his third stint as a head coach when he joined Washington in 2001 as the Head of Football Operations. Despite winning 8 of his first 11 games that season and finishing with an 8-8 record, Schottenheimer was fired.
After that you have to wait until 2006 when the Raiders fired Art Shell after one year at the helm of a 2-14 team. The firing of Shell kicked off a whole new era of one and dones. from 2006-2009 there were 3 one and dones. 2008 is the only season over that four year span where there wasn’t a one and done. That’s a shock to the system after the league went from 1990-2005 with three one and ones total.
Then from 2011-2024 there were 13 one and dones. Nearly one every year. This was a massive change for a league that for so long considered the move taboo.
What about first year coaches?
There seems to be a split that in some cases it’s okay to fire a head coach in their second or third term after one year. These are guys with track records beyond your team and that means they’re easier to evaluate. So let’s remove those coaches that have had previous head coaching stints and only look at first year coaches for a second.
Here’s the list of first year coaches who were one and done as a head coach:
2000 Jets: Al Groh
2007 Dolphins: Cam Cameron
2011 Raiders: Hue Jackson
2013 Browns: Rob Chudzinski
2015 49ers: Jim Tomsula
2018 Cardinals: Steve Wilks
2019 Browns: Freddie Kitchens
2021 Jaguars: Urban Meyer
2021 Texans: David Culley
2022 Broncos: Nathaniel Hackett
2024 Patriots: Jerrod Mayo
It’s not as frequent when you remove the head coaches that have previous track records. However, you’ll still see that since 2018, six first year head coaches have been fired after one year. That’s still essentially one a year.
It doesn’t seem that the stigma about firing first time head coaches after one year really exists anymore. Yet, the media perception is that this kind of move makes a job undesirable. The obvious question is how have these one and done moves worked out?
Do teams suffer after a One and Done?
We’ve established that one and done head coaches happen frequently. This is no longer a taboo thing in the NFL and you seem almost guaranteed to have at least one every season. Conventional wisdom is one and dones are bound to lead to worse candidates due to unstable environments. How true is that though? Let’s take a look at every one and done from the last 10 seasons.
2015-2016 49ers
The 49ers in 2015 and 2016 had back-to-back one and dones. The first one, firing Jim Tomsula after the 2015 season, didn’t preclude them from hiring the top candidate on the market that offseason, Chip Kelly. The former Oregon and Eagles head coach had established himself as one of the league’s top coaches by this point.
Kelly had finished 2013 and 2014 with 10-6 records, and elite offenses, ranked 4th and 3rd in the NFL in scoring. In 2015 the Eagles made the decision to give Kelly full reign over the franchise. It was a disaster and the team got worse. It turned out the good head coach was a very bad GM, and that led to his firing.
Back on the market, Kelly landed with the 49ers as their third head coach in three seasons. It was an unmitigated disaster as the team went 2-14. Kelly got the axe and has not been a head coach in the NFL since.
With back-to-back one and done head coaches and looking for their fourth head coach in 4 years you’d assume the 49ers were in a rough spot and wouldn’t be able to attract any kind of talent to take the job, right?
Well, what if I told you the 49ers followed up Kelly by hiring Kyle Shanahan, considered one of the top-5 head coaches in the NFL. That was a masterful hire that turned the franchise around in a way that nobody could believe. Now in his ninth season with the team, Shanahan has made the playoffs five times and been to two Super Bowls and two more NFC Championship games. While he hasn’t gotten a ring yet, I think any team would jump at the chance to hire him.
Seems like this goes squarely in favor of the one and dones. Could you imagine if the 49ers went another season with Chip Kelly and missed out on Shanahan?
2018 Cardinals
In 2018 the Arizona Cardinals were impressed with the work that Steve Wilks did as an interim Head Coach with the Carolina Panthers and decided to bring him on board as their full-time head coach. The move went as poorly as his season with the Jets this season.
Wilks led the worst team in the NFL. The Cardinals finished with the 32nd ranked scoring offense and 26 ranked scoring defense. They finished 3-13 and decided they couldn’t let their young quarterback Josh Rosen continue to struggle with Wilks at the helm.
Along came Kliff Kingsbury. The former Texas Tech head coach had been fired after underperforming. But with his offensive genius and his history as a quarterback developer, NFL teams were excited at the opportunity to pursue him. In fact, Kingsbury was blocked from interviewing for jobs by USC who had hired him as an offensive coordinator because of how valuable they thought he’d be.
Kingsbury in the end interviewed with both the Jets and the Cardinals. Taking the Cardinals job, it has since been reported that the Jets were planning to offer Kingsbury their head coach job if he left a visit with Arizona without an offer.
Kingsbury is no longer with the Cardinals. However, he did develop Kyler Murray into a Pro Bowl quarterback during his tenure, and the Cardinals did go 11-6 in 2021, making the playoffs. Kingsbury left the franchise after a 4-13 season in 2022 in which the team regressed in all areas.
Kingsbury left the Cardinals as bad as he found them. However, he did lead them to a playoff appearance. So did this one and done work? I can see arguments both ways here.
2019 Browns
In 2018, the Browns were horrible under embattled coach Hue Jackson. He was fired mid-season and the team went on a run after defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was promoted to head coach. One of the reasons for the run was a significant uptick on the offensive side when Freddie Kitchens was promoted to offensive coordinator. At the end of the season Kitchens was hired as the full-time head coach.
The move started out pretty well. The Browns were 6-7 with three games to play after a 2-6 start and seemed to be moving in the right direction. Then they lost their final 3 games, two of which came in blowout fashion against a 5 win Cardinals team (coached by Kingsbury) and one against the 14-2 Ravens.
The end of the season went so poorly that the team couldn’t justify bringing Kitchens back, opting to look for a new head coach. The team settled on Kevin Stefanski as his replacement.
Stefanski is still the head coach of the Browns. This is now his sixth season in charge, and rumors are there’s a possibility it’s his last.
In his first year with the team Stefanski won 11 games and a playoff game for the Cleveland Browns, ending a 17 season playoff drought and winning a playoff game for the first time since 1994.
Stefanski made the playoffs again in 2023. The last two seasons have been rough, mired by the Deshaun Watson trade, which has gone down as one of the worst in the history of the sport.
As any team with a seemingly infinite playoff drought can tell you, getting to the playoffs, let alone winning a playoff game for the first time in 26 years, is a blessing. It’s harder to get any bigger of a win than this for a franchise that’s been as maligned as the Browns were.
2021 Jaguars
The 2021 Jaguars were a historic mess. Urban Meyer is one of the worst head coach hires in the history of the sport and one of very few coaches to never finish a full season as a head coach in NFL history. It led to a 3-14 season and the worst record in the league.
In response, the Jaguars were able to hire a Super Bowl winning head coach in Doug Pederson, who was just a few years removed from leading the Eagles to a Lombardi Trophy. Under Pederson the Jaguars made the playoffs and won a playoff game in his first season at 9-8. He went 9-8 the next year, narrowly missing out on a playoff spot for a second straight year, before crashing out in 2024 at 4-13.
That 2022 season was the Jaguars’ first playoff appearance since their improbable run to the AFC title game in 2017. From 2008-2021 they had only had 1 playoff appearance.
Pederson ultimately failed to win a second Super Bowl, but he did bring the franchise back to competence. Is that a win?
2021-2022 Texans
Like the 49ers before them, the Texans had back-to-back one and done head coaches. In 2021 they hired David Culley, an NFL lifer, to the head coach position. The team finished 4-13 and was a disaster on both sides of the ball, so they moved on. In 2022 they hired Lovie Smith, a former top end head coach who had long seen the game pass him by. Smith was unable to improve the team the next year. In fact, their rankings as a scoring offense and defense didn’t move, staying at 30th and 27th respectively. So the team moved on again from an older head coach.
Wouldn’t you know it? The team hired a Shanahan disciple to fill the role that Kyle himself once filled as the fourth head coach in four seasons. DeMeco Ryans, the former Texans linebacker, took the job as arguably the top head coach candidate of his cycle.
The Texans’ turnaround was immediate, going from three wins to 10 their first season under Ryans, and yes they won a playoff game. In fact, the Texans have won a playoff game in each of Ryans’ first two seasons as a head coach. And he made the playoffs for a third straight year this year. That’s a huge win for the franchise.
2022 Broncos
Aaron Rodgers was coming off of back-to-back MVP awards. His offensive coordinator was suddenly a red hot head coach candidate and he ended up in Denver with the Broncos. Such is the story of Nathaniel Hackett.
Nathaniel Hackett, like Urban Meyer, is of the very rare breed of head coaches fired before they even finish their first season. The Broncos were 4-11 under Hackett and had the NFL’s worst offense. That was an inexcusable feat with future Hall of Fame quarterback Russell Wilson in his first year with the team.
Despite the horrible record and firing a coach after his first season the Broncos were able to acquire a future Hall of Fame coach in Sean Payton.
While Payton was unable to get the Broncos back to the playoffs in his first year in 2023, he did get them back in 2024, and the Broncos will likely be the #1 seed in the AFC in 2025. This was a home run hire for an organization that had the NFL’s second longest playoff drought when they fired Hackett.
2023 Panthers
In 2023, the Panthers tried bringing on Frank Reich. The former Colts head coach was known for his player development and offensive acumen. With a new quarterback coming on board and the first pick in the draft, they assumed this would be a slam dunk. Instead, Bryce Young struggled in his rookie year, and Frank Reich was fired before he finished the season.
In response, the Panthers hired Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales. The Panthers struggled to a 5-12 record in his first year, but Young had shown signs of improvement that had people interested in where Carolina was going.
Now in 2025, the Panthers are a Week 18 victory away from a playoff appearance under Canales thanks in part to a revitalized Young, even though the Panthers currently sit 27th in the NFL in scoring offense.
It’s not yet clear if Canales is a hit or not, but if the Panthers make the playoffs in his second year in charge it’s going to be hard to say it was a straight up failure.
2024 Patriots
The most recent entry to the list is the New England Patriots. They famously tabbed Jerrod Mayo as Bill Belichick’s successor years in advance. It only took one season for the Patriots to decide that Mayo wasn’t the guy they wanted to move forward with. This despite rookie quarterback Drake Maye improving as the year went on and showing that with a little more talent, he could be special.
The Patriots jumped on the top head coach candidate available this past offseason in Mike Vrabel, both keeping him from a rival in the Jets whom he had visited and bringing on an established head coach.
In year one, Vrabel has established the Patriots as one of the NFL’s best teams. Now sitting at 13-3 with Maye as a favorite to win MVP, it’s impossible to say this is anything other than a smashing success.
Results
Let’s take a look at these recent results over the last 10 seasons.
Eight teams in total had either one or back to back one and dones. Of those eight teams, four made the playoffs the very next season. Seven made the playoffs during their tenure with their next coach, with the last one pending as Dave Canales’ Panthers need to win on Sunday to clinch a playoff spot.
It’s hard to define what success is. But for a Jets team that has the current longest drought in North American sports, it’s hard to argue that making the playoffs just once would be considered a massive victory. In that case, you’d have to argue that there’s a near 100% success rate here, and if the Panthers win on Sunday it will be 100%.
So no, I don’t think the stigma for one and done head coaches is warranted. It doesn’t seem to have any negative effect on a franchise at all. There’s no proof it leads to lesser candidates, nor is there proof that it leads to continued instability. In fact, there is strong evidence to the contrary. Teams who are decisive and understand the failures of their coaches are the ones most likely to fix them and find success from that change.
Not that it was listed here, but please note that the lone one and done for the Jets on this list also was replaced by a head coach who made multiple playoff appearances. Herm Edwards made the playoffs in his first year as head coach in fact.
