When the Atlanta Falcons made the Los Angeles Coliseum their playground on Sunday, winning 49-14, Jeff Fisher tied Dan Reeves with 165 career losses. With one more loss, he will be the losingest head coach in the history of the NFL.
The Los Angeles Rams are headed up north this upcoming week for a date with the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field. We have little doubt the record will fall in this contest, as Seattle’s Legion of Boom defense is apt to dismantle Fisher’s “middle school offense,” led by rookie quarterback Jared Goff.
Players are fed up with it. Tight end Lance Kendricks had some strong words to say about the continued losing after the team’s Week 13 loss (more on that here). Then after Sunday’s embarrassing home loss to the Falcons, more players unloaded their frustrations.
“We find a way to come out every week and lose the [bleeping] game,’’ defensive end William Hayes said, per Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times. “Collectively as a team we just have to go out there and stop playing bad football. We are finding ways to get our butt kicked every week. It’s getting repetitive. We go into practice and come out with a good game plan, then we find ways to mess up the game plan.’’
Remarkably, Fisher has managed to hold onto his jobs for long periods of time, despite just six seasons in which his team has posted a winning record. This is compared to 16 seasons in which Fisher has finished with records of 8-8 or worse.
He has arrived at 165 losses more than a full season before Reeves did (18 games sooner). His career winning percentage of 51.2 is the lowest among the losingest coaches in history, going all the way down to Weeb Ewbank, who’s the 12th-most losingest coach in NFL history. What this demonstrates is that Fisher loses more often than any other coach who’s been around long enough to land among the top in this category.
The head coach famously declared to his team during an episode of “Hard Knocks” that, “I’m not [explitive] going 7-9, or 8-8, 0r 9-7, okay? Or 10-6 for that matter. This team’s too talented.”
At least we can say with confidence that the first half of Fisher’s statement was true. The Rams, with a record of 4-9, certainly won’t go 7-9, or 8-8, or 9-7. Or 10-6 for that matter. In fact, it seems at this point that it will be somewhat of a miracle if he can get his players to compete with enough fire to manage one more win this year.
Eric Dickerson, Rams legend, is sick and tired of Fisher’s mediocrity and has not made any bones about letting everyone know about it (more on that here). We assume other Rams fans feel the same way.
Yet Fisher remains. And he’s about to set a new record for NFL futility.