Mark Craig's Sunday Insider: Frazier avoiding hot seat

Is Leslie Frazier's job safe right now?

Yes.

Should he feel comfortable sitting at 2-9 with five more weeks for this debacle to become historically messy?

No.

At least not when you consider this: Seven of the eight NFL coaches to go 2-14 since 2002 were fired.

People like to use blanket statements. Some geniuses like to say a coach will or won't be fired no matter what happens the rest of the season. That's just not true in any situation, let alone one involving something as unpredictable as the NFL.

For starters, we have no idea what will happen on the field between now and Jan. 1. So nothing that's said or perceived today is guaranteed of holding up five weeks from now.

Say what you want about Les Steckel, but Les Frazier's team needs to finish 2-3 or better just to avoid tying Steckel's infamous 1984 team for the most losses in the franchise's 51-year history. That's just one of many reasons Frazier continues to push for victories when outsiders now consider wins meaningless and a hindrance to securing a higher draft pick.

As we sit here today, there are no indications that Frazier will be fired. First of all, that would require owner Zygi Wilf to pay millions of dollars to three head coaches next season. Two of them -- Frazier and Brad Childress -- would be paid well not to coach the team. The other one, if he's any good, would be paid even more to actually coach the team.

Logic also suggests Frazier should get another at-bat considering the perfect storm that walloped him coming out of the gate in his first full season as an NFL head coach. With a 4 1/2-month lockout delaying a transitional season with a new quarterback in the league's toughest division, Frazier has to feel like he started this fight in the calf-roped position, and he's the calf.

But, obviously, it would help Frazier if he didn't join some dubious company at 2-14.

Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, 37 teams have finished with two victories. Twenty-four of the head coaches (64.9 percent) never made it to the following regular season. Eleven of them were replaced during the season by interim coaches. Eight of those interim coaches also were fired after the season. One coach who went 2-14, the Saints' J.D. Roberts in 1972, was fired after four preseason games in 1973.

• Tampa Bay's John McKay, whose 2-14 season in 1977 followed his 0-14 season in 1976, the Bucs' expansion year.

• San Francisco's Bill Walsh, who inherited a 2-14 team and went 2-14 in 1979. Wonder how things turned out for that guy?

• Buffalo's Kay Stephenson, who survived 2-14 in 1984 but was fired after an 0-4 start in 1985.

• Tampa Bay's Leeman Bennett, who was in his first season in 1985.

• Seattle's Tom Flores, who was in his first season with the Seahawks after having won two Super Bowls with the Raiders.

• And Detroit's Jim Schwartz, who looked pretty darn good at 2-14 after inheriting the league's first 0-16 team in 2009.

Would Frazier get a pass at 2-14 considering it's also his first full season?