Feb. 17, 2006

‘06 NFL Head Coaching changes

By JON MOFFETT
jrm001@marietta.edu

If there’s one thing that made this season of the NFL special special, it’s the amount of firing that took place after the regular season was over.

A total of ten NFL coaches, out of 32, were relieved of their duties shorty after their season concluded. That’s almost a third of all the coaches in the league. Firing with those kinds of numbers would make even Donald Trump giddy.

Every year, after the regular season, if a team doesn’t make the playoffs they take a hard look at their talent and coaching staff to better understand why it is that they didn’t succeed as much as they had anticipated. Sometimes it’s out of the control of players and coaches, such as the disasters in New Orleans. Other times it’s just bad coaching.

The bad coaching bug must’ve bit pretty hard this year, because a lot of teams found themselves on the short end of the season. While some decided that it just wasn’t their year, there were these teams took drastic measures:

Buffalo Bills: Former Coach: Mike Murlarkey
New Coach: Dick Jauron

Detroit Lions: Former Coach: Steve Mariucci
New Coach: Rod Marinelli

Green Bay Packers: Former Coach: Mike Sherman
New Coach: Mike McCarthy

Houston Texans: Former Coach: Dom Capers
New Coach: Gary Kubiak

Kansas City Chiefs: Former Coach: Dick Vermeil
New Coach: Herm Edwards

Minnesota Vikings: Former Coach: Mike Tice
New Coach: Brad Childress

New Orleans Saints: Former Coach: Jim Haslett
New Coach: Sean Payton

New York Jets: Former Coach: Herm Edwards
New Coach: Eric Mangini

Oakland Raiders: Former Coach: Norv Turner
New Coach: Art Shell

St. Louis Rams: Former Coach: Mike Martz
New Coach: Scott Linehan