Thanksgiving is over and December is almost here — which means undue pressure ahead for several notable names throughout the NFL.
For coaches, players and owners, the final month of the season can be a time of reckoning. Entering Week 13, only one team — the Cincinnati Bengals — had been eliminated from playoff contention, though the Detroit Lions joined them with a loss on Thanksgiving. But several more are sure to follow, and such disappointments could force a change of scenery in 2020.
With that in mind, we asked NFL reporters and writers for USA TODAY Sports: Which NFL figure is under the most pressure in the final month of the season?
Their answers:
Nancy Armour
Oh, there are so many choices. Some of the more obvious candidates are Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia, but I think their fates are already sealed. Or, if they haven’t been, they should be. Same goes for Pat Shurmur, though it’s hard to win games when your best player was traded away and the defense is wholly ineffective.
But nowhere is the situation more dire than in Washington for general manager Bruce Allen and his boss, owner Dan Snyder.
Allen created this raging dumpster fire that is masquerading as an NFL team, and he will have to somehow convince Snyder that he deserves yet another chance to fix it. Why? Because of his track record in hiring winning head coaches? His close, personal relationships with players? His history of attracting marquee free agents? His ability to build a championship culture? Oh, right. The culture is “actually damn good,” according to Allen. So never mind there.
As for Snyder, this once beloved, once proud franchise is quickly becoming irrelevant in Washington. Fans are fed up with Snyder’s arrogance and his staff’s ineptitude, and the success of the Nationals (reigning World Series champions), Mystics (current WNBA champions) and Capitals (2018 Stanley Cup winners) only make Washington’s failures more glaring. Fans are already turning off; tickets for last weekend’s game were going for as little as $4 at one point, and seats for the final home game, Dec. 22 against the equally woeful Giants, could be had for $16 on Wednesday.
This season is already a wash. But if Allen and Snyder don’t do something over the next month to assure fans that next year won’t be more of the same, they risk turning Washington into the NFL equivalent of the Miami Marlins, a team that is both awful and invisible.
Jarrett Bell
Jason Garrett … and Jerry Jones. I know, I know. The Cowboys coach should be used to immense pressure, operating for so long under the watchful eye and supportive wisdom of Jerry Jones. So the fact that Jerry has thickened the plot in recent weeks with some of his public comments isn’t exactly new territory for Garrett. Besides, I believe that part of the Jerry package is to use certain messages in the public arena to tighten the screws and increase the pressure. So, there’s that. To Garrett’s credit, his teams always seem to play hard for him. And I fully expect they will continue to go down swinging for him … although that might not be enough to save his job if they don’t turn it into a deep playoff run.
One reason Garrett has remained so poised (at least from what he displays for the world) is that he was groomed for his role while coming up in the Cowboys culture. He’s learned to roll with the circus-in-a-fishbowl environment. And fair or not, he knows who he’s working for. Yet for all the years that Jones has had Garrett’s back, his patience can’t last forever. Add Garrett’s lame-duck contract status to the mix, and this is certainly a different type of make-or-break pressure.
But for all of that, let’s not overlook the significant external pressure swirling about Garrett. Some diehard Cowboys fans have been calling for his head for years. Ask Tony Romo what that is like. And now, the Garrett detractors inside the Cowboys Nation fan base may be on the verge of growing in size and volume. Of course, the decision on Garrett ultimately comes down to Jerry – who harbors some pressure of his own as he’s been unable to duplicate the championship teams that Jimmy Johnson built. It has been 23 years, going on 24, since the NFL’s most popular, most valuable, most glamorous and most telegenic franchise – 23 years! – has played in a Super Bowl. That’s the longest championship dry spell in Cowboys history – and it’s under Jerry’s watch. But Jerry can’t fire himself. No wonder the pressure he must feel to win big without Jimmy extends to Garrett, just as it would for any coach envisioned to produce a champion.
Nate Davis
I’m going with the NFL’s senior VP of officiating, Al Riveron. If you don’t appreciate how embattled he could be, read some of the reporting from our esteemed Jarrett Bell. Saints coach Sean Payton held little back, and one head coach told Jarrett that the state of officiating is “awful” … which most league observers recognized long ago. Now, with the playoffs and Super Bowl approaching, the problems are only going to become magnified for Riveron and his crews. It sure seems like the officiating corps got too inexperienced way too quickly as established refs retired or took high-profile TV jobs. And then there’s the replay system, which doesn’t seem to be working as designed this season with pass interference now subject to review, and those issues boomerang to Riveron. And once a bad call (or calls) costs a team a playoff spot or game or, football gods forbid, a Super Bowl berth as happened in New Orleans last year – with the expectation that such injustices can be rectified? I shudder to think what could happen next offseason. But it sure feels like there could soon be demand for a sacrificial zebra.
Jori Epstein
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has made his expectation for Jason Garrett clear.
“I don’t have to win the Super Bowl in business every year,” Jones told NFL Network on Wednesday. “I can come in sixth and have a hell of a year. But in this business, you’ve got to come in first. ... I want Jason to get it done.”
Garrett hasn’t been able to get it—a Super Bowl run—done in a decade as Dallas’ head coach. He has not even competed in a conference championship game, and his bosses want to see that progress for him to remain Cowboys coach. Technically, Jones need not even fire Garrett. Garrett already is coaching on the final year of his contract. Jones, as owner and general manager, believes he’s assembled a roster far more talented than its 6-6 record indicates. Though Jones said he had no plans to fire his coach during the season, he shows no desire to soften his tone with Garrett until results reflect that. Even as the Cowboys sit atop the NFC East, Garrett knows: He has been placed on notice.
Mike Jones
A lot of guys are feeling the heat as the league enters the homestretch of the season, but I’m going to go with Mitchell Trubisky. This season hasn’t at all gone the way he and the Bears wanted, and now, he’s seemingly in danger of losing his job this offseason. He has to find a way to quickly get to a better place mentally so he can perform at a high level and signal to the Bears that he’s worth sticking with next season and beyond. Otherwise, Chicago probably has to go in a different direction next season so they can capitalize on this win-now roster.
Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz
A three-game win streak has helped ease some of the concerns in Cleveland, but Freddie Kitchens might not have quieted all of the grumblings just yet. At 5-6, the Browns now have playoff aspirations again thanks in part to a watered-down AFC. With two games against the Bengals remaining, the schedule is quite conducive to a late-season run. But if the Browns take another misstep or two and miss out on their first winning season since 2007, the question will resurface: Is Kitchens the right person to lead all this young talent?
Tom Schad
It would be a bit surprising for the Bengals to punt on Zac Taylor after just one season, but we've reached the point now where he's got to show something. Anything. Any sign of growth or hope that Bengals ownership can point to as a reason to keep him. Because the early returns have been, well, awful.
Ballyhooed as a Sean McVay protege and offensive innovator, Taylor has instead led the NFL's second-worst scoring offense, a unit that has scored more than 20 points exactly once in 11 games. The quarterback position is a mess, with Taylor switching back to Andy Dalton this week in a move that reeks of desperation, and attendance is bottoming out. The notion of tanking and rebuilding through the draft is all well and good, but if Taylor's team doesn't show signs of life in the final month, ownership might decide to let someone else lead the franchise through such a rebuild.
