NFL coaches on shorter leashes

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Seven weeks are down in this season and so are three head coaches.Three guys have already been done in by poor performance, poor ticket sales, poor outlook for the future -- take your pick.But the 49ers' Mike Nolan became the third this week, fired in his fourth season with a current losing streak of four games and with a defense that has surrendered a league-high 196 points.Nolan joined Lane Kiffin (Raiders) and Scott Linehan (Rams) in the exit row before the season is even half over.The 49ers replaced him with Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, who is now in his first stint as a head coach without having been a coordinator. Singletary, however, has interviewed for several head coaching positions, and the 49ers were close to promoting him at Nolan's expense this past offseason.That's because the 49ers, a once-proud franchise with five Super Bowl trophies, have certainly run aground since the advent of the salary cap and free agency.And make no mistake, even NFL franchise owners, once impervious to the day-to-day rise and fall of things in the day-to-day marketplace, know in these rocky economic times it won't take long for people to decide there are plenty of other things to do with their money rather than pay to park, pay to eat and pay to sit for a team that has little or no prospect of winning.Empty seats have fired far more coaches than an angry owner over the years, and the trigger is quicker now than ever.And given what Jim Haslett has done for the Rams since being moved up the ladder to replace Linehan, it may have made life a little more difficult for some of his coaching brethren with enough problems of their own.Haslett is 2-0 since taking over for Linehan. And what was a lifeless team with few prospects of upward mobility has beaten Washington (5-2) and Dallas (4-3) on back-to-back weeks.Tom Cable, who just may be the guy who did not take a step backward fast enough when Al Davis asked for any volunteers, is 1-1 as Raiders coach, the win coming over the Jets on Sunday when Sebastian Janikowski hit an overtime field goal.Cable, a former CU assistant coach, has been an NFL assistant for just over two seasons after almost two decades in college football. He takes the blindfold for a team that is 21-65 since Bill Callahan directed the Raiders to the Super Bowl to close out the 2002 season. Callahan and three other coaches have been fired since the end of '03.But opinions vary around the league among many who make the decisions about such things, regarding whether tossing a head coach overboard midstream really helps much or if it's just a stopgap -- the appearance of doing "something" -- until the offseason, when the real changes can be made.Haslett has obviously infused the Rams with a little more enthusiasm. And they have played harder for him than they did for Linehan, as speculation about Linehan's future shrouded whatever the Rams did or didn't do.Perhaps it takes the uncertainty out of the equation, that the players know the next big changes will likely come in the offseason and they can just play -- knowing that the coach has been fired and they could be next in line.But usually it's a business move, trying to stem the tide of apathy, which is public enemy No. 1 for any franchise.Take a look at the teams who have made the most in-season head coaching changes since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 -- by either firing or resignation -- and at least some of that pattern is evident.Leading the way are Indianapolis/Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego and New Orleans with five in-season changes each. The Colts have made three of those changes since they moved to Indy in 1984, including Frank Kush's resignation 15 games into that first season in Indianapolis.Rod Dowhower was then fired 15 games into the 1986 season and Ron Meyer was fired five games into the 1991 season. So three consecutive head coaches moved on during a season as the team tried to get a foothold in its new place.Detroit and Cleveland are among those with four in-season changes since the merger. These are two of the league's oldest franchises but also two of the dwindling number that have never played in a Super Bowl.They are remember-when teams with loyal fan bases getting ever more restless as they see the likes of Carolina, Tampa Bay and Seattle all having played in the Big Game before they have.On the other end of the spectrum are Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Chicago and Dallas. They are the four teams that have not made an in-season coaching change since the merger, and all four have had little trouble selling tickets through the years, even in the lean times, when people might not have always used the tickets but still paid for them.There is a school of thought that nothing endures in the world except change.That seems to be especially true for those who charge admission to see their little piece of it.(Contact Jeff Legwold of the Rocky Mountain News at legwoldj(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)