Coaches not getting a true chance to be successful

One day removed from the final games of the 2008 NFL regular season and three more coaches got the boot.

Romeo Crennel, Rod Marinelli and Eric Mangini were all given their pink slips following disappointing seasons, upping the total number of coaches fired this season to six.

To me, coaches in professional and college sports have too short of a hook.

None of the six coaches fired had spent more than four years with their respective teams and Lane Kiffin was fired from the Oakland Raiders after only 20 games as head coach.

Mangini's Jets finished 9-7, which was a five-game improvement, but not good enough to give him a chance to improve more next year. Crennel's Browns were a disappointing 4-12 this season, but had a terrific 2007 season, while Marinelli's Lions finished an historic 0-16.

In Marinelli's three seasons as head coach, the Lions went 10-38, most of which was spent under the mismanagement of Matt Millen.

More and more, coaches are getting the axe for one season that went awry or even after a successful season where expectations, which are many times overblown, were not met.

Teams need to give their coaches a little more room for error and have more faith in them.

The Tennessee Titans are a perfect example of this. In Fisher's first four-and-a-half seasons as head coach, the Oilers/Titans never finished with a winning record, but were able to follow that up with two 13-3 seasons and an appearance in the Super Bowl. Since the 2000 season, Fisher has had four seasons in which his team did not have a winning record, yet he was not fired and this year, they have the best record in the league.

Teams will have down seasons, but firing the coach is not always the way to turn things around.

In my mind, choosing to "jump the gun" and fire a coach so quickly can lead to continued failure, which in turn, causes discontent with the fans who pay so much to see their team be competitive.

If some of the teams gave their coach a couple extra years to turn things around, organizations may be surprised and grateful to not make such snap decisions.