Welcome to Belly Up’s Over-Reactionary Coach’s Hot Seat Scale for NFL Week 8! (Or BUORCHSS for short.) We’re just at the halfway point of the 2020 NFL season and about to go over the crest of the roller coaster. Which coach will last the season? Who will be toast? One thing is certain: there will always be plenty of movement in the Hot Seat Scale! (Here’s the Week 1 column if you need the scales, but you SHOULD have this down already.)
Coach-For-Life
Raheem Morris, Andy Reid, Sean McDermott, Jon Gruden, Frank Reich, Brian Flores, Mike Tomlin, Vic Fangio, Sean Peyton, Pete Carroll, Doug Pedersen, Bruce Arians.
Tomlin’s Steelers survived a battle with the Ravens to remain the only team in the NFL with a perfect record (7-0). Reich’s Colts throttled the Lions and are now in a tie for second place in the AFC South. They’ll need that momentum as they enter a four-game ride where they play division rival Tennessee twice in three weeks. Arians’ Buccaneers came back to beat the Giants. They currently occupy the second seed in the NFC and after some early struggles, the offense is starting to heat up. The Bucs currently own a +82-point differential, second in the NFL to Kansas City. On the other side of the coin, McDermott’s Bills survived a cage fight with New England. Even though they’re in first place in the AFC East, they have a point differential of -1.
Tepid
Matt Rhule, Mike Vrabel, Zac Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Mike Zimmer, Matt LaFleur, Sean McVay, John Harbaugh, Matt Nagy, Kyle Shanahan.
Taylor’s Bengals upset Vrabel’s Titans, which enabled Taylor to crawl out of the Instant Pot hot scale. After a bye week and a week in the Circle of Hell: Level 8 scale, Zimmer’s Vikings literally ran over LaFleur’s Packers. McVay’s Rams were thrown around in Miami and Stefanki’s Browns had their hopes at a win dashed by the wind. Rhule’s Panthers lost their second game in a row as did Nagy’s Bears.
Instant Pot
Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia, Joe Judge.
It’s amazing that the trunk of the Belichick coaching tree and his branches are in this hot seat scale after NFL Week 8. After a short winning streak, Patricia’s Lions fell behind to the Colts early and couldn’t catch up as they fell to 3-4. Belichick’s Patriots were in a heavy battle with the Bills and the win was literally stripped away on their final drive. Here’s a tidbit on the last time the Pats lost four games in a row.
This is the 1st 4 game losing streak for New England since 2002. That was also the last time The Patriots didn’t win at least 10 games.. a 17 season streak that feels like it’s on its way to being snapped pic.twitter.com/EmbKjiIWfB
— trey wingo (@wingoz) November 1, 2020
Meanwhile, Judge’s Giants were up 14-6 on the Buccaneers, but failed to hold their lead and lost by two. The reason why Judge isn’t in the next scale like his fellow New York Metro counterpart is because his Giants remain in games. Speaking of which…
Circle of Hell: Level 8
Adam Gase, Anthony Lynn, Mike McCarthy.
Apparently, Gase is getting very comfortable in this scale. The tank is on as the Jets lost big once again on Sunday. This time, it was a 35-9 loss in Kansas City. McCarthy’s Cowboys looked lifeless on offense against the Eagles as he was forced to start third-string quarterback Tony DiNucci. And we have a new entry into this hot seat scale: Anthony Lynn. The Chargers have lost five of their last six games and three of those losses were winnable because of the leads they built.
The Chargers’ blown leads in the past four games:
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 2, 2020
17 points – L
17 points – L
16 points – W
21 points – L pic.twitter.com/VAeqLz970T
Toast
Bill O’Brien, Dan Quinn.
Bye Week
Kliff Kingsbury, Ron Rivera, Doug Marrone, Romeo Crenell.
Got your own take about the NFL hot seat scale? Leave a comment below or hit me up on Twitter: @WhoIsRyanMcC. And don’t forget to check out my podcast No Credentials Required (new episodes every Wednesday) and my live stream show A-Round for the Weekend (most Fridays at 6:30pm).
