Who Is The WORST NFL Coach Of This Century?

I mean, he is one of the worst NFL coaches of this century. I can't believe how awful he is." That was Bill Simmons on Aaron Glenn, the coach the Jets hired in 2025. Take the best cook in the kitchen, put him in charge of the whole restaurant, and sometimes the place burns down. This century has produced real disasters, so we checked every one of them. So who is the worst head coach of this century, and does Glenn really belong with them? Each coach gets one job and at least 13 games. Nine of these 10 got hired for the same reason. Number 10, Adam Gase. It's a ways away before we get players in here, but you can feel the energy in the building. Today's been a great day. Those stares were memes before he had called a single play for the Jets. Peyton Manning had recommended him, after a record-setting season together in Denver. The Jets took the word of the best passer they could find. By 2020, his team was 0-13, the worst start in franchise history. Le'Veon Bell clashed with him and got released, and Jamal Adams left too. Then came the Raiders. Seconds from the end, defensive coordinator Greg Williams sent an all-out blitz, with no safety behind it. Gase fired him for the call. The Jets then beat the Rams and the Browns. Those two wins cost them the number one pick. So who ended up with it? Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence. ESPN said Gase could be remembered as the coach who won two games too many. When a league pays its worst teams with the draft's best quarterback, even a win becomes a mistake. He lasted two years and finished 9-23. Only three Jets coaches have ever lost at least 14 games in a season. Corteleba did it, Gase did it, and we'll get to the third one. Number 9. Brian Callahan That is the number one pick, describing his own team on camera. Two winless teams had just met, and Tennessee lost to Houston 26-0. The Titans had hired Callahan off his time as Joe Burrow's offensive coordinator in Cincinnati. That time included a Super Bowl trip. Year one went 3-14, which brought the first pick and Ward. In year two, Callahan handed off the play calling. The losing streak under him reached 10 games. Tennessee fired him on October 13th at 1-5, the first coach fired that season. His father, Bill Callahan, was his offensive line coach and left the next day. We've got to be the dumbest team in America in terms of playing the game. That is the same Bill Callahan who coached the Raiders in Super Bowl 37. One season later, he talked about his own team like that. Plain talk runs in the family. Four times from 2021 to 2025, a team fired its coach mid-season after taking a quarterback number one overall. The league has a system for this. Tennessee has one more coach on this list, and his record is worse. 8. Gus Bradley On December 18, 2016, the Jaguars led Houston by 9 entering the fourth quarter and lost 21-20. Gus Bradley was fired right after the game, and then he had to ride the team plane home. Several players learned the news from social media. He had arrived from Seattle as the defensive coordinator of the Legion of Boom. Jacksonville started 4-12, then 3-13. Year three was 5-11, and the fourth year stood at 2-12 when owner Shad Khan finally ended it. Before that last season, Khan called a winning record everybody's reasonable expectation, then spent big in free agency. Three years of results had said otherwise. No coach with at least 50 games has done worse in the Super Bowl era, according to NFL.com. 7. Steve Spagnuolo That defense sacked Brady five times and beat the 18-0 Patriots. The Rams hired its coordinator to run their entire building. They went 1-15, then 7-9, then 2-14 in a season they were expected to contend. The Dome was little more than half full late in that last year. The Rams fired him, along with general manager Billy Devaney. Spagnuolo then went back to coordinating. He has won four Super Bowls as a defensive coordinator, the most in NFL history. The league that gave him 38 losses in three years gave him three more rings once he went back to coordinating. Four of those hires came from one pool. Peyton's offensive coordinator, Burrows, the Legion of Boom's defensive coordinator, and the man who beat 18-0 were the hottest assistants in football. Each got the keys. The best cook in the building got the restaurant, and the building burned. Number 6. Rod Marinelli. In 2008, the Lions went 4-0 in the preseason and then lost every game that counted. That tells you what a preseason record is worth. It was the first winless 16-game season in NFL history. The defense allowed 517 points, then the second most in NFL history. His defensive coordinator was Joe Barry, his son-in-law. After the 15th loss, a Detroit News columnist asked Marinelli whether he wished his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator. The Lions fired him the day after the season. Marinelli knew it, too. You can't go 0-16 and expect to keep your job. His 10-38 matches Spagnuolo's record exactly. Number 5. Marty Mornhinweg Now pay attention. Detroit wins the toss. On November 24, 2002, the Lions played the Bears in Champaign, and Mornhinweg won the overtime coin toss. He chose to kick off and take the 17-mile-per-hour wind. That is a bold way to hand the other team the ball. Then he accepted a holding penalty on the Bears' drive. Chicago still moved the chains, and Paul Edinger lined up from 40 40 yards. Edinger. Win the toss, but never get the ball. Would he do it again? He was asked two days later and said, hell no, I wouldn't do it again. Detroit went 0-8 on the road in both of his seasons. His .156 is the worst winning percent any Lions coach in the Super Bowl era. In Detroit, that is a competitive category. Number four, Ken Wisenhunt. Wisenhunt had taken Arizona to Super Bowl XLIII. Tennessee gave him a five-year deal. His first season ended 2-14, which earned the No. 2 pick and Marcus Mariota. In 2015, the Titans opened with a 42-14 win at Tampa. Then, they lost six straight. Tennessee let him go, and the five-year deal turned out to be the longest thing about the job. He won four of his last 35 games as a head coach. He is the other Titans coach on this list, and his record is worse than Callahan's. He did it with a Super Bowl resume. 3. Aaron Glenn The Jets hired Glenn from Detroit. The Lions went 27-7 over his last two seasons there, including 15-2 in 2024. That is a hard resume to turn down. The 2025 Jets started 0-7 and finished 3-14. On Nov. 4, 2025, they traded All-Pro Sauce Gardner to the Colts. They sent All-Pro Quinn and Williams to the Cowboys. The two trades brought back three first-round picks. Trading both stars is how a front office says the season is over without saying it. In December, they were outscored by 107 points, the most in any single December in NFL history. Glenn fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks with three games left. The Jets kept him anyway. That made Glenn the third Jets coach to lose at least 14 games in a season. Coteet and Gase were the other two. His second season opened with a win, and then three straight losses. The Jets lost 28-25 at home to a Miami team that had not won a game. In Week 9, Kansas City beat them 35-12, and the Jets fell to 2-7. A lot of thinking to do. A lot of thinking to do and… Here is a different 107. Across his first 25 games, the Jets were outscored 107-9 in the final two minutes of first halves, according to AP. He seems like a very good guy, he's completely freaking clueless. On win percentage alone, he is only the sixth-worst of these ten. So why is he third? His team traded its two best players in mid-season, and he oversaw the worst December in NFL history. He is still adding losses, and the Jets kept him anyway. Simmons was right. Only two coaches this century were worse. 2. Urban Meyer After a Thursday night loss in Cincinnati, the Jaguars coach skipped the team flight home. A viral video from his own bar in Ohio followed, and Meyer apologized. Jacksonville had Trevor Lawrence, the number one pick that Gase's two late wins cost the Jets. Meyer is the one man on this list who was not a hot assistant. He was a college champion with three national titles. That is $300,000 in fines before a single game, which is a rough orientation week. NFL Network reported that Meyer called his assistants losers. He denied it. Former kicker Josh Lambo alleged that Meyer kicked him before an August practice. Meyer answered, Josh's characterization of me and this incident is completely inaccurate, and there are eyewitnesses to refute his account. Either way, Urban Meyer has to go. Jacksonville fired Meyer on December 16, 2021, after 13 games. Owner Shad Khan said regaining their trust and respect was essential. Regrettably, it did not happen. What happens when a different coach gets the same quarterback? Doug Peterson won the AFC South with Lawrence the following season. His team beat the Chargers 31-30 in a playoff game after trailing 27-0. Here we go for the win." Got it, but there's a flip. Lawrence was never the problem. Number one, Hugh Jackson. He made that walk on June 1, 2018, with about 150 team employees. The plunge had a backstory. His Browns went 1-15 in 2016. Before 2017, he promised to jump into Lake Erie if they went 1-15 again. They went 0-16, only the second winless 16-game team ever. We want a team that's going to win. We're sick of losing every year after year. Cleveland fans held a mock parade for the 0-16 season. The Browns kept him after 1-31 anyway. In 2018, he started Tyrod Taylor over the No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield until an injury forced the switch. The Browns fired him at 2-5-1, along with offensive coordinator Todd Haley, with whom he had feuded. The final count was 3-36-1 over 40 games, and 0-20 on the road. Nobody else on this list is close over that many games. Aaron Glenn now has a worse winning percentage than Hugh Jackson. Hugh Jackson was 11-44-1. That email was right about the career numbers. Hugh's 11-44-1 includes an 8-8 season in Oakland. In Cleveland alone, he won three games out of 40. In 2019, Jackson said the record is what's on my tombstone. Hugh Jackson is the worst head coach of this century. Nine of these ten were the best cook in the kitchen first, and the restaurant burned anyway. Owners keep promoting the person who is best at one job. Then they act surprised when he is bad at another. If Glenn loses out in 2026, he finishes 5-29, with a .147 winning percentage, below both Meyer and Mornhinweg. Did we rank Glenn too high or too low? Tell us in the comments. Your record is your record, regardless of what your roster is. And that's the way that I look at it.