NFL Trade Rumors
What first looked to be a quiet hiring cycle with just five vacancies turned into one that more closely represents the average league turnover from season to season. Seven vacancies following the Raiders and Cowboys joining the fray is right in line with the average.
Had that not happened, the 2026 hiring cycle would have had a chance to reach double-digit teams in search of new head coaches. Even so, it’s shaping up to be another active year as the wheels of change grind on. The harsh truth is that while owners may rail against expensive buyouts and talk a big game about staying patient, any head coach who misses the playoffs in back-to-back seasons is in trouble. Often it takes much less.
Here’s a look ahead at which coaches are going into the 2025 season already on the hot seat and which ones could join them by the end of the season:
This group was on the hot seat this past year and will enter 2025 on shaky ground
Lots of people expected the Giants to fire Daboll and GM Joe Schoen after a three-win 2024 season, one that was even worse than a miserable six-win 2023 season that had Daboll on last year’s version of this article. Instead, Giants owner John Mara issued a stay of execution — though his end-of-season presser made it clear it was because Mara was prioritizing continuity for the sake of continuity after firing his last three coaches Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge after just two years apiece. Mara couldn’t articulate any particularly strong conviction about Schoen and Daboll’s body of work to this point.
Time on the job won’t be a factor in 2025 as Schoen and Daboll go into Year 4. While the two still need to figure out a long-term solution at quarterback, they will be under tremendous pressure to show results, rookie quarterback or not. I don’t think Mara is necessarily expecting a playoff berth — although the success of the Texans and Commanders the past two years shows a quick turnaround like that is possible — but New York must show some progress.
Daboll was hired because of his work with Bills QB Josh Allen and he did a good job of maximizing former Giants QB Daniel Jones in his first season in 2022. He has to get back to that with whoever is under center for the Giants this year and make that the story of the season instead of strife with the coaching staff or effort questions with players. Schoen also needs to have a far better offseason than his past two after some high-profile miscalculations.
There is going to be massive pressure right from the jump on these two and the Giants are not a team that can afford a slow start to the 2025 season. If next year opens up as poorly as this past year ended, it’s quite possible that Daboll and Schoen don’t...
