NFC East Coaches: Will Tom Coughlin, Jason Garrett Be Fired After Chip Kelly?
As we all know by now, the Philadelphia Eagles have fired Chip Kelly after a disastrous season and so many unpopular moves. The Washington Redskins are in the playoffs, so that leaves the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys with questionable futures at head coach.
Let's start with Jason Garrett.
Garrett had some pretty bad luck this year considering Tony Romo missed nearly the entire season, but that doesn't excuse so many mistakes. Garret is now 45-42 as a head coach with the Cowboys with just one playoff win in his six-year tenure. As a matter of fact, Garrett has only made the playoffs once with the Cowboys.
Many NFL fans criticize Garrett for being too soft and call him a "puppet" head coach because he simply does whatever Jerry Jones wants. True, Romo was hurt this year, but we saw a lot of teams win games this year with backup quarterbacks such as the Houston Texans, who are actually in first place in the AFC South with Brandon Weeden. That's pretty ironic. Garrett hasn't shown that he can lead a team when they are down and nearly out, and his time management has been brought into question many times before.
The odds of Garrett being fired soon are very slim, however. Jones re-signed Garrett to a five year contract back in January. Jones loves Garrett because he can simply have a coach in place that will do whatever he says whenever he says it. On the flip side, firing Garrett would please a lot of Cowboys fans, and it wouldn't cost a dime against the salary cap.
And then there's Tom Coughlin. It feels like the New York Giants' head coach is on the hot seat every year. But let's be honest, his hot seat is burning this season, and rightfully so.
Although Coughlin is the only NFC East coach to win a Super Bowl in the last 20 years, things are getting visibly worse. The Giants have now missed the playoffs four consecutive years despite the fact that they are the only team that has had a healthy quarterback year in and year out. Coughlin has brought two Lombardi trophies to East Rutherford, but many fans are getting as disgruntled as ever with his decision making and late game blunders.
It's very rare that a coach with two Super Bowl wins is on the hot seat, but it's just too hard to overlook the recent failures. The Giants haven't made the playoffs since 2011, when they won it all. They've also missed the playoffs six of the last seven seasons overall, which is absolutely atrocious. It seems like it's all or nothing with the Giants. Coughlin has the second most wins in Giants franchise history and he even has an identical 8-3 playoff record as a Giants head coach to Bill Parcells. But again, this is a "what have you done for me lately" league, and Coughlin hasn't done anything lately.
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