Whipped Cream Difficulties

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.

This is breaking, but I want to get something up now: I’m going to be out this afternoon and evening.

Brian Daboll out as head coach of the New York Football Giants, according to “sources”. ESPN.

2-8 so far this season, they lost to Chicago 24-20 on Sunday, and he was 20-40-1 overall (roughly four seasons).

Chris Grier out as general manager of the Miami Dolphins.

The spin on this is that it was by “mutual agreement”. But the Dolphins are 2-7, and lost last night to Baltimore. So…yeah.

ESPN.

Brian Callahan out as head coach of the Tennessee Titans.

Under his leadership, the Titans finished 4-19 and ranked among the league’s worst offenses in most meaningful statistical categories.

He was coach for roughly a season and a half. The Titans are currently 1-5. Additional coverage from ESPN.

I figure that there’s going to be some kind of big firing this week. So far, I haven’t seen any, but there’s been a few small firings.

Sandy Brondello out as coach of the New York Liberty, although this is being presented as non-renewal of her contract. The Liberty won the WNBA championship last year, but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs this year.

Ms. Brondello was 107-53 in four seasons.

Ike Hilliard out as wide receivers coach for the Atlanta Falcons.