Nathaniel Hackett immediately dug himself a hole with Denver Broncos fans.
In Hackett’s first regular-season game, he made the baffling decision to run down the clock and try a 64-yard field goal for the win against the Seattle Seahawks. That kick missed, the Broncos lost and that started a string of errors that Hackett couldn’t escape.
Hackett was fired by the Broncos on Monday, a day after the team was blown out 51-14 by the Los Angeles Rams. Russell Wilson and Brett Rypien combined to throw four interceptions in the loss, which featured another in-game altercation between members of the Broncos. It was at least the second time this season two Broncos teammates got into it during a game.
The Broncos confirmed Hackett’s firing in a statement.
Senior assistant coach Jerry Rosburg will act as Denver’s interim head coach, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. Hackett hired Rosburg midseason to help with game management. The Broncos announced later Monday that they had also fired special teams coordinator Dwayne Stukes and offensive line coach Butch Barry. Mike Mallory and Ben Steele will take over the respective roles.
The horrific loss on Christmas to a Rams team that was 4-10 coming into the game could go down as the low point in Hackett’s year as head coach. However, it’s tough to pick just one low point as the worst of a miserable season.
Hackett was in trouble before he ever really got going. In September, Broncos fans were already calling for Hackett to be fired. They finally got their wish.
The move puts Hackett in an exclusive and infamous club. With the firing, Hackett became the 18th NFL head coach to be fired during his first season on the job. Prior to Hackett, Urban Meyer, who was fired in 2021 after 13 games with the Jacksonville Jaguars, was the most recent coach to be fired during his first year on the job.
Hackett lasted 15 games with the Broncos, the seventh-shortest head coaching tenure in NFL history, per The Athletic. Hackett went 4-11.
Nathaniel Hackett got off to bad start
Even before the season started, some Broncos fans were annoyed that Hackett didn’t play any starters in the preseason. He was already off on the wrong foot.
There was a lot of excitement for the Broncos going into the season, which made the early season foibles harder to stomach. After a few delay-of-game penalties, Broncos fans started mockingly counting down the play clock, and that was all the way back in Week 2. Their patience was very short with Hackett.
There were ridiculous game-management issues and the offense was terrible. Hackett was hired due to his work as the Green Bay Packers‘ offensive coordinator, which made the struggles of the offense a big problem for him. New quarterback Russell Wilson didn’t play well, and it was hard to tell how much of the blame should have been on Wilson and how much was on the coaching. The Broncos’ offense found new depths every week. Denver sits dead last in the NFL in points scored, averaging 15.5 point per contest. The team also has the worst third-down conversion rate in the NFL.
Wilson, who had a very good career with the Seattle Seahawks, suddenly looked like one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks with the Broncos. Wilson signed a massive extension before the season and he isn’t going anywhere for a while.
Hackett was expendable, and he took the fall.
Who will be the Broncos’ new head coach?
The attractiveness of the Broncos job has a lot to do with candidates’ views on Wilson. If they think Hackett’s offense was the problem and Wilson can be turned around, it’s an attractive job. There should be plenty of questions about that, however.
The Broncos have new owners, which is one reason Hackett didn’t last long. The Walton-Penner family bought the team for $4.65 billion shortly before the season started and after Hackett was hired. The new ownership group wouldn’t spend that much money and then balk at buying out Hackett after one season, or on spending big for a new coach. When Broncos fans started becoming apathetic — they were walking out of close games early in the season and there were more than 18,000 no-shows for a home game against the Arizona Cardinals in December — it seemed obvious that big changes would be made.
Hackett seemed in over his head right away, and he never did much to make it better. Broncos fans have been impatient with the franchise. It hasn’t been to the playoffs since a win in Super Bowl 50. The optimistic feelings after trading for Wilson dissipated quickly.
Hackett will go down as a big miss by the Broncos. It was clear early on that it wasn’t going to work out.