Will Urban Meyer get a shot at redemption? Let's look at how other coaches bounced back after failing miserably

Surveying the magical world of NFL flameouts for some context

PublishedDecember 16, 2021

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Urban Meyer is out as coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after going 2-11 in his only partial season at the helm. While that’s 13 more games than Meyer ever should have coached in the NFL, and he leaves with a lower winning percentage in the league (.154) than Marty Mornhinweg (.156), it somehow doesn’t feel like this is the end of the coaching road for him.

Would there be precedent for that? Let’s take a look at the worst-performing NFL head coaches with at least 10 games in their futile reigns, and see what happened with them.

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Bill Peterson

After coaching Florida State through the 1960s, Peterson spent 1971 at Rice, then moved across town to the Houston Oilers in 1972, somehow getting hired off a 3-7-1 campaign with the Owls. He went 1-13 in his debut year, then got canned after five straight losses to open 1973. Peterson never coached again, but did serve as Central Florida’s athletic director for a few years in the 1980s.

3 / 9

Rod Rust

With college head coaching experience at North Texas and more than a decade of NFL experience as a defensive coordinator, Rust (above, right) got only one year running a pro team, going 1-15 with the 1990 Patriots. After a year off, he re-emerged as the Giants’ defensive coordinator, then went on to be an assistant with Lehigh, the Falcons, the Montreal Alouettes, and the 49ers before returning to the head coaching ranks at the age of 73 with the Alouettes, who started 9-2 before losing all the rest of their games, costing Rust his job before the regular season finale. Rust then returned to be the Giants’ linebackers coach for three years before his final stop, spending 2005 as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ defensive coordinator.

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Cam Cameron

Five years coaching Indiana and five years as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator led Cameron to the 2007 Miami Dolphins, where he went 1-15. He was still seen as a good offensive mind, and spent the next five years as the Ravens’ coordinator, where he was fired after Week 14 of Baltimore’s championship season in 2012. Cameron was last seen as LSU’s offensive coordinator under Les Miles.

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Jim Ringo

Stepping in after Lou Saban resigned from the Bills in 1976, having been the offensive line coach, Ringo went 0-9 the rest of that season, but still got a shot in 1977… and went 3-11. That was Ringo’s only head coaching experience, but he was an assistant afterwards with the Patriots (1978-81), Rams (1982), Jets (1983-84), and Bills again (1985-88).

6 / 9

Rick Venturi

Never actually a full-time head coach in the NFL, Venturi’s stints as the interim boss of the 1991 Colts and 1996 Saints each resulted in one win, for a total record of 2-17 that was actually far better than his one experience as a full-time head coach, as Venturi was 1-31-1 with Northwestern from 1978-80. After his interim run in New Orleans, the Saints kept Venturi on staff as an assistant through 2005, and he rounded out his career with three years as a Rams assistant.

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Harvey Johnson

Having been a Bills assistant coach since the team’s inception, Johnson (seated, above, with Bob Celeri, Lou Saban, and Elbert Dubenion) took over as interim head coach in 1968 and went 1-10-1. Johnson remained as an assistant and eventually got the head coaching job full time in 1971… and only in 1971, because Buffalo went 1-13. But the Bills still kept Johnson around after that for the rest of his life as a scout, possibly because he was horse racing buddies with owner Ralph Wilson. But he never coached anywhere else.

8 / 9

David Culley

Currently tied with Meyer’s career record of 2-11, the coach of the Texans has a great opportunity to get off of this list on Sunday, when Houston pays a visit to Jacksonville. Too bad for him, he won’t be able to claim a win over Meyer.

So, everyone who did worse than Meyer as a head coach in the NFL never got another job as an NFL head coach, which is how it should be. Only one of the six previous megaflops ever was a head coach again anywhere, and not even in college, but Canada, where Rust didn’t even last a full season.

Is there a chance that Meyer could buck the trend? Sure. But it’s very possible that his performance in the NFL — just record-wise, not even thinking about all the stuff that led to him losing his job before even getting a full season in — means that we’ve seen the last of Meyer being able to call himself a “head ball coach,” whether or not he’s kicking someone while doing it.

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