Rams, Bills, Jags succeeding with new coaches
DENVER — Of the half dozen firstyear NFL head coaches, Vance Joseph inherited what was widely considered the best situation: a team just one year removed from a Super Bowl parade with a championship-caliber defense and a renovated offense.
Unlike the other five teams that averaged 4.4 wins last season, Denver was coming off a 9-7 season and the job only came open because of Gary Kubiak’s health concerns.
Yet, it’s the Broncos (3-5) who are spiraling with five losses in their past six games while Sean McVay’s Rams (6-2), Doug Marrone’s Jaguars (5-3) and Sean McDermott’s Bills (5-3) are primed for playoff pushes.
Even Anthony Lynn’s Chargers (3-5) are on the rise after a winless first month that included three losses by a field goal or less.
While the 49ers are an NFL-worst 0-9, Kyle Shanahan could end up being the biggest winner of them all with his team jockeying for the top pick in next year’s draft.
“Of course it wears on you,” Shanahan said of all the losing. “If you sit there and you think about those words and the record too much and, yeah, it will affect you big time.
“But sitting and dwelling on that and worrying about your ego and things like that, it’s not going to make you play better.”
The dive has started to fray nerves in Denver, where calls for offensive coordinator Mike McCoy’s job fill the airwaves.
Suddenly, all that winning ugly over the past couple of years, highlighted by Denver’s defense carrying a diminished Peyton Manning to victory in his Super Bowl 50 farewell, looks pretty good in retrospect.
When Kubiak quit, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips joined McVay in L.A. and offensive coordinator Rick Dennison joined McDermott in Buffalo.
Phillips is having his customary firstyear effect with the Rams, who sport the largest point differential in the NFL, and Dennison is directing an offensive turnaround with the Bills, who could end the league’s longest playoff drought — they haven’t qualified since 1999.
The Rams have missed out every year since 2004 and the Jaguars every season since 2007. If they continue their resurgence, the Chargers might get in for the first time since 2009.
49ers: Shanahan arrived with a lot of optimism as he brought his deep offensive knowledge and playbook from Atlanta to a team in need of a change. But San Francisco got off to the worst start in franchise history.
QB Brian Hoyer went from starter to the bench before getting cut when GM John Lynch acquired Tom Brady’s longtime backup Jimmy Garoppolo. The only drama down the stretch will be if they can avoid 0-16 and get a good look at Garoppolo before determining whether to draft a quarterback with a premier pick in April.
Bills: McDermott is doing more with less than his predecessor Rex Ryan. Fewer than two dozen players remain from last year’s roster and the losing culture is finally fading in Buffalo. McDermott has gotten the most out of QB Tyrod Taylor and the Bills lead the NFL with a plus-11 turnover margin.
The next four games are critical: road games against the Chargers and Chiefs sandwiched in between home games against the first-place Saints and Patriots.