Steve Spagnuolo vs. Ken Whisenhunt: Whose Coaching Seat Is Hotter?

On Sunday, the St. Louis Rams travel to Arizona to play the Cardinals. Both teams have been disappointing this season, with identical 1-6 marks. Those disappointments have led the fanbases of the Rams and Cardinals to question the leadership of both franchises.

But is one coach worse off than the other? Does Steve Spagnuolo or Ken Whisenhunt have the “hotter” seat right now? Who needs the win Sunday more?

Spagnuolo is 9-30 in two years with the St. Louis Rams. He went 1-15 2009, followed by a promising 7-9 campaign with a rookie quarterback in 2010.

The 2010 season has been forgotten by a terrible 2011 start at 1-6.

Injuries to Mark Clayton, Danny Amendola, Stephen Jackson and Sam Bradford have killed the offense. The Run defense has been abysmal, ranking last in professional football at 165.6 yards per game.

Even with those records and stats, Arizona head coach Ken Whisenhunt has the tougher situation right now.

Whisenhunt has the better resume of the two coaches without a doubt. He has a career mark of 33-38 in the regular season and a career playoff record of 4-2, including an NFC Championship in 2008 (Cardinals lost Super Bowl XLIII to the Steelers).

The better resume though gives Whisenhunt the “hotter” coaching seat right now. Arizona fans have experienced more recent success than St. Louis fans. In that regard, the Cardinals fanbase is more irritated with the recent decline of the Cardinals.  They demand answers for a team that traded for a marquee quarterback in Kevin Kolb from Philadelphia. That signing was supposed to allow Arizona to again compete among the NFC elite.

While the Rams had expectations, Spagnuolo and company are only in year three of the process. They have had limited success, but a tough schedule and a long run of poor football in St. Louis gives Ken Whisenhunt the less enviable of the two positions right now in the NFC West coaching hierarchy.