Several years ago, I wrote a column about the massive layoff that occurs each year the day after the final game of the NFL regular season. Several years later, nothing has changed except this: it has gotten worse.

Across the NFL, across the landscape of professional sports in general, coaching is not just an uneasy profession, it is nearly brimming on insanity.

Before noon on Monday, four NFL coaches no longer had the positions they’d held 24 hours prior. Fewer people probably lost their seasonal jobs at your local Wal-Mart Friday.

Then again, it’s not just football that hires and fires the same way we change our undergarments – nor is this a new phenomenon.

In late 2008, six NBA coaches were fired before the season was 25 games old. Think about that: six teams decided that the wrong person was coaching their franchise that season when the season was barely 25 percent complete.

All this begs the question of why? Why are we terminating head coaches so fast? Is it the culture? Is it the rabid fan bases? Is it the expectations?

Coaches are paid, shall we say, rather well these days. The fact that Jim Harbaugh was offered a rumored $48 million dollars to coach a collegiate football team who have not been elite for nearly a decade (or longer) is the easiest example of this.

But it appears that it takes that kind of money to lure someone into the coaching pit of hell that is “big-time” football.

Harbaugh seems to have preferred to stay in the NFL, but he looked at the mess in Oakland (something like 400 coaches in the last 15 seasons) and Chicago (brimming with angry teens at skill positions) and then glanced at his alma mater’s boosters whipping out their checkbooks (and adding something like 14 zeroes) and had an actual decision to make.

But beware of the obligation that comes with that money. It’s win and win now. Like right now. Like the recruiting war, the season opener, the Ohio State, Michigan State and all the B1G games. Oh, and win the B1G title game. Restore the greatness, win the playoff and Hail to the Victors. Do this! Do it now!

Or find another job.

And find them, fired coaches do.

Why? Because the coaches that are being fired are pretty much all the same. They do the same stuff. Run the same plays. Talk the same speak. Wear the same clothes. Some are stronger in some areas, but the vast majority of coaches’ fall into needing some luck, some key buy-in from the players and/or the organization, some early success and fans who’ll at least give them two or three seasons.

Marc Trestman didn’t get the multiple seasons. Rex Ryan didn’t get the players. Jim Harbaugh had the early success, but the organization did not seem to like him (and vice versa) no matter how much success they had.

Mike Smith, well, he joins the list of guys who deserved to be fired appropriately: multiple seasons, underachieving teams, poor decisions, lack of success. His time was up and that’s just the way it goes…for about one or two coaches a decade.

Production takes a little bit of time. Perhaps there is no sweet spot, yet logic would preclude that a season is not long enough – at any level – to determine future success. Unless that season is winless or a significant drop-off from before.

How many of us would have lost our jobs after 60 or 90 days under these conditions? What if your boss told you that you had exactly one year to win all the major awards you could win or hit a threshold the company had never seen or you would be fired?

Would you take the job? What if every job was like that? We’d be so busy undoing or understanding where we were that we’d never get anything done. Think of all the people who would have been fired for lack of production in history?

In 2006, Tom Coughlin was nearly fired by the New York Giants. Like “as close as you can be to fired without being fired” fired. He went on to win the Super Bowl the following season, got a contract extension, won another Super Bowl and now, eight years later, the rumors are the Giants will never fire him. Coughlin will have to step down to not be the coach of the Giants.

Rex Ryan took over the listless Jets and made them contenders against the likes of the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, without much of a quarterback (or knowledge of the offensive side of the ball in general). Ryan made it to AFC Championship Games and seemed perfect for the tabloid headlines in New York, but ultimately, he failed.

Or did he? The players never quit and they all seem to love playing for Ryan.

The role of coach has become blurred. Is it a coach who gets the most out of his players? If so, Ryan and Harbaugh are widely successful. Is it someone who acts like a PR mouthpiece for the team? Or a calm, rational person who deals well with the media and fans? If so, they failed.

We cannot seem to make our minds up. We mock Harbaugh for his intensity, we belittled Jon Gruden’s famous 3:17am wake-up call, but then that’s the guy we want when the other guys fail. The grass is always just a little greener, no?

Is this a call for the use of a little patience? Of course, but we’re to blame. As fans, when we see another team turn it around, we get envious and demand the same thing.

There are mitigating factors to these teams and seasons, but we don’t care – give us the goods! Make something happen, owners and general managers! Create the illusion we’re moving in the right direction!

There’s a reason the Pittsburgh Steelers have been an overall successful organization for the better part of the past two decades. They’ve had two head coaches in that time span: Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. Go back even further, add in Chuck Noll’s legendary career, and the Steelers have had three head coaches since 1968.

The Raiders, by contrast, have had 13 head coaches since Tom Flores left after the 1987 season. Only Jon Gruden coached the Raiders for more than three seasons. In a totally related note, the Raiders have been one of the NFL’s worst teams since Gruden left.

It is increasingly unlikely we’re going to see another Jerry Sloan or Bill Belichick. We’re lucky if we will see another coach like Coughlin. We used to be surrounded by continuity. Coaches used to be able to have the chance to pull their teams out of a funk or improve on a losing or unsuccessful season.

This actually helped keep the players in line, knowing that they couldn’t whine to the media and work to have the coach canned, they’d have to work with the coach to make the team better and right the ship.

We live on a merry-go-round of professional coaching. I forgot that Tony Sparano, who coached the Miami Dolphins, was in fact the coach of the Raiders this season – and I pay attention to the NFL. Actually, without looking, I’m not sure I could name more than 20 of the 32 NFL coaches – and would be mildly surprised at who is coaching the team’s I cannot remember.

Yet we’re astonished when these coaches fail all over again. We want new coaches and new ideas, then read articles criticizing teams like the Philadelphia Eagles and Chip Kelly.

There’s only so many of these guys to go around. It’s what I call the “Pink Slip Promotion.” Get fired? No worries, just wait, there’s another job offer coming.

For our part as fans, we somehow operate under the premise that every team should be good or make the playoffs in every sport. They can’t.

No, really, they can’t.

Some teams are just bad and will remain that way until a coach has enough time to put his practices and methodologies in place and the players respond accordingly. Or they won’t, in which case, time to start over.

Look, I’m all for change if something’s not working.

Mike Smith should have been fired by the Atlanta Falcons – his team’s consistently underperformed, his consistently made poor decisions and he’d had more than sufficient time (seven seasons) to win division titles, playoff games and potentially, a Super Bowl.

But in the end, all we’re left with is pink slip promotions. Smith, Ryan, Trestman and the others who will follow will all end up back on your TVs soon enough.

So enjoy the next round of new hires in the NFL.

The names might ring a bell.

So might the results.