It's Black Monday in pro football, as the bill comes due for coaches of losing NFL teams

It’s Black Monday in pro football, as the bill comes due for coaches of losing NFL teams

Posted by author January 6, 2025 Football

The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Super Bowl-winning coach Doug Pederson in what’s likely to be the first of multiple “Black Monday” terminations across pro football.

Pederson and New England’s Jerod Mayo were the first casualties of the NFL’s dark annual ritual of finding fall guys for a disappointing 2024 season, which came to an end on Sunday.

The Patriots jumped the gun, axing their rookie head coach Mayo on Sunday, moments after completing their 4-13 campaign.

Pederson ended his three-year Jacksonville tenure with a disastrous 4-13 season after going 9-8 in both 2022 and 2023.

It’s been a long fall from grace for Pederson, once the wunderkind field general who led the Philadelphia Eagles to the 2018 Super Bowl title.

He’ll always be credited for calling the “Philly Special,” a fourth-and-goal trick play that paid off in Philadelphia’s title game win over the New England Patriots.

Head coaching jobs with the Las Vegas Raiders and Dallas Cowboys could also open later on Monday.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is 49-35 at the Dallas helm. But the franchise that calls itself “America’s Team” has won just one playoff game in McCarthy’s five years in charge.

The Cowboys remain one of the most talked-about and watched teams despite a 29-season-long, Super Bowl-winning drought. Dallas last won it all on Jan. 28, 1996, in the middle of Bill Clinton’s two-term White House stay.

The New York Jets, Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints were already operating with interim coaches and are expected to start searching for permanent replacements on Monday.

The New York Giants took themselves out of the Black Monday carousel, announcing that coach Brian Daboll would stay for his fourth season at the Big Blue helm — though he appears to already be on a short leash for 2025.

The Giants went 3-14 this past season and Daboll’s three-season record stands at 18-32-1 (.363). The team set a franchise record for losses this season and will have the third pick in the upcoming draft.

Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen both survived what was a particularly painful season as their former star running back, Saquon Barkley, thrived with division-winning Philadelphia.

Giants fans were constantly reminded of Barkley due to cameras from HBO’s behind-the-scenes franchise “Hard Knocks” which captured co-owner John Mara explaining how much it’d hurt losing Barkley.

“I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that,” Mara said to Schoen, in a remarkably prophetic moment of contract talks with Barkley. “As I’ve told you, just being around enough players, he’s the most popular player we have, by far.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.