Today, the Carolina Panthers announced that they were going to fire head coach Frank Reich. He coached just 11 games for the Panthers and went 1-10 in those games. It was the shortest tenure for a first-year head coach of an NFL team since 1978.
There is some debate about how justifiable this firing is. However, one thing that cannot be denied is that Reich’s firing is continuing a disturbing coaching trend. Read on to find out why this should make new head coaches around the league nervous.
First-Year NFL Head Coaches Fired Before End of the Regular Season
Frank Reich is now the third straight NFL head coach to be fired before the end of the first regular season with his team. The prior two were Nathaniel Hackett of the Denver Broncos and Urban Meyer of the Jacksonville Jaguars. This is not exactly the company you want to be lumped in with.
Urban Meyer made headlines in several ways. You would not want your head coach to do so. He kicked butts… off of the football field. If that was not enough, he even decided not to fly home with the team after a bad Thursday night loss. Instead, he stayed in Columbus, where a viral video was released of a young woman dancing with him.
Now, the Carolina Panthers forced Frank Reich to join this group. What did he do? He went 1-10 with a team that frankly had a lot of issues before he arrived.
New Coaching Trend
The reason this is relevant is because this is a relatively new phenomenon. While it has happened for the third straight year, it was rare before Urban Meyer. Why is that?
Because it has only happened one other time since 1994; the victim was Bobby Petrino in 2007 with the Atlanta Falcons. He went just 3-10 during his tenure there.
While these are certainly not the only head coaches to get fired after one season, they are a rare group not to make it to the end of their first season. With Meyer and Hackett, you can certainly understand why. With Reich, it is a little more complicated.
Both the Panthers and Reich have a recent history that works against them. Reich was fired from the Indianapolis Colts in the middle of the 2022 season. Then, Jeff Saturday controversially took the interim head coach position for the team.
As for the Panthers, they also had a coaching change in the middle of last season. They fired Matt Rhule just five games into the 2022 NFL season. Carolina decided to go in a different coaching direction this past off-season, with Reich taking the reigns.
Unfortunately, neither the Carolina Panthers nor Frank Reich could get redemption. Like it or not, Reich joins Meyer and Hackett in this recent coaching trend. The question now is if it continues next season or if other teams will learn from this.
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