Wednesday, October 16 is National Chiefs Day. Whether you love your boss or hate him doesn’t matter to us. We’re here to rank the three worst managers in sports right now.
And it’s hard to believe that Bill Belichick doesn’t deserve to make the list this year. There is always next year.
3. Shad Khan, Owner, Jacksonville Jaguars
Khan bought the Jaguars in 2012. Since then, they have had the worst record in the NFL at 61-140. Even the New York Jets have won 71 games since 2012. Ironically, the Cleveland Browns have also won 71 games since 2012, the same year Jimmy Haslam bought the team.
It’s funny how the Browns, Jets and Jaguars all have seemingly incompetent managers. But Khan’s Jaguars have 10 wins less than the next two worst teams. That’s really bad.
After Gus Bradley went 14-28 as head coach of the Jaguars, Khan brought in Doug Merrone, and things started looking up for the organization. In Merrone’s first season as head coach, he brought the Jaguars to the AFC Championship. But Blake Bortles couldn’t beat Tom Brady’s New England Patriots.
In his next three seasons, Merrone finished in last place in the AFC South and never returned to the playoffs. In 2020, the Jaguars won just one game, giving them the No. 1 overall pick, which would be Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.
To make matters worse, Khan hired Urban Meyer to train him. What a tragedy, as the once-famous college coach became a joke of mistakes that included dancing inappropriately in college bars and hitting his kicker, Josh Lambo.
Maybe Belichick will be eligible to crack this list in 2025 if Khan taps him as the Jaguars’ new coach. Of course that won’t backfire.
2. Trent Dilfer, Head Coach, UAB
source: Getty Images Dilfer is arguably a worse coach than he was a quarterback. Ah, come on. That’s probably unfair for a guy who threw 129 passes for 113 touchdowns in his entire NFL career.
After spending 13 years in the NFL, Dilfer went into broadcasting before moving on to coach high school football. In 2022, he was hired as the head coach of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He’ll be the first to remind you, it’s not Alabama.
He called his kids seriously to come up to the podium with him after the 41-18 blowout because “it’s not like Alabama is amazing.”
Dilfer inherited a great UAB team and turned the ship around in just two seasons. He’s 5-13 as their head coach, and always seems to have more questions than solutions on how to turn the system around.
It seems like it’s only a matter of time before UAB decides to go in another direction.
1. John Fisher, Owner, Oakland Athletic’s
Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Photos The first two bosses on this list are simply the worst at their jobs. Fisher not only owns one of the most underrated companies in professional sports, but he also made himself a big ass in 2024.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the A’s are moving to Las Vegas. That’s about the biggest story surrounding the team in a long time.
The A’s won the World Series in 1989. Since then, they have made it to the National League Championship Series in 2006, which was Fisher’s first season as a team owner. Since then? They are not out of the division series.
But let’s leave their failures alone. Fisher decided to move the team out of Oakland because the city could not reach an agreement with him on a new stadium.
What is better? He really didn’t have a backup plan. The A’s will not play games in Las Vegas until the 2028 MLB season. Meanwhile, Oakland will play its next three seasons at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, home of the River Cats, the AAA affiliate of the San Francisco Giants.