Phillips fired, more to come

By Jeff

Unless you don't pay attention to sports, or football at least, you know that the Dallas Cowboys canned Wade Phillips as their coach this week. Phillips led (Not sure we can use that word) the Cowboys to a 1-7 record and won just one playoff game in four years. Which is one more than the team had in the past decade combined. Reports said that Phillips was a players' coach, meaning he took it easy on his team and didn't preach discipline. It's probably why the Cowboys have none this season.

Yes, he's that cool.

So with Phillips gone, how secure are the rest of the league's coaches?

Fort Knox: These coaches can go to bed each night and know for sure they will have their job when they wake up. It would take a sex crime or an eight-game losing streak to finish the season for there to even be a chance they don't return to their teams next year.

Mike Tomlin, Bill Belichick, Jim Caldwell, Mike Smith, Sean Payton, Rex Ryan, Jeff Fisher and John Harbaugh

Bank Vault: Not quite as secure as the inhabitants of Fort Knox, but pretty close. They would need to screw up big time for the rest of the season to not return next year.Or they coach the New York Giants and they are evaluated every week. Some of these coaches got in the vault by taking some pretty terrible teams and already matching or passing last year's win totals.

He'll drop a level with another loss.

Tom Coughlin, Steve Spagnuolo, Tony Sparano, Ken Whisenhunt, Raheem Morris, Mike Shanahan, Andy Reid and Todd Haley

House safe behind ugly painting: The coaches here are doing OK, but are not as secure as they first appear. Basically, their teams have overachieved and they could finish the second of the half season with lots of losses. It could be because they punched out an assistant, they are a college coach pretending to be an NFL coach, a team executive wants to return to coaching or their job depends on if they make the playoffs or not.

Lovie Smith, Mike McCarthy, Tom Cable, Pete Carroll, Gary Kubiak and Eric Mangini

I actually pictured him landing at Wendy's.

Bike Lock: The only thing stopping you from stealing the bike is you're not sure you want to take the five minutes to do it. No one would complain if these coaches were fired, but they might keep their job because the organization realizes the team couldn't win with anyone. They might also keep their job because the team's general manager is known as "The Lord of No Rings."

Jim Scwartz, Jack Del Rio and Norv Turner

Leaving the keys in the car in a bad part of town: Kiss them goodbye, these guys are gone. Their players hate them, they make poor decisions on a daily basis or they badly underachieved. It could also be all of the above.

Marvin Lewis, Mike Singletary, Brad Childress, Josh McDaniels, Chan Gailey and John Fox (Not really fired, just not renewed).


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