If the Cleveland Browns fire Joe Woods then the season really is over
By Chad Porto
Do teams turn around after firing coordinators?
Now, you might think, “but hey, it works sometimes”? Sure. Firing your coordinator usually improves the team’s overall winning percentage for the year. From 2008 to 2018, Pro Football History found that of the 25 teams that fired coordinators mid-season, 17 saw an improvement on their record. The 17 teams that fired coaches finished with a full extra win more than the teams that didn’t fire their coordinators.
The average win total saw coaches who held onto their coordinators finish with 4.8 wins, while teams that fired their coordinators finished with 5.92 wins. To be clear, that’s not a 5.92-win improvement over the other eight teams, it’s actually just a 1.1 improvement. Teams who did and didn’t fire their coordinators finished one win apart (4-12 to 5-11), and both with losing records. So yes, firing a coordinator can get a bad team an extra win or two, but to say it turns around the team is a lie.
A team who fires its coordinators is often bad before and after the coordinator. Usually means the coordinator isn’t at fault.
If you’re firing a coordinator mid-season, you’re not turning your season around. Part of that is you’re asking a coach who maybe isn’t as familiar with the finer nuances of the scheme to take on the mantle of someone who was hired because of their nuanced understanding of the said scheme.
This isn’t to say sometimes teams can’t get better with a new voice. They can, but that is almost exclusively on offense, and on a team that has a winning record or near-winning record when the change is made.
Kevin Stefanski is a conservative coach on offense and defense. This is the way he likes his defense to be run. There isn’t a coach in the world that can change Stefanski’s mind on this.