Well. Well well well. Well.
David Culley out as head coach of the Houston Texans after a single season. Battle Red Blog.
The Texans were 4-13 and, quite frankly, stank. But:
Also out: offensive coordinator Tim Kelly.
Battle Red also reports that, while Culley had a five-year contract, only the first two years were guaranteed. So he’ll get paid a mere $4 million instead of $12 million to $14 million if all five years had been guaranteed…
Sorry for the lack of a clever headline, but the NY Post cut me off at the pass on this one.
Joe Judge out as coach of the New York Football Giants. Two seasons, 10-23 overall.
While this would be an appropriate title for an after-action report on the training classes I went to over the weekend, this is not that report. I hope to be able to write that sometime this week.
This is your “Monday morning after the end of the NFL season” firings watch. So far, there’s a lot of “sources say”. I’m going to leave these unlinked for right now, and update when there’s better confirmation.
“Sources say” Mike Zimmer is out as head coach, and Rick Spielman is out as general manager of the Vikings.
Edited to add: Story from the Star Tribune, though it is still “according to a source familiar with the team’s decision-making”. I can’t find any evidence that there’s been a press release, press conference, or other official announcement.
Zimmer had led the team to the postseason in three of his first six years, earning a second contract extension from the Wilfs before the 2020 season. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings gave Spielman a three-year deal to match the length of Zimmer’s, rewarding the general manager who’d had full control of the roster since 2012 and hired Zimmer to replace Leslie Frazier in 2014.
Zimmer finished his eight years in Minnesota with a 72-56-1 mark, ranking third in team history in wins, games coached (129) and winning percentage (.559). He was the seventh-longest tenured head coach in the NFL; all six who’ve been in their jobs longer than Zimmer have won Super Bowls.
Edited to add: this is now official, with a statement from the team ownership.
“Sources say” Matt Nagy is out as head coach of da Bears.
Edited to add: Chicago Tribune, “according to league sources”, Sun Times.
More as events break.
Edited to add: going back a day, Denver Post coverage (by way of archive.is) of the Vic Fangio/Broncos firing.
Edited to add: Brian Flores out as head coach of the Dolphins. This appears to be an official team announcement, not “sources said”.
…
Edited to add: Dave Gettleman out as general manager of hapless the New York Football Giants. It seems like the official spin on this is that he “retired”.
Very very quick, as I’m using downtime: Vic Fangio out as coach of the Denver Broncos.
Urban Meyer out as Jacksonville Jaguars coach after 13 regular season games.
His record was 2-11.
The final straw seems to have been yesterday’s report that Meyer kicked Josh Lambo, a former kicker with the Jaguars. I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say physically assaulting your employees is not a good idea.
Meyer couldn’t deliver as speculation persisted that he treated players like kids instead of grown men. He appeared to be too caught up in having control and power instead of having the right answers to win football games.
This past weekend NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported, citing sources, that Meyer had multiple run-ins with players and coaches that had developed into an ongoing tension at the Jaguars facility for months.
…
And Shad Khan is looking for tax money to upgrade the stadium and improve “the fan experience”.
To quote a comment at Field of Schemes:
You know what would “fundamentally change the fan experience” for Jags fans?
Not losing 10+ games each and every year.
Manny Diaz out as head coach of the Miami Hurricanes.
21-15 in “nearly three seasons”, 7-5 this season.
Alain Vigneault out as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. That’s a hockey team, in case you were wondering.
Steve Addazio done at Colorado State.
4-12 in two seasons: 1-3 in 2020, 3-9 in 2021. They lost the final six games this season, including getting beat 52-10 by Nevada last week. And Addazio was ejected from that game in the second quarter.
Well, okay, just one Giant.
Jason Garrett, who you may remember for his time coaching the Dallas Cowboys, out as offensive coordinator of the New York Football Giants.
Sorry. I’m running a little behind, as I was tied up much of yesterday with various things, including going to see “Dune”.
(Random thought: it is refreshing to know that, thousands of years in the future, even on desert planets, there will be coffee.)
Anyway, NFL teams that still have a chance of going without a win this season:
Detroit.
The Lions play the semi-hapless (3-7) Bears on Thanksgiving Day. I’m thinking this is a toss-up, though ESPN seems to favor the Bears.
In firings news: Dan Mullen out at Florida. 34-15 in four seasons and they were in the national championship game last year, but (as Easterbrook often says) “what have you done for me lately?” (Answer: gone 5-6 this year and 2-6 in conference.)
Chip Lindsey out at Troy. 15-19 in three seasons, and 5-6 this one. Sensing a trend?
I’m back home, but playing catch-up. In the meantime, Justin Fuente out as Virginia Tech head coach.
43-31 overall and 28-20 in the ACC over six seasons.
Riding shotgun on the way home. In haste: Butch Davis out at Florida International.
Even better: it’s sabotage!
Tom Arth out as head coach of the Akron Zips.
3-24 overall. They were 0-12 in his first season, 1-5 in 2020, and are 2-7 so far this year.
Henry Ruggs III out as wide receiver for the Las Vegas Raiders. Of course, Mr. Ruggs has other issues, which are being well covered elsewhere, but I wanted to note it here because: 156 miles per hour.
This is also related to the Chicago Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal: he was the Blackhawks head coach at the time.
The investigation, which was made public Tuesday, revealed that Quenneville was aware of the situation and took part in at least one meeting regarding the allegations during the 2010 postseason. Quenneville had previously said he only learned of the allegations in the summer of 2021 “through the media.”
In an interview with TSN on Wednesday, Beach said there was no way Quenneville was unaware of the allegations.”I’ve witnessed meetings, right after I reported it to [Blackhawks mental skills coach] James Gary, that were held in Joel Quenneville’s office. There’s absolutely no way that he can deny knowing it,” Beach said.
According to recollections from former Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman in the investigation report, Quenneville, after learning of the Aldrich allegations, “shook his head and said that it was hard for the team to get to where they were [the playoffs] and they could not deal with this issue now.”