Broncos HC Vic Fangio Has 2nd-Highest Odds for 2021 Firing

Win or go home.

Only Dallas' Mike McCarthy is foisted upon a hotter seat than Vic Fangio heading into the 2021 campaign.

As of May 29, the Denver Broncos head coach has the second-highest odds of becoming the first NFL HC fired this upcoming season, according to the latest dispatch from BetOnline.ag.

McCarthy leads the field with +750 odds, followed by Fangio (+800), Chicago’s Matt Nagy (+850), Las Vegas’ Jon Gruden (+1000), and Minnesota’s Mike Zimmer (+1100).

Mike McCarthy is the favorite to be the first NFL coach fired pic.twitter.com/oCqz2AOu7E

— BetOnline (@BetOnline_ag) May 27, 2021

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Hired in January 2019 as the 17th head coach in franchise history, Fangio has accumulated a 12-20 record across his first two years on the job. The former longtime defensive coordinator, who doubles as the Broncos' play-caller, led the club to a circumstantially impressive 7-9 mark as a rookie before floundering to a 5-11 finish as a sophomore.

Fangio, 62, earned a mulligan for the latter, a season ruined by devastating injuries and the crippling COVID-19 pandemic. There was futility on all sides of the ball, and blame assigned to both players and staff — even Fangio, whose clock-management blunders and situational-coaching lapses plagued his squad.

But the excuse-making period is over as far as anyone is concerned, from quarterback Drew Lock to offensive boss Pat Shurmur to Fangio. It's a crap-or-get-off-the-pot crossroads for the 2021 Broncos, having assembled a top-five defense (on paper) to pair with a potential top-16 offense (on paper). Falling short of a playoff berth — the sixth consecutive such feat — should result in wholesale changes next offseason, the second under general manager George Paton, who has little loyalty to those he's inherited.

Like a passer navigating the pocket, Fangio senses the pressure.

Now comes the tricky part: Avoiding the sack.

“I want to continue to improve in all areas," Fangio said on Jan. 5. "This year was different. [It’s] funny. Last year, after your first year, you would think that last year would be toughest. A lot of people asked me, ‘What happened that you didn’t expect? What was rough?’ And last year really went smoothly. I couldn’t tell anybody anything, man, we had this or that happen. This year, when you think it would be easier—with COVID, the injuries, the constant change of schedules, getting the calls and texts early in the morning every day on the COVID results—it made it more distracting and more balls to juggle this year than last year. Hopefully the third year will be the magical year for me, where everything goes a little bit smooth again.”

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