Worst NFL Coaching Hires of the 21st Century (Pt.1)

From Dave Campo to Nathaniel Hackett and beyond: Part one of a two-part series.

Urban Meyer was the worst NFL coaching hire of the 21st century.

We’re not supposed to spoil the grand finale at the top of a countdown. But we don’t believe in manufactured suspense here at Two Deep Zone. The name “Urban Meyer” likely leapt into your brain the moment you read the words “worst coaching hires …” Congratulations: you were right! His 13-game tenure coaching the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars, still fresh in the memories of fans, was the stuff of historic ineptitude.

To discover the second-through-20th worst NFL coaching hires since 2023, however, you must read on. 

This is not really a series of stories about terrible coaches. There are coaches on this list who led their teams to Super Bowls and college championships, not to mention many respected coordinators who enjoyed long, successful careers. There are stories about terrible owners, general managers, ideas and hiring procedures. That doesn’t exonerate the tinpot tough guys, bellicose Belichick impersonators and tic-tac-toe tacticians who populate the bulk of this list. But behind every unsuccessful coach, there are a whole bunch of people who were misguided enough to give him power. 

Dishonorable Mention

The following coaches, in alphabetical order, did not quite make the cut:

• Tom Cable of the Raiders, alleged backroom brawler.

• Chan Gailey of the Bills, a Cowboys retread who mired the team almost permanently at 6-10.

• Vance Joseph of the Broncos, innovator of the late-game fourth-and-1 field goal when trailing by four points. 

• Scott Linehan and Steve Spagnuolo of the Rams, who had miserable records spanning half a decade but didn’t stand a chance when upper management was more focused on moving the franchise than winning. 

• Ben McAdoo of the Giants, who bungled the benching of Eli Manning.

• Jim Mora Jr. of the Seattle Seahawks, famous for publicly blaming his players for losses.

• Matt Rhule of the Panthers, who once compared himself to Jay-Z.

• Jeff Saturday, a figurehead with no coaching experience who was plucked off the street to turn the 2022 Colts from a tragedy into a comedy.

• Jim Tomsula of the 49ers, who went 5-11 in his one full season and once audibly farted during a press conference.

• Marc Trestman of the Bears, a professorial Bill Walsh disciple who was plucked from the Canadian Football League and tasked with managing Jay Cutler’s ego, with predictable results. 

20 (tie): David Culley/Lovie Smith, Houston Texans, 2021-22.

We should not be too hard on Culley or Smith, both of whom were hired when the Texans were in the thrall of Jack Easterby, former Patriots “character coach” turned Texans de-facto prime minister. 

Once he assumed full control of the franchise, Easterby appeared to be searching for the weakest available coaching candidates. After interviewing the usual suspects (Eric Bienemy, Brandon Staley, Leslie Frazier) and some unusual ones (Josh McCown, still the team’s backup quarterback at that point), the Texans chose Culley, a 65-year old Ravens offensive assistant who had never even been a full-fledged coordinator at the NFL level. 

Allegations of sexual assault against Deshaun Watson surfaced a few weeks after Culley’s hiring, though Watson was already threatening a holdout due to the general state of the franchise. Culley’s Texans stumbled listlessly through a 4-13 season in 2021.

If the Texans merely wanted someone to blow whistles at practice while Easterby spun around in his Executive Director of Football Operations chair and workshopped his faith-based comedy stylings, Culley probably fit the bill. But Culley reportedly refused to fire some of his assistants after the 2021 season, so the Texans fired him. 

The Texans interviewed yet another round of usual suspects – Kevin O’Connell, Brian Flores, Jonathan Gannon, McCown again – before simply promoting defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, who coached the Bears to the Super Bowl in the mid-2000s but had been the head coach at Illinois for several seasons when Culley added him to the Texans staff. Smith took over a roster gutted by  both the Watson situation and years of mismanagement and front-office power plays. Smith’s Texans went 3-13-1. At times that looked like an accomplishment.

Easterby stepped away from the organization in October of 2022. Nick Caserio, a traditional personnel exec who handled the day-to-day management under Easterby, assumed the Executive Vice President role. Smith was fired in favor of DeMeco Ryans, and the Texans are now in a much better place. 

19. Dennis Erickson, San Francisco 49ers, 2003-04

The 49ers fired Steve Mariucci after a 10-win season and a trip to the second round of the playoffs in 2002. “It just seemed to me that no matter what came up, Steve and I did not see things together.'' owner John York said after the surprise dismissal.

The ensuing coaching search lasted well past the Super Bowl. Jets defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell appeared to be the leading candidate until Oregon State head coach Erickson leapt from behind a curtain at the last moment and took the job.

Erickson rose to prominence by replacing Jimmy Johnson at the University of Miami and leading the program to two national championships. He left Miami a half-step ahead of numerous investigations and scandals to coach the Seattle Seahawks in 1995. Erickson’s Seahawks were incredibly consistent, going 8-8, then 8-8, then 7-9, then 8-8, despite the fact that then-new owner Paul Allen spent generously on free agents like Warren Moon, Ricky Watters and Chad Brown.

When the Seahawks narrowly missed the 1998 playoffs, in part because of a controversial call on a Vinny Testaverde sneak against the Jets, Erickson left amid rumors that team discipline was lax and his staff was overmatched. He returned to campus, where he earned praise for reviving Oregon State’s football program.

Erickson inherited much of Mariucci’s staff in San Francisco, including defensive coordinator Jim Mora Jr. (who was considered for the head coaching job) and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp. Led by Jeff Garcia, Terrell Owens and Garrison Hearst, the 49ers went 7-9 in Erickson’s first season. General manager Terry Donahoe, who was instrumental in the Erickson hire, then sent those three big-name veterans packing in cost-cutting and headache-reducing moves (Owens, establishing his brand, had strong feelings about Garcia). Erickson replaced much of Mariucci’s staff with his own guys. With Tim Rattay and Ken Dorsey under center, the 49ers fell to 2-14.

The impetuous York fired Erickson and Donahue – who had as much to do with the 49ers downfall than the coach – on the same day. Per Kevin Lynch of the San Francisco Chronicle, Erickson trudged into the media trailer wearing a blue warm-up jacket and quipped to reporters, “I don’t have any clothes anymore.” 

Erickson actually had three years left on his contract, so he could afford a new wardrobe. 

18. Josh McDaniels, Denver Broncos, 2009-10; Las Vegas Raiders 2022-23.

There were few warning signs against hiring a Bill Belichick assistant as your head coach and savior when the Broncos gave McDaniels the keys to the organization in 2009. In fact, this is the origin story of those warning signs.

McDaniels’ first order of business in Denver was to feud with combustible quarterback Jay Cutler. After some well-documented clashes, McDaniels sent Cutler to the Bears in exchange for the far-less-talented/irascible Kyle Orton and draft picks. McDaniels then made some foolish draft decisions, selecting running back Knowshon Moreno 12th overall despite critical needs on defense and tight end Richard Quinn, who caught only 12 passes in his college career, in the second round. The Broncos went a respectable 8-8, but defensive coordinator Mike Nolan left after the season, angry about his interactions with McDaniels during games.

The clubhouse clashes continued: with running back Peyton Hillis (traded), wide receiver Brandon Marshall (traded) and others. “He tried to command that respect like a dog marking its territory all over the organization,” Broncos blogger Sayre Bedinger once wrote. Meanwhile, the draft errors multiplied, with McDaniels trading up in the 2010 draft to select Tim Tebow. 

The last straw for the Broncos was McDaniels’ version of a Patriots-style videotaping scandal; the Broncos’ attempt to secretly record a 49ers practice was so poorly executed that it was quickly sniffed out and punished. Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, embarrassed by the scandal and facing an organization-wide mutiny, fired McDaniels with three games left in the 2010 season.

McDaniels, of course, eventually returned to the Patriots, then got a second head coaching chance with the Raiders in 2022. A lot of folks, myself included, assumed that the older and wiser McDaniels would not make the same mistakes he made over a decade earlier. One look at the Raiders locker room in their first victory over McDaniels was fired in November …

… reveals that such optimism was not merited. 

17. Tie: Marty Mornhinweg and Rod Marinelli, Detroit Lions, 2001-02; 2005-07.

“There’s one voice for discipline. Mine. There’s one voice for leadership. Mine.”

That’s not a quote from the principal in The Breakfast Club, nor from a speech by some mad dictator of the distant past. It’s a quote from Rod Marinelli’s introductory press conference as head coach of the Detroit Lions. Team president Matt Millen hired Marinelli, a Viet Nam War veteran and longtime defensive assistant under Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden, because Millen thought the Lions had grown too soft under the two previous coaches he hired, including Marty Mornhinweg.

Perhaps we should back up.

If this were a list of the worst team executive hires of all time, Matt Millen would probably rank first. The former Raiders and 49ers linebacker went straight from the broadcast booth to the top of the Lions org chart despite zero coaching or personnel experience. Two weeks after taking the job, Millen chose 49ers offensive coordinator Mornhinweg as his head coach. 

"He's his own man," Millen said at Mornhinweg’s introductory presser. "He's strong. He's a bulldog." Millen clearly had a type.

The Bill Walsh coaching tree was ready for the ax by the time Millen plucked Mornhinweg to install a copy of a copy of the West Coast Offense with Charlie Batch (later Joey Harrington) under center. Millen’s lack of personnel or draft acumen did not help: each year, he spent a first-round pick on a wide receiver with injury/conditioning/attitude issues. The Lions went 5-25 under Mornhinweg, who is best remembered for choosing the wind instead of the ball after winning the coin toss for sudden death overtime; the Bears netted three first downs (one after Mornhinweg accepted a third-and-8 holding penalty instead of forcing a punt, setting up a Bears fourth-down conversion) into the wind and kicked a game-winning field goal.

 

When the 49ers fired Steve Mariucci, Millen fired Mornhinweg in order to pursue the coach’s former boss, though he waited until nearly a month after the season to do so. Mariucci led the 49ers to four winning seasons before a falling out with ownership (see #19), so he was not a bad hire per se, though Millen incurred a $200,000 fine for not following the NFL’s still-nascent minority hiring protocols. Mariucci lasted two-and-a-half seasons but was unable to build a Walsh-like offense around Harrington and Millen’s Legion of Disappointing Receivers. Millen, meanwhile, received a contract extension before Mariucci’s final season. 

Enter Marinelli, the lone voice of discipline and leadership, to instill toughness in the Lions’ coddled West Coast offense sissies. Marinelli quickly earned a grievance for violating minicamp practice policies, because tough guys don’t follow workplace health and safety guidelines. 

The Lions went 3-13 in 2006 but 7-9 in 2007. Marinelli’s defenses weren’t great, but coordinator Mike Martz got some mileage out of Jon Kitna and an offense that featured rookie Calvin Johnson. (The fourth time was the charm for Millen when drafting receivers). When Kitna went on a late-season turnover spree, however, Marinelli fired Martz. Defensive coordinator Joe Berry, who happened to be Marinelli’s son-in-law, kept his job, and Marinelli added some of his favorite Buccaneers defenders to the 2008 roster in the hopes of improving the team culture or whatever.

The Lions went 0-16 in 2008. Marinelli and nearly all of his staff/family were fired hours after the season finale. Millen was already gone: Lions ownership finally came to its senses late in that historic, winless season. 

General manager Martin Mayhew and coach Jim Schwartz would soon bring a little respectability back to the organization, with the help of Calvin Johnson and the silver lining from that 0-16 season: Matthew Stafford. Still, this is not the last team we will see the Lions in this countdown. 

16. Rod Chudzinski, Cleveland Browns, 2013.

Coach Chud may be the most obscure character on this list. He was the first coach hired by Jimmy and Dee Haslam after their purchase of the Browns was complete. The Haslams and their braintrust – led by longtime Raiders executive Michael Lombardi and former Eagles GM Joe Banner – first pursued Chip Kelly, only to get outmaneuvered by the Eagles. Ken Whisenhunt, who took the Cardinals to the Super Bowl in 2009, interviewed twice for the job. But Chudzinski, an Ohio native and former Browns assistant who spent two years helping develop Cam Newton with the Panthers, reportedly “wowed” Jimmy Haslam and Banner in his interviews. 

The Browns spent lavishly (if foolishly) on free agents Paul Kruger and Desmond Bryant to jumpstart a rebuild. The Browns started the 2013 season 3-2 then quickly collapsed, losing their final seven games, often to equally feeble opponents, sometimes while coughing up early leads. Haslam stormed out of the owner’s box during the season-ending loss to the Steelers, and Chudzinski was fired after a meeting with Haslam and Banner later that evening.

Haslam would later fire Banner and Lombardi, and just about everyone else within 50 miles of downtown Cleveland; we’ll revisit the Browns in a bit. Chudzinski worked his way up the Colts offensive staff just in time to become the offensive coordinator during Andrew Luck’s final season. He has been at Boston College since 2020. 

In fairness to Coach Chud, it’s hard to imagine what Kelly or Whisenhunt would have done with Brandon Weeden and Jason Campbell at quarterback, Barkevious Mingo as the team’s top draft pick and Haslam eager to climb the list of the NFL’s most toxic owners. 

15. Nathaniel Hackett, Denver Broncos, 2022.

Hackett would rank higher on this list if he wasn’t so innocuously incompetent from the get-go. He was so bad so immediately that the Broncos began mitigating the damage he could do just weeks into the season.

You probably recall the details: the Broncos hired Hackett, formerly the Packers offensive coordinator, as part of an effort to lure Aaron Rodgers out of Green Bay. When it became clear that Rodgers wasn’t leaving that year, the Broncos went down the list to the next franchise-caliber quarterback with an advanced case of fame brain: Russell Wilson. 

Wilson walked all over Hackett the way Rodgers undoubtedly does, but Wilson also chafed at the coach’s system and underperformed on the field. Hackett, an affable, thoughtful fellow by all accounts, proved to be out of his depth as a locker room leader, clock manager, and even as a game-planner and play caller when Rodgers and Matt LaFleur weren’t there to polish things up. He either relinquished or was stripped of each of his responsibilities one by one until he essentially evaporated with two weeks left in the 2022 season.

Hackett landed on his feet as the Jets offensive coordinator, where he successfully served as the hunk of cheese in the Rodgers trap. His job is safe until Rodgers’ ankle or psyche implodes for good. 

14. Mike Nolan, San Francisco 49ers, 2005-07.

The late, great San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gwen Knapp, whom I had the good fortune of working with at both Sports on Earth and The New York Times, summed up the Nolan experience brilliantly in a column on the coach’s firing in the middle of the 2008 season: “Shuttling from groundless bravado to thinly disguised neurosis with long layovers at utter confusion, Nolan's demeanor defined an organization that lost its way years ago, well before it hired him.” 

Nolan replaced Dennis Erickson, whom we met earlier in the countdown. His father, Dick Nolan coached the 49ers from 1968 through 1975. Nolan, trying perhaps too hard to emulate his old man, petitioned the NFL for the right to coach in a business suit instead of team apparel. (Per the dictates of a league contract, Reebok provided the suit). He arrived just as the 49ers drafted Alex Smith with the first overall pick, choosing the straight-arrow who graduated college in just two years over a cocky California lad named Aaron Rodgers.

Nolan went through a Who’s Who of offensive coordinators in four seasons: Mike McCarthy, Norv Turner, Jim Hostler and Mike Martz. Smith was usually injured, in the doghouse or reeling from the myriad voices in his head. The 49ers rose to 7-9 in Nolan’s second year but then slid backwards thanks to Nolan’s inability to stick with one offensive philosophy, manage the clock, or make the right fourth-down and late-game decisions. 

Oh, challenge flags were also the issue. “The more flak he took for the red flags, the more he seemed incapable of controlling the impulse to toss them inappropriately.” Knapp wrote.

The 49ers fired Nolan in favor of assistant Mike Singletary, who was just as clueless about how to handle Smith or the offense but at least did not look like the shift manager at a discount sneaker outlet when pacing the sideline.

“He is full of swagger and vanity, a man of many words, most of them empty,” Knapp wrote upon Nolan’s dismissal. The same can be said of many other coaches on this countdown, to say nothing of the individuals who hired them.

13. Dave Campo, Dallas Cowboys, 2000-02

As the 1990s drew to a close, it was clear that Jerry Jones would have hired Jerry Jones to be the Cowboys head coach, except that the job entailed far too much daily work. Jones replaced Jimmy Johnson (architect of the Cowboys 1990s success) with college legend Barry Switzer (who won a third Super Bowl by yelling “go get’ em, fellas” to Johnson’s former players), then Steelers offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, who spent two seasons watching Troy Aikman and company get old. 

After firing Gailey at the conclusion of the 1999 season, “Jones' 15-day search for a coach hardly extended outside team headquarters,” according to an AP report. Jones selected Campo, a defensive coordinator who had been rising through the ranks since the Johnson era, over fiery special teams coach Joe Avezzano.

Fans who remember nothing else about Campo remember how short he was. “He may only be 5-6 or 5-7, but he really gets after guys,” safety Darren Woodson said in that AP article. “Dave Campo may be small in stature, but he's being given a big opportunity,” wrote Mike Baldwin in the Oklahoman. It was as if Jones had hired not just a mouthpiece, but an actual muppet. Granted, Campo’s defenses had been rather effective during Gailey’s tenure, but the Cowboys also still employed Deion Sanders, Darren Woodson, Leon Lett and a few other holdovers from their glory days. 

Campo spent three seasons playing the company man while Jones destroyed the Cowboys roster. Jones traded two first-round picks for wide receiver Joey Galloway, who promptly suffered a major injury. What high picks the Cowboys possessed were spent on projects like tight end turned defender Ebenezer Ekuban and minor-league baseball player turned quarterback Quincy Carter. Meanwhile, Aikman, Sanders and others faded from the picture one by one, leaving Campo’s Cowboys to go 5-11 for three straight years with Carter, Chad Hutchinson (another baseball player), Ryan Leaf and others at quarterback.

Jones, clearly realizing that he was not a crackerjack scout, began talking to Bill Parcells late in Campo’s third and final season. Parcells came aboard with full personnel control (give-or-take) after the 2002 season. Jones was magnanimous in his final assessment of Campo: “There's never been anyone that has worked any harder, any more diligent, any more loyal, with a positive attitude about getting the job done than Dave Campo.”

Campo returned to the Cowboys as a defensive assistant under Wade Phillips and then Jason Garrett, a slightly more evolved version of the Jerry Jones Figurehead Coach. 

12. Jon Gruden, Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, 2018-21.

Gruden was nine years removed from coaching and 15 years removed from winning the Super Bowl when Mark Davis zeroed in on him as the man to replace Jack Del Rio in 2018. He spent those years not just in the broadcast booth but as a smirking beer pitchman and host of “Jon Gruden QB Camp,” in which he dazzled rookie prospects and viewers with his deep insights and witty repartee. The NFL had passed Gruden by in many ways: analytics, the rise of dual-threat quarterbacks, contract structures, practice routines and more. Gruden’s public profile and bankbook, however, told him he was still one step ahead.

Davis signed Gruden for $100 million over 10 years. Gruden flooded the Raiders roster with aging veterans who impressed him during Monday Night Football telecasts. The Raiders went 4-12 with a lineup full of 30-somethings. Gruden appeared dissatisfied with both Derek Carr and defensive coordinator Paul Guenther during the 2018 season, but both were retained. Instead, he had incumbent general manager Reggie McKenizie ousted in favor of another television buddy: NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock.

Gruden and Mayock were responsible for some of the worst draft classes in recent memory. Still, the Raiders went 7-9 in 2019 and 8-8 in 2020: Gruden remained a crafty play caller, and veterans kept the team buoyed at .500 against soft schedules.

Antonio Brown joined the team in 2019 and spent the summer treating Gruden like the frumpy dean in a frat-boy comedy. The Raiders cut Brown near the end of training camp after the receiver released an audiotape of a private conversation with the coach. Gruden fired Guenther later that year. Mayock’s top draft picks either proved incapable of taking the field or found themselves in serious legal trouble. 

The Raiders were 3-2 in 2021 when the New York Times revealed that Gruden had made multiple sexist, racist and homophobic remarks in emails over the years to parties within the NFL. Gruden promptly resigned.

Gruden’s Raiders were better than most of the teams on this list, but the circumstances of his departure underscored the wrong-headedness of his hiring. Davis waved away qualified coordinators in favor of a know-it-all television personality who believed that anything which popped into his head was brilliant. That’s precisely what the Raiders got. 

11. Greg Schiano, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2012-13

Hiring a big-name college football coach to lead your NFL team is bad. Hiring a medium-sized name is worse. Waiting until the last minute to choose that medium name is even worse.

The Buccaneers pursued Chip Kelly to replace Raheem Morris after the 2012 season. When Kelly chose the Eagles instead, the Buccaneers spent weeks interviewing everyone: Marty Schottenheimer, Mike Sherman, Mike Zimmer, Brad Childress and others. Out of nowhere, Greg Schiano got the job, thanks in part to a glowing endorsement from Bill Belichick, who never actually worked with Schiano. Given a late start and scant NFL contacts, it took Schiano until early March to fill out his Buccaneers staff.  

Schiano left Rutgers with a reputation as a no-nonsense disciplinarian, which should have raised a yellow flag: teenagers at (then) midmajor programs are generally more amenable to my-way-or-the-turnpike speeches than NFL professionals. 

Early in Schiano’s first season, the Buccaneers began aggressively blitzing when opposing quarterbacks were kneeling at the end of victories, causing a league-wide stir. Bucs defenders, including Michael Bennett, didn’t like the tactic any more than Tom Coughlin or Peyton Manning, both of whom gave Schiano earfuls during the postgame handshakes after Bucs losses. "People just really hate it when you have to dive at people's legs," Bennett later told NFL.com’s Mike Silver. “Some of these guys (on other teams) are our friends."

Schiano’s relationship with young quarterback Josh Freeman steadily soured until the Bucs released Freeman under a cloud of controversy. When the Bucs started their second season under Schiano 0-8, Silver quoted players as saying that the clubhouse atmosphere under the dictatorial coach “was like being in Cuba." 

The 2013 Buccaneers finished 4-12. Schiano and general manager Mark Dominik were both fired hours after the season finale. Jason Licht, architect of the current Buccaneers team, took over as GM, with Lovie Smith restoring professionalism if not success for two years. Schiano eventually returned to Rutgers, where he is hailed as a hero for bringing the program to the Pinstripe Bowl. 

Next week: Part 2. Get your Zorn on! Hop on the back of the Petrino cycle! And more!