The Denver Broncos made a move that basically the entire football world saw coming on Monday, relieving head coach Nathaniel Hackett of his duties.
The Broncos fired Hackett following a 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. In addition to the worst loss the team suffered in a decade, the Broncos had teammates arguing on the sideline and another throwing a punch following the game.
The Broncos stumbled right out of the gate this season. Hackett’s in-game adjustments and ability to properly manage time and game situations were almost immediately called into question, leading to his hiring someone to help him with those aspects. Later in the season, he gave up play-calling duties.
But the team never got better and on Sunday, there was minimal effort all over the field as the 4-10 Rams looked like Super Bowl contenders as they went up and down the field on the Broncos.
All of that led to the dismissal of Hackett, who became just the fourth head coach in NFL history to be fired during his first year as the team’s coach.
Here, we will look at that short list of failed coaches. This list will not include any first-year coaches who were fired after the season or first-year coaches who resigned during their first year, such as the Atlanta Falcons’ miserable hire of Bobby Petrino.
Looking at this list, you will see just how rare it is for this to happen and sadly, just how bad Hackett was in this role.
First-year NFL head coaches fired during the season
John Whelchel, Washington: 1949
The very first instance of a first-year head coach being fired during year one came nearly 75 years ago and it came under much different circumstances than it would in today’s league.
In 1948, Washington owner George Preston Marshall decided that the team needed to move on from head coach Turk Edwards. But he didn’t turn to a name already in the coaching world, he instead looked outside the league for a new kind of leader.
That led to the hire of John Whelchel, who was on active duty with the Navy.
A midshipman in European water during WWI, Whelchel would later go on to coach the Navy football team before being transferred to the Pacific aboard the USS San Francisco. He would command that ship during the Battle of Okinawa and be later awarded the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star Medal.
When he was approached to coach Washington in 1949, he was given permission to retire from the Navy after 33 years of service. But his new career would last just seven games.
Marshall was looking for a leader that would instill discipline in his football team and though the players really enjoyed Whelchel, he wasn’t ready for the on-field aspect at the professional level and that quickly became clear.
Whelchel was told he was being let go before a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Washington won that game 27-14.
Pete McCulley, San Francisco 49ers: 1978
It would be nearly 30 years before another first-year head coach was fired before the season ended and that ended up happening with the San Francisco 49ers.
After firing both Monte Clark and Ken Meyer in 1976 and 1977, respectively, after just one season each, the 49ers brought in Pete McCulley to try and turn things around. McCulley had been serving as a receivers coach with Washington for a season but when the Niners job came open, general manager Joe Thomas, who became close to the McCulley during their days with the Baltimore Colts, brought him in.
But things did not work out at all for McCulley, who went 1-8 in nine games, forcing Thomas to fire him. Fred O’Connor took over on an interim basis and went 1-6 to close out the year. Thomas and O’Connor were both fired after the season.
The 49ers ended up bringing in a guy named Bill Walsh. That kind of worked out for the organization.
Urban Meyer, Jacksonville Jaguars: 2021
Urban Meyer is one of the most successful college football coaches of all time and it was hard to imagine him failing at anything. But he failed in a major way as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Jaguars were a bad football team when Meyer was there but his coaching tenure was further marred by things that happened off the field, starting with a $100,000 fine early in his first training camp for a violation of practice procedures.
Later, he would be shown on video in an inappropriate situation with a woman at a restaurant followed by the team’s former kicker, Josh Lambo, stating that Meyer kicked him during warm-ups ahead of a preseason game.
Following that accusation, combined with all of the other incidents and a 2-11 record at the time, team owner Shahid Khan decided to let Meyer go, bringing on talk that Meyer may have been the worst coaching hire in NFL history.
It is tough to transition from college to the pros as a coach in any sport. It’s not the same atmosphere and the athletes don’t work the same way. For proof of this, look at Meyer’s success in college compared to his Jacksonville stint.
Meyer’s all-time college record: 187-32 (.853 winning percentage), 3 national championships
Meyer’s record at Jacksonville: 2-11 (.154 winning percentage)
Broncos fire Nathaniel Hackett, 2022
Though this has happened just four times in league history, it has now happened in back-to-back seasons.
The Broncos certainly didn’t expect to be here when it was Hackett who emerged from a list of at least 10 candidates to be the team’s next head coach. To think that, before the end of December, we are already talking about his firing, is nothing short of shocking.
Shocking that we got here, but not that we are here. Hackett is more than deserving of his dubious place on this list, becoming just the fourth first-year coach to have this distinction.
But he was just so bad. Bad in the sense that the team, specifically the offense that he was brought in to energize, just never got any better.
Yes, Russell Wilson has been unbelievably bad, but this offense just doesn’t score any points and it’s not just because of Wilson’s poor play. It is largely in part because Hackett’s system just doesn’t cater to what Wilson can do well at this point in his career.
The play-calling never seemed to improve, even with Klint Kubiak handling those duties and the fact that Hackett just didn’t seem to know how to adjust to certain adversities did him in.
Finally, the in-fighting between teammates and lack of discipline shown by Randy Gregory on Sunday may have likely been the final blow for him.
Hackett may just be the first domino to fall in a complete rebuild, but there was no way he was surviving just how bad this team has been.