Whipped Cream Difficulties

Oh, Minnesota.

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah out as general manager of the Minnesota Vikings.

The team went 43-25 in Adofo-Mensah’s four seasons, but it missed the playoffs by a half-game this year after a disappointing season that began with lofty expectations following a surprising 14-3 record in 2024.

And Derek Falvey out as president of the Minnesota Twins.

Falvey had led the team’s baseball operations since Oct. 2016, and the business operations department since last year, becoming one of only two baseball executives in a dual president role.

…

Falvey’s departure was framed publicly as a mutual decision to part ways.

Missed this the other day, but Joe Lombardi out as offensive coordinator in Denver.

Wide receivers coach Keary Colbert and cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch also were fired.

Kevin Abrams out at the New York Football Giants. I can’t exactly figure out what his title was: at one point, he was assistant general manager, but he gave that up in 2022, according to the linked article.

Also out: defensive line coach Andre Patterson, inside linebackers coach John Egorugwu, secondary coach/pass game coordinator Marquand Manuel, and cornerbacks coach Jeff Burris.

All of this is being attributed to John Harbaugh coming in and cleaning house.

I’ve been silent the past few days because there hasn’t been a lot to write about. Now there is.

The Buffalo Bills fired coach Sean McDermott.

This is very breaking: the Buffalo News story is short and mostly video. ESPN. NFL Network.

98-50 over nine seasons, with an 8-8 playoff record.

In eight playoff campaigns, the Bills exited in the Wild Card Round twice, lost in the Divisional Round four times and fell in the AFC Championship Game twice.

Sounds like a good start. Now, if they would just shut down the team, ban the players from the NFL for life, burn the stadium, practice facilities, and offices, plow the rubble into the earth, sow the ground with salt, and drive the players and staff before us in chains while we listen to the lamentations of their women, I’d be well on my way to happy.

(Subject line hattip. Shoutout to Lawrence Block.)

Mike Tomlin is out as coach of the Steelers.

But is it a firing?

“After much thought and reflection, I have decided to step down as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Tomlin said in a statement. “This organization has been a huge part of my life for many years, and it has been an absolute honor to lead this team. I am deeply grateful to Art Rooney II and the late Ambassador Rooney for their trust and support. I am also thankful to the players who gave everything they had every day, and to the coaches and staff whose commitment and dedication made this journey so meaningful…”

This sure sounds like a resignation, not a firing. But there was a lot of speculation around the Steelers: many people expressed a belief that the team had grown stagnent under Tomlin, and there might be a change coming.

Nineteen years, never a losing season. But seven straight playoff losses, including to the Texans last night.

ESPN.

In other news, offensive coordinator Greg Roman and offensive line coach Mike Devlin are out at the worthless LA Chargers.

Sounds like a good start. Now, if they would just shut down the team, ban the players from the NFL for life, burn the stadium, practice facilities, and offices, plow the rubble into the earth, sow the ground with salt, and drive the players and staff before us while we listen to the lamentations of their women, I’d be well on my way to happy.

Kevin Patullo out as offensive coordinator in Philadelphia.

The defending champion Eagles endured a sharp decline in offensive production. Scoring dropped from 27.2 (ranked seventh) to 22.3 (19th) points per game this season; offensive efficiency dipped from fourth best in the league to 19th; and the rushing attack plummeted from 179 yards per game (2nd) to 116.9 (18th).

Mike McDaniel out as head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

Four seasons, 35-33 overall, 7-10 this season.

McDaniel’s first two seasons in Miami corresponded with a high-octane offense, back-to-back playoff berths for the first time since the early 2000s. That achievement put him alongside Don Shula and Dave Wannstedt as the only coaches in franchise history to make the postseason in their first two years.
Everything changed in 2024. Two games into the season and the Dolphins down 31-10 to the Buffalo Bills, Tagovailoa sustained a concussion. Miami would go 1-3 during Tagovailoa’s four-game stint on injured reserve. His return would yield middling results — the Dolphins went 5-4 but lost key matchups to the Green Bay Packers and Houston Texans — before he once again was injured, this time with a hip.

More from ESPN.

Also: Josh Grizzard out as offensive coordinator and Thad Lewis out as offensive assistant in Tampa Bay.

John Morton out as offensive coordinator in Detroit.

John Harbaugh out as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.

193-124 in 18 seasons. He was the “second-longest tenured coach” in the NFL (behind Mike Tomlin of the Steelers).

More from ESPN.

Steve Phelps out as NASCAR commissioner.

Technically, this is a resignation, but I’m counting it as a firing because it seems to be one of those “resign and keep your dignity, or stay on and get fired” situations. This is all fallout from the great NASCAR anti-trust case.

Two teams, Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing (the latter partially owned by Michael Jordan) sued NASCAR over alleged monopolistic behavior. The case was settled in December.

But anybody who knows anything about the legal system knows that stuff comes out in discovery. Often, that’s stuff you don’t want to come out. (“Don’t put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the Washington Post.”) Mr. Phelps apparently said some regrettable things, though the NYPost only cites one specific example:

In one exchange, Phelps called Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress “a stupid redneck” who “needs to be taken out back and flogged.”
That led Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, an ardent supporter of both NASCAR and Richard Childress Racing, to write a letter demanding Phelps’ removal as commissioner.

In other news, Matt Eberflus out as defensive coordinator in Dallas.

The above by way of Lawrence, who also sent over an interesting fact from Yahoo Sports that I don’t have room for elsewhere:

The New York Jets are the first team since 1933 (when the NFL started keeping this stat) to go an entire season without intercepting a pass. Not one.

…no team has recorded fewer than two in a single season. The 2018 San Francisco 49ers team was the previous worst in this category with two, one fewer than both the Houston Texans in 2020 and the Houston Oilers in 1982. Only two other teams in NFL history have failed to record five interceptions in a single season.

Edited to add: and, of course, within minutes of my posting this, Lawrence emailed again to let me know Kliff Kingsbury and Joe Whitt Jr. are out as offensive and defensive coordinators (respectively) for the Washington Commanders.

As foretold in the prophecy, this is your annual Monday morning after the end of the season NFL firing thread.

Raheem Morris out as coach in Atlanta. Also fired: GM Terry Fontenot. (Sorry about the ESPN link: the Atlanta newspaper won’t even let you look at the front page with an adblocker on.) Morris had been with the team for two seasons and had a 16-18 record: Fontenot had been with the team for five years.

One of my Christmas presents was a delightful little book: Cleveland’s Greatest Disasters! Speaking of Cleveland and disasters, Kevin Stefanski out as head coach of the Browns. But they kept GM Andrew Berry. Stefanski had been with the team for six seasons, and went 45-56 in the regular season. The Browns finished 5-12 this year, and 8-26 over the past two seasons.

I’ll update this post if there are more firings today.

Edited to add: and now, as expected by pretty much everyone, Pete Carroll is out as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. He was 3-14 in his one season. But hey! The Raiders have the number one draft choice! And they’re keeping John Spytek as GM! (Again, sorry about the ESPN link, but the Oakland newspaper is…not good.)

Edited to add 2: Four! A-ha-ha! (Okay, technically, the Atlanta firing was the yearly “you didn’t even wait to get the [man] in the house” firing.)

Jonathan Gannon out as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. They were 3-14 this year, and 15-36 in three seasons with Gannon as the coach.

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Rams, Arizona had 42 different players miss a combined 309 games with injury and had 25 players on injured reserve — the most in the NFL — including quarterback Kyler Murray, running backs James Conner and Trey Benson and wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.

Shane Bowen out as defensive coordinator of the New York Football Giants.

The Giants are 2-10, and blew a big lead to the Detroit Lions on Sunday.

Chip Kelly out as defensive coordinator of the Raiders. He’d only been with the team for 11 games, and the Raiders are 2-9 this season.

Las Vegas has fired an offensive coordinator midseason for the second straight year. Luke Getsy was let go after nine games in 2024, with Scott Turner taking over in an interim role under then-coach Antonio Pierce.

The California Golden Bears have fired head coach Justin Wilcox. 6-5 this season, 48-55 over nine seasons with the team.