Which NFL head coaches are under pressure and how sportsbooks price it

Which NFL head coaches are under pressure, and how the odds read them

A record-equalling 10 teams changed head coach last winter, a total matched only in 1978, 1997, 2006 and 2022, and the men who survived that cull opened the 2026 season with a price on their heads. Bookmakers run a first-coach-fired market from the summer onwards, and it already looks nothing like it did in August.

One of the two coaches on the sideline for the NFL’s Week 5 trip to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium sits high on that list, which gives the Philadelphia Eagles @ Jacksonville Jaguars Odds on October 11 a subplot the scoreline will not settle.

Washington sits at the top of the market

The odds suggest that Dan Quinn is the favourite to be the first coach sacked this season. The Commanders reached the NFC Championship game in 2024 at 12-5, then fell to 5-12 last season with Jayden Daniels missing 10 games and a defence that conceded a league-worst 384 yards per game. Quinn is in year three.

His October 4 fixture against the Colts, also at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, puts him opposite Shane Steichen, a 10/1 shot in the same market after three seasons and no play-off appearances. Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon said in the spring that the urgency around results had never been higher.

Bowles and Glenn complete the front three

Todd Bowles is also among the favourites to go first. Tampa Bay Buccaneers were 6-2 last season and finished 2-7, missing the play-offs as NFC South favourites, and Bowles is 35-33 over four years with one postseason win from four attempts. 

Aaron Glenn is up there after a 3-14 first season, the worst by a Jets head coach in his opening year. New York traded Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner at the deadline and have not reached the play-offs since 2010.

Zac Taylor is a contender too, after three years without a postseason game despite Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, after a 6-11 finish.

A Super Bowl winner at 25/1

Nick Sirianni’s is also floating around the conversation, and his price reads long for a coach who won Super Bowl LIX. FOX Sports reporter Ralph Vacchiano ranked him the second hottest seat in the league in February, behind only Glenn. The record is not the problem.

Sirianni is 59-26 in the regular season with three division titles, and the Eagles took the NFC East again in 2025 at 11-6. What followed is the problem, a 23-19 home defeat to San Francisco in the wildcard round and a second late-season fade in three years, under an owner whose standards do not move.

What the price gap actually measures

Liam Coen is near the foot of the board. Jacksonville were 4-13 the year before he arrived and went 13-4 in his first season, taking the AFC South before losing to Buffalo in the wildcard round. The Jaguars are back in London a week after the Eagles game, facing Houston at Wembley on October 18. ESPN’s Football Power Indexprojects 9-8 this year, a clear step back, and Coen remains one of the longest prices in the NFL betting market. That is the point.

The number measures the distance between what an owner expected and what he received, not how good the coach is.

The board rarely lasts to Christmas

Tennessee dismissed Brian Callahan six games into last season with the Titans at 1-5, and mid-season sackings are now the rule rather than the exception. Robert Saleh, Dennis Allen and Matt Eberflus all lost their jobs during the 2024 campaign. 

For punters, that makes this a fast market, because a 0-4 start can rewrite the top of it inside a month. Quinn opens at Philadelphia on September 13, which is about as unhelpful a first assignment as a favourite could be handed.