DENVER, CO – JANUARY 17: Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott looks on in the first half during the AFC Divisional Round game against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High on January 17, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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After the Buffalo Bills parted ways with Sean McDermott earlier this week, the NFL offseason will feature a record-tying 10 head coaching changes.
Even in a league that has long been quick to make coaching moves, the recent pace of change has been staggering.
ESPN points out that there have been five or more coaching moves for 16 straight offseasons. But this is just the fifth time there have been 10 openings – though the second time it’s happened this decade already (the other being 2022).
Why are owners moving on so early? During this NFL season, in particular, there’s been a perfect storm of factors fueling more change than normal.
Chiefs’ Failures Remove Air Cover
The Kansas City Chiefs’ lengthy run of dominance was not just a boost for the team, but the league as well. Historically, having a dynasty has been good for the NFL’s business, and the Chiefs’s dynasty is/was no exception. Yet, with the Chiefs completely missing the playoffs this year, it immediately exposed coaches who were able to (effectively) message Kansas City’s dominance as a key reason why they had repeatedly fallen short.
On the AFC side, the Bills and Ravens still failing to reach the Super Bowl without the Chiefs standing in the way highlighted how each team had more significant issues to sort out than playoff matchups.
In Buffalo and Baltimore, those teams clearly have winning quarterbacks in Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, respectively. But each has had the same coach for his entire pro career so far. Rather than moving on from the QBs, who are harder to replace, it makes sense for teams to try plugging in a different coach to generate different results.
After all, change came swiftly for teams like the Broncos and Patriots after recent coaching changes, despite having perceptively lesser quarterbacks than either Allen or Jackson.
Sean Payton quickly turned Denver around from a 5-12 season in 2022, to 8-9 in 2023, 10-7 and a playoff bid in 2024, and then 14-3 and the AFC’s top seed in 2025. In just one year leading New England, Mike Vrabel turned a 4-13 bottom-dweller into a 14-3 division winner.
Both teams are just as close to a championship in one down season for Kansas City as the Ravens or Bills have managed for the last eight. And one of them is guaranteed to go further.
GLENDALE, ARIZONA – SEPTEMBER 25: Head coach Jonathan Gannon of the Arizona Cardinals talks with quarterback Kyler Murray #1 of the Arizona Cardinals before the game against the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium on September 25, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
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Organizations Failing Quarterbacks
Quarterback play at the top of the NFL hasn’t necessarily declined in recent years. But fewer quarterbacks are showing an ability to perform above an “average” level – putting up a QBR of 50 or higher over the course of the season.
During the 2025 regular season, just 20 quarterbacks had a QBR of 50 or higher – the lowest number since 2016. Included in that group under 50 were playoff quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Bryce Young, and last year’s No.1 pick Cam Ward (last with a 33.3 rating).
In 2024, Caleb Williams was below 50, but was well above in 2025 after Ben Johnson took over in Chicago. Drake Maye’s QBR jumped 22 points year-over-year, to the No. 1 spot in the league following the Patriots’ coaching change. Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones have both recently become successful reclamation projects with new teams and new coaches.
Coupled with out-of-the-box successes for players like Patrick Mahomes, Jayden Daniels and others in recent years, the NFL is subscribing to Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell’s idea that “… organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations.”
So if the existing coach can’t figure out how to win with the quarterback, teams are increasingly opting to find someone that can.
Reactions To Long-Term Struggles
The NFL may be a parity-filled league, but success has been largely concentrated with specific teams over the last two decades. And similarly, failure is, too.
From 2016-25, 10 NFL teams won fewer than 45% of their total games. Not coincidentally, all of those have undergone a coaching change in the last three years.
The New York Jets had the worst winning percentage on that list, at 32.6%, and hired Aaron Glenn last offseason. But just above them, the New York Giants (34%) and Cleveland Browns (34.5%) weren’t much better, and are both on this offseason’s coaching carousel.
While the Giants have already hired former Ravens coach John Harbaugh, the Browns are still searching.
Though franchise likes losing, some of the NFL’s bigger and/or older franchises – the Giants, Browns, Cardinals and Raiders – have been struggling for extended stretches now. Each can point to coaching, poor quarterback play or both for how they’ve become stuck at the bottom of the standings. Once the Giants were ready to move on from Brian Daboll in-season, it helped create urgency for other teams to make similar moves.
These teams have also managed personnel poorly, and those fixes won’t happen overnight. Leaving existing coaches in place to manage those rosters that have already failed under them seems counterintuitive.
It also highlights some league-wide issues with both coaching stability and roster management that aren’t going away as the money involved continues to escalate.
That likely means less security for the majority of the league’s coaches and general managers. Especially when owners can continue to point to long-term successes like Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Green Bay, the L.A. Rams and others that show consistent winning is far from an impossible task in today’s NFL.