by Kevin Hench

Does Norv Turner deserve to keep his job if he gets the Chargers back to the playoffs with an 8-8 record? (Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images)

Lane Kiffin and Scott Linehan got the axe earlier this season, but Norv Turner, Romeo Crennel, Marvin Lewis, Herman Edwards and even Rod Marinelli are all limping to the finish line.

Can any of them save their jobs? Or will they be put out of their misery? These are the Sundays of Our Lives.

Norv Loses Nerve, Game, (Job?)

As bad as the Chargers (4-7) have been, they still have a viable path to the playoffs thanks to the wretched AFC West. If San Diego goes 3-1 in its next four (home for Atlanta and Oakland and at Kansas City and Tampa Bay) while Denver (6-5) goes 2-2 (at Jets, home to the Chiefs, at Panthers, home to the Bills), it will set up a Dec. 28 showdown in San Diego for the division title.

Not that making the playoffs with an 8-8 record will necessarily save Turner, who inherited a 14-2 team and has gone 15-12 over his two seasons.

If Turner is fired after this disappointing season he'll surely wonder what might have been had Shawne Merriman not gotten hurt and LaDainian Tomlinson been 100 percent this year.

But the reason he won't — or shouldn't — have a head-coaching job next season is something totally within his control: his head coaching.

When Turner panicked and called timeout on 4th-and-2 with 1:35 left last Sunday, leaving Peyton Manning the needed extra seconds to beat him, it confirmed Chargers fans' fears that in the heat of the moment, their coach is just not up to it. (Compare Turner's abysmal clock awareness to the uber-cool Tony Dungy displayed on the Colts' final drive.)

Does Crennel End with an L?

Barring a major turnaround down the stretch it's hard to imagine Romeo Crennel coaching the Browns in 2009. And it's even harder to imagine a major turnaround down the stretch.

The 4-7 Browns have a murderous last lap, hosting the Colts, followed by trips to Tennessee and Philly, a breather at home against the Bengals and then at Pittsburgh for the finale. I see one win on that slate, leaving Cleveland 5-11 and almost certainly in the market for a new head coach.

If Crennel gets whacked, he will have been the victim of expectations that far exceeded the Browns' personnel. The basis of Cleveland's contender status heading into 2008 was its 10-6 record in 2007, which looked flukier and flukier with each passing Sunday this season.

The Browns do not have a single star on defense. The defenses with which Crennel won three Super Bowls in New England and built his reputation were star-studded. As to the supposedly explosive offense, that fuse never got lit as it became clear that Derek Anderson's 2007 season was a mirage.

Things weren't made any easier by Braylon Edwards making the football look like a mackerel on every other pass thrown his way as he built an insurmountable league lead in drops. Not much a coach can do about that.

But Crennel did perform some coaching malpractice in the first two weeks of the season. In Week 1 he sent the field-goal unit out trailing the Cowboys 28-7 on 4th-and-3 with 10:13 remaining. Uh, still a three-score game, Coach, and 28-10 is not all that much of a cosmetic upgrade.

The following week the Browns trailed the Steelers 10-3 with 3:21 left in the fourth quarter in miserably windy conditions where the Browns struggled all night to move the ball. Cleveland faced 4th-and-7 on the Steelers 20. Again Crennel sent in the kicker, making it 10-6, leaving the Browns still needing a TD.

NFL Week 17

Week 17 action

Vikings 20, Giants 19 -- Recap | Box
Panthers 33, Saints 31 -- Recap | Box
Packers 31, Lions 21 -- Recap | Box
Falcons 31, Rams 27 -- Recap | Box
Texans 31, Bears 24 -- Recap | Box
Patriots 13, Bills 0 -- Recap | Box
Colts 23, Titans 0 -- Recap | Box
Steelers 31, Browns 0 -- Recap | Box
Raiders 31, Bucs 24 -- Recap | Box
Bengals 16, Chiefs 6 -- Recap | Box
Eagles 44, Cowboys 6 -- Recap | Box
Dolphins 24, Jets 17 -- Recap | Box
49ers 27, Redskins 24 -- Recap | Box
Ravens 27, Jaguars 7 -- Recap | Box
Cardinals 34, 'Hawks 24 -- Recap | Box
Chargers 52, Broncos 21 -- Recap | Box


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Analysis

• Marvez: Mangini should blame Favre
• Whitlock: It's all about character

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Video

• NFL on Fox: Scariest playoff team?
• NFL on Fox: NFC playoff preview

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Photos

• NFL Week 17 snapshots
• NFL cheerleaders
• Worst teams ever
• NFL year in photos

Cleveland got the ball back with 26 seconds left and went incomplete, sack, incomplete to end its 10th straight loss to its longtime rival.

Maybe Crennel has Phil Dawson in his fantasy league. He'll probably have plenty of time to tinker with his roto lineup next fall.

Not Looking Good, Lewis

If they used actuarial tables in NFL coaching, the trend of Marvin Lewis's 8-8, 8-8, 11-5, 8-8, 7-9, 1-9-1 chart would put him at about a 95 percent chance of getting fired.

But his chances of returning next year in Cincy probably aren't even that good.

Was it really less than three years ago that Carson Palmer was hooking up with Chris Henry for a 66-yard pass in a home playoff game against the Steelers? The Bengals were on their way up until Kimo von Oelhoffen came down.

The catastrophic injury to Palmer's knee abruptly ended that Bengals season and despite the QB's miracle return for 2006 things have never been the same. The Bengals slid to 8-8 in '06 and became a sports-wide punchline for their constant run-ins with the law. After a 7-9 season last year, the bottom has fallen out this year as Palmer injured his arm and the team has limped to a 1-9-1 mark.

The irony of Lewis's tenure in Cincinnati is that the good times were built almost entirely on the side of the ball opposite his expertise. The defensive wizardry he displayed in his previous stops was almost entirely absent from his Cincinnati career. Once the offense tanked without Palmer, the freefall was under way.

Lewis tried to reclaim some authority over his team with his Week 12 suspension of Chad Johnson, but this thing got away from him a long time ago. After likely losses to the Ravens, Colts and Redskins, the Bengals end the season with the Browns and the Chiefs so Lewis could very well go out with a win or even two.

Squirmin' Herman

The 2007 installment of HBO's Hard Knocks ended with Chiefs GM Carl Peterson symbolically giving Herman Edwards the keys to the franchise.

Since then Edwards has put the franchise through a demolition derby. After 19 losses in 20 games, the team looks like the rental car Johnny Knoxville returned in the first Jackass movie.

This year the Chiefs have lost close ones — by single scores to the playoff-contending Patriots, Jets and Bucs and a single point at San Diego — and blowouts (20-plus points four times). In their last four games at once-impregnable Arrowhead, the Chiefs have given up 148 points (37 ppg).

As dire as the situation would seem for Edwards, amazingly, he may still be able to save his job. The Chiefs' last five opponents have a combined 20-34-1 record. With the exciting Tyler Thigpen actually moving the ball, if KC can grab a couple of wins down the stretch an argument could be made that the Chiefs are moving in the right direction. Barring that, there's an arrow headed Herm's way.

Thrown to the Lions

Poor Rod Marinelli. When your kicker is far and away your best player, what chance has management given you?

Jason Hanson is 7-for-7 on kicks from 50 yards and beyond this season. Usually when the kicker sits off by himself it's because he's blown it for the other 52 guys. On this team, it's the other 52 who should feel shame for ruining every Sunday (and Thanksgiving) for their kicker.

Marinelli claims to be a passionate teacher. But if he's taught us anything it's that passion is no substitute for personnel. He's 10-34 overall and on his way to 0-16. Bless him for wanting to come back to this catastrophe, but it's not going to happen.