The 2022 firing cycle is underway. Now we're entering the hiring phase.

If we're ranking the NFL's head coach openings, it's a robust array to sort through. Nearly one quarter of the league has vacancies (or in the Las Vegas Raiders' case, lacks clarity) at head coach, plus a few more also seeking general managers. Yet there might not be that one truly tremendous opening that screams "Super Bowl" in short order.

All come with some roadblocks. There are, however, a few openings with some serious caveat emptor at play. 

So let's rank the seven openings, worst to first, to see how they stack up.

For now, we're including the Raiders even though they're in the playoffs and could consider sticking with interim head coach Rich Bisaccia. 

This list does not include the Houston Texans, who to this point have dragged their feet and remained silent about the status of head coach David Culley.

7. New York Giants

Not long ago, Joe Judge was reportedly safe. Then he wasn't.

Right move or wrong — Giants fans overwhelmingly side with "right" — Judge had a chance to convince ownership he was the man for the job, and he could not achieve that. We're assuming the tenor of his talk with John Mara was not similar to Judge's bizarre postgame rant two weeks ago, but we can't rule it out.

Whatever the case, the Giants are seeking their fourth full-time head coach since letting Tom Coughlin walk. That's now three straight two-year tenures for disastrous hires: Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Judge. You know Mara and Giants executive vice president Steve Tisch wanted to avoid firing another coach in such a short timeframe but could not find reason for sticking with the status quo.

Perhaps that's the silver lining: The next coach, barring a fourth disaster, could be granted a bit more time to develop a roster and revive the culture. There also are two high draft picks (Nos. 5 and 7 overall) with which to build, plus an open general manager position that could bring a fresh set of eyes to get things back on track. There also are some young players worth building around.

But Daniel Jones remains unproven. The salary-cap situation, especially for such a bad team, requires some major massage therapy. The scouting department is ripe for a housecleaning if the owners allow the new GM to do so. Some players clearly quit down the stretch.

And, wild as it is to say for a once-touchstone franchise with an ownership group that's overseen two Super Bowl titles, there's just a losing air around the team that must be fumigated. Since 2017, no team has a worse record than the Giants' 22-58 mark (the crosstown Jets have matched their ineptitude).

GM Dave Gettleman also "retired," although it certainly didn't feel completely voluntary. But he was given a pregame ceremony in Week 18, handed his gold watch and sent on his way. 

Where any semblance of blame for his roster mistakes been this week? Judge is by no means beyond reproach, but Gettleman mostly being allowed to skate off into the sunset while the former head coach is skewered feels like an ownership-driven overreach.

Even the promise of free-flowing medium Pepsis at MetLife Stadium couldn't prevent the team's final few home games from looking like ghost towns on game day.

The glass-half-full candidate can look at the possibilities of this nowhere-but-up situation, but lordy, there is a lot of clean up.

6. Chicago Bears

We had a conversation with a veteran administrator with multiple interviews for GM openings in recent years and posed the question: What are the most important factors for determining the attractiveness of job openings, for both head coaches and quarterbacks?

"The biggest factor, the one you guys overlook too much, is ownership," the administrator said. "Ownership and the front-office (structure). If those are bad situations, then the job is bad. Even if there's talent, draft picks, cap space, a quarterback — all that stuff. A bad owner or bad management, that can poison the whole well."

With the Bears, it's not so much current ownership. Virginia McCaskey is, in some ways, the First Lady of Football. She's highly respected and is a direct line to football royalty with George Halas. The franchise's heritage and tradition stack up with nearly any other in the league. But McCaskey also is 99 years old, and the succession plan is unclear.

Son George McCaskey, the de facto next in line, recently embarrassed himself with an awkward media conference following the exits of head coach Matt Nagy and GM Ryan Pace.

Is team president Ted Phillips strictly on board with the team's pursuit of a new stadium deal? Or, as he sits in on head-coach and GM interviews, is he still doing more behind the scenes? The lack of a clear power structure could entice a potential GM to seize some real estate — or it could freak them out without a clear ownership succession plan.

The roster is not a wasteland, with the promise of quarterback Justin Fields and some defensive stalwarts onboard, but there are shortages of depth and draft picks (no first- or fourth-rounders this year). The next two teams on this list are not too far ahead of the Bears, but the organizational dreck is a tie-breaking anchor.

5. Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins just fired a coach who had winning records the past two seasons and a career mark of 4-2 vs. division rival and former boss, Bill Belichick. The reason given for Brian Flores' defenestration: a lack of communication with people in the organization.