An impromptu date, a call to Mom and a depressing trip to Hawaii.
An NFL coach gets fired … what happens next?
It’s an annual rite of passage, because, as former coach Ron Rivera pointed out, “Unless you get a chance to walk away, you’re fired.”
The Monday after Week 18 of the NFL season is synonymous with the coaching carousel beginning to spin. On average, 6.5 NFL teams per season have changed their head coach in the Super Bowl era. Though some of those positions are filled following a retirement or a coach’s decision to leave, it’s most commonly because the coach was fired.
In-season firings have also recently become more common: Between 1990 and 2007, there was only one season in which three head coaches lost their job before the end of the schedule. However, since 2008, there have been nine seasons (Including 2022, 2023 and 2024) where three head coaches lost their job in-season.
This season, the New York Jets fired coach Robert Saleh after five games, the New Orleans Saints fired Dennis Allen after nine games, and the Chicago Bears fired coach Matt Eberflus a day after Thanksgiving.
The New England Patriots fired Jerod Mayo after one season within an hour of their season-ending victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Doug Pedersen on Monday and the Las Vegas Raiders fired Antonio Pierce on Tuesday. The Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy could also be let go, his contract expires Wednesday. The Cowboys hold exclusive negotiating rights through Jan. 14.
“It’s very, very normal in this profession to get let go or fired,” said Matt Nagy, a former Bears head coach now serving as the Kansas City Chiefs‘ offensive coordinator. “There’s a lot of great coaches that if you look back in their careers, they’ve been fired or let go. So you have to start there.”
So what does an NFL head coach do after he’s fired? And how do you set yourself up for success for the next head coaching chance?
Several coaches, all of whom have been fired once, or twice, shared the experience of losing their job — and what they did next — with ESPN.
Raheem Morris
Current job: Atlanta Falcons head coach (2024-present)
Last head coaching job: Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach (2009-11)
Three days after a 10-game losing streak ended the 2011 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Morris as their head coach.
The first phone call Morris answered came from his friend, Nikki. She asked Morris if he wanted to stop by the Wooden Door, a since-closed local bar, for an afternoon beer.
“Yep, sure do,” Morris said, chuckling as he recalled the moment.
“It was all over the news,” Morris said. “[The coaching carousel] is fun for everybody else.”
But not for those in the middle of it.
The outing with Nikki was an escape from the reality the 35-year-old would have to come to terms with — he lost a dream opportunity after three seasons and a 17-31 record.
Two years later, Morris’ friend Nikki became his wife.
And 12 years after the Buccaneers fired him, the Atlanta Falcons named Morris their head coach.
“There was never a real, ‘Woe is me,'” Morris said. “Since that moment and that day, I have been preparing for ‘What if this happens again?’ and getting that comfort of ‘How do you go into it the next time?'”
Morris’ mission: Improve.
Morris’ path included stops at Washington, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Rams, where he was intentional about working with head coaches Mike Shanahan, Dan Quinn and Sean McVay, respectively. He held seven different titles through a dozen seasons.
“I was so driven to just work,” Morris said. “And I wanted to be around people that I wanted to be around and choose those people.”
Under Shanahan, Morris would learn from a two-time Super Bowl champion and study an offensive system that would become a league fixture. He learned a “Pittsburgh-style” defense — a different scheme than the “Tampa 2” developed under Monte Kiffin and deployed in Tampa Bay.
Shanahan also provided Morris “a peek behind the curtain,” as he described. “He would come to me all the time to talk about head coaching things and decisions,” Morris said.
In Atlanta, with Quinn as a first-time coach, Morris saw an opportunity to reunite and share ideas with a coach who he played for and coached with at Hofstra.
And with McVay, who like Morris also was once a young assistant in Tampa Bay and Washington, Morris realized he could be a head coach again. Serving as defensive coordinator, he helped the Rams to a Super Bowl title, but also helped them get back to the playoffs after a subsequent down season.
“The bounce-back was even more satisfying, almost, than that championship,” Morris said. “That moment is the moment, ‘Yes, I’m ready to deal with all of those factors that come along with being a head coach.'”
Dan Quinn
Current job: Washington Commanders head coach (2024-present)
Last head coaching job: Atlanta Falcons head coach (2015-20)
Dan Quinn sat with his wife, Stacey, at their home in Oahu, Hawaii.
It was mid-October 2020, the heart of the football season still ahead, but only days earlier, the Atlanta Falcons had fired Quinn after an 0-5 start in his sixth season as head coach.
“I realized you could be in Hawaii,” Quinn said, “and still be depressed.”
Anger, loneliness and a feeling of letting others down clouded Quinn’s mind as he reflected on a 43-42 record that included an epic Super Bowl loss. The feelings were magnified when he turned on the next Falcons game.
“It hurt to know that I didn’t get it done,” Quinn said. “So I didn’t watch any more [Falcons] games that season.”
Quinn determined sitting in his emotions would not prepare him for what he hoped would come next: another opportunity.
“I wasn’t going to be the blame person or a victim,” Quinn said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to gain something from this.'”
With nearly three months until the next hiring cycle, Quinn decided to work on himself.
“At the time, I didn’t know there was this silver lining, honestly, to getting fired in October,” Quinn said. “It’s lonely and it sucks, but I wouldn’t have done as much because I had this time and space to dig in.”
Quinn knew he had to evolve his X’s and O’s. He realized his famed defense, the “Legion of Boom,” which helped the Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl XLVIII, was no longer as effective. He studied film of Seahawks teams from 2013 to 2020 and understood if he was going to get another head coaching chance, he’d need to be on top of the latest offensive trends.
But Quinn also knew he needed help and did a 360-degree review, which is more common in corporate America than in football facilities. He enlisted Fox NFL sideline reporter Laura Okmin.
He wanted to know blind spots others thought he might have, and got an anonymous review that included feedback from dozens of coaches, players and other staff members.
Upon receiving the complete review, Quinn skipped the positive feedback and went straight for the pages that weren’t flattering.
“I didn’t think of that part like, ‘This will suck to go through,'” he said. “I just wanted to get better and felt like that’s what I had to do in order to take my next steps.”
Three months after the Falcons fired Quinn, Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy hired him as defensive coordinator.
In Dallas, Quinn would apply the schematic adjustments he studied, as well as the managerial changes identified in the review. Specifically, he needed to stop spreading himself too thin — focusing on the big picture and delegating the small stuff.
“I stayed pretty true to that,” Quinn said. “[Dallas] gave me the testing ground, so to speak, to get into the next head job.”
Quinn said he was in no rush to leave the Cowboys, where he spent three seasons and dramatically improved the defense as coordinator. The Cowboys led the NFL in takeaways in 2021 and 2022 and had a top-five scoring defense in 2022 and 2023.
He found a renewed love for his job. He loved it so much, in fact, that he decided he would leave only for the right opportunity — one that would allow for organizational alignment and sustained success.
The Washington Commanders hired Quinn as head coach ahead of the 2024 season. He led them to a playoff berth and is among the front-runners for NFL Coach of the Year honors.
“If you don’t learn from it and apply what you learned, then all the pain of going through what you did is lost,” Quinn said. “I didn’t want that emotion or pain of not getting it done to be lost.”
Vance Joseph
Current job: Denver Broncos defensive coordinator (2023-present)
Last head coaching job: Broncos head coach (2017-18)
Back in 2018, Vance Joseph called his mom to warn her after the Denver Broncos stumbled to their 21st loss in two seasons. They had won 11 games during his two-season tenure as head coach.
“I said, ‘Mom, I’m going to get fired today,'” Joseph recalled. “She said, ‘Well, just count your blessings for having an opportunity to experience that and to move on and get better from it.'”
Joseph took his mother’s advice to heart, despite the overwhelming disappointment of getting fired after two seasons.
“You just don’t understand, taking the job, how big of a job it is and leaving the job, I thought her words allowed me to self-reflect and just have self-awareness to start with … why I didn’t succeed as a head coach,” Joseph said. “Obviously there’s numerous issues and problems you have.”
Joseph immediately turned to self-reflection.
Among what he came to realize: Being a head coach isn’t just calling plays.
“You’re a part-time CEO, you’re a part-time coach, you’re a part-time father, you’re a part-time motivator. … You’re a part-time disciplinarian,” Joseph said. “You have to learn how to be a great head coach, and you need time on task, and you need guys to kind of guide you, and you need someone you can call to bounce things off of.”
When self-reflection ran its course, Joseph sought feedback from others, including longtime coaches Andy Reid and Mike Tomlin, and former coaches Gary Kubiak, Wade Phillips and John Fox.
“Just picking their brains on team building and culture,” Joseph said. “It’s helped me so much now as a coordinator moving forward because you have to see and you have to feel when the adverse times are hitting your team.”
Joseph, after serving as defensive coordinator in Arizona for four seasons, returned to Denver in 2022 as the defensive coordinator. Joseph joins Phillips as former Broncos head coaches to have been fired and later rehired as a coordinator. Phillips was fired after the 1994 season and returned in 2015 under head coach Gary Kubiak.
His previous experience with the top job, Joseph said, is how he pulled the Broncos through an embarrassing 70-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins in his third game as defensive coordinator in 2022.
“That was just the experience of being the head coach and knowing what buttons to push and what players to pull through and what to say to them and where to give them answers of how we’re going to fix it,” Joseph said. “I took my fault in it and we coached better.”
Joseph said he has studied coaches who didn’t have immediate success but went on to succeed at the highest levels.
He pointed to Bill Belichick, once fired in Cleveland before winning six Super Bowls in New England, Pete Carroll, who won a Super Bowl in Seattle 11 years after the New England Patriots fired him, and the success Quinn is finding in Washington.
Joseph has written down and revisited the lessons he has learned along the way.
“You go back and you look at stuff and you go, ‘Boy, I’ve learned a lot from the first time of being a head coach,'” he said.
Matt Nagy
Current job: Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator (2023-present)
Head coaching job: Chicago Bears head coach (2018-21)
No one told him how to handle this part of the job, so Nagy went with his instincts.
Shortly after being informed that he had been fired as the Bears‘ head coach, Nagy held a meeting with his staff. Then, he met with his players.
“I told them I wish I could have done better,” Nagy said. “And I apologized.”
Nagy gathered his belongings, and after four seasons that produced a 34-31 record and two wild-card playoff losses, he left Halas Hall for a final time.
What came next for Nagy was reaching out to family and consulting with trusted friends such as Reid.
“He’s certainly the one that in this profession has had my back more than anybody and helped me through those four years when I went through some trials and tribulations,” said Nagy, who coached under Reid from 2008 until getting the Bears job. “He just told me I’m a great coach, keep your head up.”
He also told Nagy: Go spend time with your family.
Nagy and his wife traveled to South Africa for two weeks.
“The most therapeutic thing for me to do was just get away from everything and everybody,” Nagy said.
When Nagy returned, he continued conversations with confidantes, including Reid, former NFL assistant and head coach Brad Childress and then-Chiefs executive vice president of communications Ted Crews. Nagy also spoke with other coaches and general managers who had experience being fired.
“It allowed me to understand that we all go through it and that you learn from it,” Nagy said.
Nagy thought about sitting out a year, but ultimately decided to return to Kansas City when Reid offered him a job as senior assistant and quarterbacks coach. He has since returned to his former role as offensive coordinator.
Nagy said he made the conscious effort, rather than to give up on the dream of being a head coach again, to instead see it as his next great challenge.
“It fires me up,” Nagy said. “I’m passionate about another opportunity at the right time and right place.”
With four seasons of experience, Nagy lists what he’s now better equipped to handle, including staff hiring, player and media interactions, and an ability to adapt and change philosophically and schematically.
Perhaps the biggest change he’d make going forward: communication — emphasizing a need to overcommunicate — with everyone.
“The biggest thing is if you get an opportunity, know where you went wrong or where you could have been better and then continue to do what you think you did well,” he said.
“And remember, a lot of people have been fired, and in the end it’s about relationships, positivity and winning. That’s really it.”
Ron Rivera
Current job: TV and radio analyst
Head coaching jobs: Washington Commanders head coach (2020-23), Carolina Panthers head coach (2011-19)
Ron Rivera’s wife, Stephanie, insisted they get away.
A day after the 2023 season, Washington fired Rivera after the team stumbled to a 4-13 finish. It marked the end of a 26-40-1 four-season run for Rivera, who was tasked with leading the team through the turbulent end of the Dan Snyder ownership era before it was sold to Josh Harris.
“She’s like, ‘We’re getting out of here,'” Rivera recalled. “So we went up to New York City and went to Broadway and caught some plays.”
His time with Stephanie, a former college and WNBA coach, was much needed.
“Talking with her is about as real as it gets,” Rivera said. “It was very refreshing.”
But Rivera, who previously spent nine seasons as the Carolina Panthers head coach, couldn’t stay away long.
“After both situations there was time for some self-reflection,” Rivera said. “You look at some things and you say, ‘These are things that I believe we can do better. These are things that I can do better.'”
Rivera had long conversations with close friends including Leslie Frazier, a 25-year NFL assistant and onetime head coach, a college roommate and his brother, Steve, to sort out what went wrong.
This much became clear: Rivera spent too much of his time in Washington managing issues that stretched far beyond football (including a series of allegations against Snyder and the battle over the team’s controversial former nickname). He spent minimal time coaching and delegated too much, losing touch with what was going on with the team.
“I came away saying there were times I didn’t feel like I was coaching as much as I was managing,” Rivera said. “I learned a really great saying: ‘Let’s focus on what’s important, not what’s interesting.'”
In an effort to improve but also prepare for what could come next, Rivera cast an even wider net to current and former coaches, a leadership coach, a sports psychologist and sports sociologist.
“We’ve been discussing getting to understand today’s player,” said Rivera, who recently turned 63. “Obviously Gen Z, Gen Y, these types of guys … it’s interesting because it is a different type of athlete than what I started with and when I played.”
He picked the brains of analytics experts to find out more about its impact on the game.
Through it all, including the conversations with family and close friends, Rivera admits feedback can be hard to hear.
“Believe me, it is,” Rivera said. “Because I’ll be honest, I felt like I let a lot of people down. There were a lot of people counting on me.”
Now working as a radio analyst providing color commentary for NFL games and also serving as an analyst on NFL Network, Rivera remains hopeful he’ll return to the sideline — he reportedly interviewed with the New York Jets in December — but in a capacity that would allow him to leave managing numerous non-football related issues behind.
“All I want to do is coach football, whether I’m coaching the team or I’m coaching the defense,” Rivera said. “I just want to coach.”
ESPN Kansas City Chiefs reporter Adam Teicher contributed to this report.
