NFL Black Monday
They are strewn across the NFL landscape like fresh roadkill.
Andy Reid. Lovie Smith. Ken Whisenhunt. Norv Turner. Romeo Crennel. Chan Gailey. Pat Shurmur.
Those are just the head coaches who were kicked to the curb on Black Monday.
Most striking this time is that five general managers were forced to walk the plank, too. In three cases -- with the Arizona Cardinals, San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns -- the teams double-dipped and canned the coaches and GMs.
Goodbye, A.J. Smith, Rod Graves, Tom Heckert, Mike Tannenbaum and Gene Smith.
In another case, with the Tennessee Titans, neither the coach nor GM was fired (yet), but the football man above them, CEO Mike Reinfelt, was given his walking papers by owner Bud Adams.
More moves surely are pending.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, in firing Crennel, will head the search for a coach, which leaves GM Scott Pioli on shaky ground.
The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Gene Smith, but first-year coach Mike Mularkey can hardly be assured he'll survive when the new GM arrives.
Gailey is out in Buffalo, but GM Buddy Nix, who spent more than $100 million in free agency to upgrade a defense that got worse, must still meet with owner Ralph Wilson.
The common thread in all of these cases is what you'd expect.
It's about winning. Fast and now.
Reid took the Eagles to five NFC title games, but that's history. He hasn't been to the playoffs in three years, out in Philadelphia after a 4-12 finish this season. So much for that "lifetime" job.
Hard-luck stories can be found in many outposts. Crennel got one season as Todd Haley's replacement, after players lobbied for him to get the job. He drew rave reviews for his handling of the team amid the murder-suicide tragedy involving linebacker Jovan Belcher.
The Chiefs were 2-14. Gone.
A recent chat with ousted Chargers GM A.J. Smith comes to mind. The topic was job security.
"It's a bottom-line business," Smith said.
The Chargers have missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season. So Smith, who stumbled with recent high draft picks and didn't hang on to a few other talented producers, is out the door with Turner -- fired as a head coach for the third time.
With so many GMs fired along with or instead of the coaches -- as was the case with the New York Jets, who kept coach Rex Ryan and ran Tannenbaum out -- the movement reflects increasing pressure upstairs.
Gone are the days, apparently, when GMs get to cycle through three or four head coaches. That was another generation.
In a salary-cap era flush with the biggest revenue in league history and with "football people" wielding less power, patience with GM tenures is waning.
What's evident now is that a GM had better get it right on the two most crucial hires -- the head coach and the quarterback -- or else.
And the GM might get just one crack at both -- if that. New Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said Monday that in his new order, he'll hire the coach first.
A.J. Smith might have been an exception. He lasted 10 years in the GM seat for the Chargers and had a quarterback to build around in Philip Rivers.
Yet it still wasn't enough, given other blunders.
So many of the firings on Monday, though, were linked by the common denominator of poor quarterbacking. The Jaguars, who have had a series of draft-day blunders and a few glaring cases of free agency overspending, are floundering with Blaine Gabbert.
Buffalo re-upped with Ryan Fitzpatrick, and now Gailey is gone after three years.
The Cardinals? Whisenhunt won more playoff games than any other coach in franchise history and took Arizona to a Super Bowl when he had a legit quarterback in Kurt Warner. But injury-riddled Kevin Kolb has flopped, and the replacements were even less impressive. And after plummeting to a 5-11 finish following a 4-0 start, the Cardinals missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season.
Then again, Lovie Smith had a decent quarterback in Jay Cutler.
That quarterback, it turns out, played under three offensive coordinators and never seemed to have an offensive scheme that was consistent enough to win big.
So they'll start over again. Like Whisenhunt, Smith has a Super Bowl appearance on his resume. No matter. What he didn't have was enough victories, especially after the Bears faded from a 7-1 start to miss the playoffs. Would one more win have saved his job? Smith is the rare coach to get fired after a 10-win season.
Then again, Marty Schottenheimer was fired by the Chargers after the 2006 season after a 14-2 campaign resulted in an early playoff exit.
It's a cold business. Especially on Black Monday, which for many NFL coaches and GMs is the coldest day of the year.
Andy Reid. Lovie Smith. Ken Whisenhunt. Norv Turner. Romeo Crennel. Chan Gailey. Pat Shurmur.
Those are just the head coaches who were kicked to the curb on Black Monday.
Most striking this time is that five general managers were forced to walk the plank, too. In three cases -- with the Arizona Cardinals, San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns -- the teams double-dipped and canned the coaches and GMs.
Goodbye, A.J. Smith, Rod Graves, Tom Heckert, Mike Tannenbaum and Gene Smith.
In another case, with the Tennessee Titans, neither the coach nor GM was fired (yet), but the football man above them, CEO Mike Reinfelt, was given his walking papers by owner Bud Adams.
More moves surely are pending.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, in firing Crennel, will head the search for a coach, which leaves GM Scott Pioli on shaky ground.
The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Gene Smith, but first-year coach Mike Mularkey can hardly be assured he'll survive when the new GM arrives.
Gailey is out in Buffalo, but GM Buddy Nix, who spent more than $100 million in free agency to upgrade a defense that got worse, must still meet with owner Ralph Wilson.
The common thread in all of these cases is what you'd expect.
It's about winning. Fast and now.
Reid took the Eagles to five NFC title games, but that's history. He hasn't been to the playoffs in three years, out in Philadelphia after a 4-12 finish this season. So much for that "lifetime" job.
Hard-luck stories can be found in many outposts. Crennel got one season as Todd Haley's replacement, after players lobbied for him to get the job. He drew rave reviews for his handling of the team amid the murder-suicide tragedy involving linebacker Jovan Belcher.
The Chiefs were 2-14. Gone.
A recent chat with ousted Chargers GM A.J. Smith comes to mind. The topic was job security.
"It's a bottom-line business," Smith said.
The Chargers have missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season. So Smith, who stumbled with recent high draft picks and didn't hang on to a few other talented producers, is out the door with Turner -- fired as a head coach for the third time.
With so many GMs fired along with or instead of the coaches -- as was the case with the New York Jets, who kept coach Rex Ryan and ran Tannenbaum out -- the movement reflects increasing pressure upstairs.
Gone are the days, apparently, when GMs get to cycle through three or four head coaches. That was another generation.
In a salary-cap era flush with the biggest revenue in league history and with "football people" wielding less power, patience with GM tenures is waning.
What's evident now is that a GM had better get it right on the two most crucial hires -- the head coach and the quarterback -- or else.
And the GM might get just one crack at both -- if that. New Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said Monday that in his new order, he'll hire the coach first.
A.J. Smith might have been an exception. He lasted 10 years in the GM seat for the Chargers and had a quarterback to build around in Philip Rivers.
Yet it still wasn't enough, given other blunders.
So many of the firings on Monday, though, were linked by the common denominator of poor quarterbacking. The Jaguars, who have had a series of draft-day blunders and a few glaring cases of free agency overspending, are floundering with Blaine Gabbert.
Buffalo re-upped with Ryan Fitzpatrick, and now Gailey is gone after three years.
The Cardinals? Whisenhunt won more playoff games than any other coach in franchise history and took Arizona to a Super Bowl when he had a legit quarterback in Kurt Warner. But injury-riddled Kevin Kolb has flopped, and the replacements were even less impressive. And after plummeting to a 5-11 finish following a 4-0 start, the Cardinals missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season.
Then again, Lovie Smith had a decent quarterback in Jay Cutler.
That quarterback, it turns out, played under three offensive coordinators and never seemed to have an offensive scheme that was consistent enough to win big.
So they'll start over again. Like Whisenhunt, Smith has a Super Bowl appearance on his resume. No matter. What he didn't have was enough victories, especially after the Bears faded from a 7-1 start to miss the playoffs. Would one more win have saved his job? Smith is the rare coach to get fired after a 10-win season.
Then again, Marty Schottenheimer was fired by the Chargers after the 2006 season after a 14-2 campaign resulted in an early playoff exit.
It's a cold business. Especially on Black Monday, which for many NFL coaches and GMs is the coldest day of the year.
