Time for the annual thread of NFL coaching changes. The late season Covid flare up doesn’t help, so many teams got stuck fielding a bunch of backups as well as the longer season equaling more injuries.
Are there any rumors out there of coaches on the hot seat? I wonder if Pete Carroll may be coaching his last Seahawks game next week.
Matt Nagy would be my guess for most likely to be fired, the Bears have been an absolute mess all season.
Anyone feel like this has been a weird season for coach firings? We only had two mid-season firings. Gruden, because of the emails, and Urban, because of uh… kicking a player. It doesn’t seem like there’s that many obvious end-of-year firings either other than Nagy.
The Giants’ Joe Judge might be on the hot seat, too. I haven’t been paying much attention to them, but they certainly don’t seem to be making any progress under him (though injuries are likely playing a role), and they were terrible this past Sunday against a not-great Bears team. And, from what I saw, Judge spent quite a while in his post-game press conference defending the team culture and what they have been doing, insisting that they aren’t a “clown show.”
All that, and they’re likely changing general managers. I’d expect that to go along with a change in head coach.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are set to interview Bill O’Brien for the HC job.
I don’t even know what to say about that. If they go with him, I feel bad for Trevor Lawrence. Shad Khan must be a truly incompetent owner to even think about hiring him.
There’s definitely speculation about that on the local sports radio stations. The consensus seems to be that Paul Allen’s sister (I forget her name) who now owns the team isn’t going to pull the plug after one bad year. The extended his contract last year through 2025, if I’m recalling correctly. Personally, I don’t think his job is in jeopardy. We’ll see I guess.
Byron Leftwich (currently the Bucs’ OC) and Nathaniel Hackett (currently the Packers’ OC) are also slated to interview for the Jaguars job; they have already interviewed Jim Caldwell, Doug Pederson, and Todd Bowles.
There’s talk that Mike Zimmer, head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, will be fired Monday. Some are calling for GM Rick Spielman to be fired as well.
Broncos not waiting until Black Monday since they played yesterday.
He wouldn’t be the worst hire but he wouldn’t be the best. It’s not a totally incompetent pick. In Houston, he got the team to the playoffs fairly consistently.
That said, the problem Houston had was a common one - they gave him too much say over personnel and contracts. A lot of that was on him but, as we’re finding out, a tremendous amount on Cal McNair and Jack Easterby.
Not that I think Trent Baalke is a world beater GM but he’s a darned sight better than any of those three at that side of things so as long as he’s firmly in charge of that side and O’Brien left only on the coaching side of things, they should get to consistent mediocrity if not better. And that’s worlds better than what they’ve been seeing.
I read an article at The Ringer the other day that makes the same point that several articles have made over the last couple years. NFL teams keep making the same choices and hoping for different results each time. They’ll find GMs or coaches from successful teams (the Patriots or recent Super Bowl winners or top college coaches) and hoping that one individual is the “secret sauce” when they should be re-thinking how they approach hiring in the first place.
I tend to agree that Fangio isn’t really the problem in Denver. Some bad decisions on his part, sure. But also some bad luck and some pretty terrible front office management.
And both are officially gone. Need to get rid of whoever the defensive coordinator was too.
Matt Nagy and Brian Flores both gone as well. Nagy not a surprise; I’m a little surprised at the Flores firing.
It must be strange to leave a professional sports franchise to someone in a will. I wonder if it was specifically mentioned, or if it was one of those “the remainder of my estate goes to my sister” clauses.
It’s a pretty sizeable asset, and I’m sure Mr. Allen had good lawyers, and knew he was dying. I would bet it was planned out pretty carefully.
The Bears have fired GM Ryan Pace, as well as Nagy. So, yet another house-cleaning at Halas Hall.
Flores fired surprises the hell out of me. Some one is going to get a hell of a coach with little more experience. I doubt he stays on the Market very long. I hope it’s not the damn Bears.
Word on Flores is that he had a bad relationship with Tua and was pushing for the Watson trade. Sounds like Miami is sticking with Tua for now.