on the nfl mark craig
Sixty years of modern football history suggests the winless Atlanta Falcons didn't exactly arm themselves with a magic bullet when they fired Dan Quinn and promoted Raheem Morris to interim head coach six days before Sunday's scheduled game against the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Oh sure, Houston won its first game in interim coach Romeo Crennel's debut last week. And, yes, three of the past five interim head coaches have won their first games.
But going back to 1960, the point of origin for what's considered "the modern NFL," the numbers say that if a team is lousy enough to get its coach fired in-season, it's generally lousy enough to keep losing.