Archive for the ‘Firings’ Category

Christmas! In December!

Friday, December 15th, 2023

And I got an early Christmas present. Really, more like two early Christmas stocking stuffers, but it is the thought that counts.

The worthless LA Chargers got stomped by the Las Vegas Raiders last night, 63-21.

And I guess pretty much as a direct result of that (though everyone was saying it was coming, I think the timeline was accelerated), Brandon Staley is out as head coach. Tom Telesco is out as general manager, too.

ESPN. Since I prefer to link to local coverage when I can, here’s an archived version of the story from the LAT, but I know some folks may not be able to read that. (It hasn’t made it in the Wayback Machine yet.)

Staley’s teams finished 24-24 in the regular season and made one playoff appearance. In his first year in 2021, the Chargers were eliminated from postseason contention on the final snap of the regular season.
The defeat at Las Vegas was a record-setter, the Chargers surrendering an all-time high in points for a game. Also, no Chargers team ever had trailed by 42 points at halftime.

You know what I say: shut the franchise down, throw all the players out of the NFL, reduce all of their facilities to rubble, plow the rubble into the earth, and sow the ground with salt so nothing ever grows there again.

Can’t get no antidote for blues…

Wednesday, December 13th, 2023

Craig Berube out as coach of the St. Louis Blues. ESPN link for those who are having problems with archive services.

He was 206-132-44 over about six seasons, and his team won the Stanley Cup in 2019. The team is 13-14-1 so far this season.

Well, that’s done.

Monday, November 27th, 2023

Frank Reich fired as head coach of hapless the Carolina Panthers. ESPN for the archive challenged.

The Panthers are currently 1-10. Which, by a curious coincidence, is also the number of games Frank Reich coached.

Reich is the third full-time head coach to be fired by Tepper since taking over as owner in 2018. He chose not to hire former interim head coach Steve Wilks — who went 6-6 during his run last year — in favor of Reich this offseason.

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 26th, 2023

Tom Allen out as head coach of Indiana. (“Sources say”)

Seven seasons, 33-49, and 18-43 in conference. Indiana lost their final three games and went 3-9 this season.

According to ESPN, Indiana will have to pay a $20.8 million buyout, since they fired Allen before December 1st of this year. If they had waited until next year, the buyout would have been only $8 million.

ESPN is reporting (“sources say”) that Dana Holgorsen is out at the University of Houston. I have been unable to find any backup for this on the HouChron website or the two local TV station websites I checked.

Houston went 4-8 in its inaugural Big 12 season, which included a loss at Rice in September and three straight losses to end the year. The Cougars finished 2-7 in the Big 12, with their wins coming in overtime against Baylor and on a last-second 49-yard touchdown against West Virginia.

31-28 over five seasons. The buyout is estimated at $14.8 million, but there’s an offset clause if he gets another coaching job.

Edited to add: the Holgorsen firing seems official now. HouChron

Edited to add 2: Some additional firing updates I ran across on ESPN. I’m just going to cover them quickly:

Terry Bowden gone as head coach of Louisana-Monroe. 10-26, 5-10 in conference, and 2-10 this season.

Frank Cignetti Jr. out as offensive coordinator for Pitt.

Dana Dimel out as head coach of UT-El Paso. 20-49 in six seasons, one bowl appearance in 2021, but 3-9 this season.

Firings watch.

Friday, November 24th, 2023

Jack Del Rio out as defensive coordinator of the Washington NFL team.

The Commanders’ defense ranks last in points allowed and 29th in yards allowed — one year after ranking seventh and third, respectively, in those categories. The Commanders consistently gave up big plays and failed to make many of their own.
Washington has allowed a league-high 49 pass plays of 20 yards or more. The Commanders haven’t intercepted a pass in the past six games or caused a turnover in the past three.

Washington lost 45-10 to Dallas yesterday, is 4-8 this season, has lost three games in a row and eight out of the last 10.

Blame Canada! Blame Canada!

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

Matt Canada out as offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Non-archive link, extremely aggressive about turning off your ad blocker. Archive link, which may not work for some people. ESPN, which will probably work for almost everyone.

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 19th, 2023

Dino Babers out as Syracuse head coach.

Eight seasons, 41-55 overall, 20-45 in the ACC. One bowl appearance in the last five years.

The Orange (5-6) have lost six of their past seven games, marking the second consecutive year that featured a precipitous slide to end the season. Last year, Syracuse lost six of its last seven games.

Am I delusional, or didn’t Syracuse used to be called “The Orangemen”? Now it seems like they are just “The Orange”, and I can’t find any explanation for the name change online.

Edited to add: and shortly after I posted this, I found out that East Tennessee State had fired George Quarles as their football coach. 6-16 in two seasons, 3-8 this season.

What to do? What. To. Do?

Friday, November 17th, 2023

I could do three, maybe four, very short posts covering and updating about various news items.

Or I could do one post hitting all of those items, even though it wouldn’t be as organized as doing multiple posts. But it’d just be one post, and maybe slightly more substantial. So one post it is.

Obit watch: A.S. Byatt, noted British author (Possession).

George Brown, drummer for Kool & the Gang.

Non-flaming non-hyenas watch: Mike the Musicologist sent over a link (but I’m using the Post‘s instead) stating that the gun charges against NYC Councilwoman Inna Vernikov are going to be dropped. Turns out that her gun was unloaded and also missing the recoil spring assembly, so it couldn’t be fired.

“In order to sustain this charge, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the weapon in question was capable of firing bullets,” Brooklyn DA spokesman Oren Yaniv said in a statement. “Absent such proof, we have no choice but to dismiss these charges.”

This actually makes me feel less sympathetic to her. It seems like she was carrying the gun as a prop, not because she felt a need for protection. And that doesn’t strike me as being very smart.

Firings watch: Chris Partridge, linebackers coach at the University of Michigan. This does seem to be tied to the ongoing scandal.

There are somewhat more than hints in that article and this one that UMich has found out some things about what’s been going on that are causing tsuris.

Sources told ESPN that university leadership this week has shifted its tone from the stern rebuke of the league’s sanctions to a growing acceptance that the football program may be dealing with significant NCAA infractions that could include a failure to properly monitor the program on Harbaugh’s part.

Firings watch.

Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

I’m home now, and expect to get back to regular blogging soon. In the meantime, Ken Dorsey out as offensive coordinator of the worthless Buffalo Bills.

Seriously, Buffalo got pwned by Denver? Seems to be consistently the story of the Bills: every year, they’re expected to do great things and go places, and every year they finish middle of the pack.

Firings watch.

Monday, November 13th, 2023

About to pull out and head home, but: Zach Arnett out as head coach of Mississippi State after only 10 games (4-6 overall, 1-6 in the SEC).

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 12th, 2023

Still away, but I just have time to note: Jimbo Fisher out at Texas A&M.

The move is expected to cost the school more than $76 million to buy out Fisher’s deal, which is nearly triple the highest known coaching contract buyouts at a public school.
According to the terms of the contract, Texas A&M will owe Fisher $19.2 million within 60 days and then pay him $7.2 annually through 2031. There is no offset or mitigation on those payments, and the annual payments start 120 days after termination.

45-25 in six seasons.

Mike Yurcich out as offensive coordinator at Penn State.

Firings watch.

Monday, November 6th, 2023

David Ross out as manager of the Chicago Cubs. Tribune. Sun-Times. ESPN.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch…

Monday, November 6th, 2023

Alex Grinch out as defensive coordinator at USC.

Grinch, who was Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator from 2019 to 2021 before leaving for USC alongside Riley, led a unit that allowed an average of 34.5 points per game this season and was in the bottom 30 in the country in nearly every statistical category, including 120th in rushing defense and 107th against the pass.

Bonus loser update: Memphis finally won a game, so there are no NBA teams left that can go 0-82 this season.

Firings watch.

Friday, November 3rd, 2023

According to ESPN, Connor Stalions, the guy at the center of the Michigan sign-stealing scandal, has been officially fired.

Also, according to the tabloid of record, Michigan fired Alex Yood, who I’ve seen described as a “low-level” staffer. This firing seems to have nothing to do with sign-stealing, and is quite frankly weird.

Back in September, a man who went by “Boopac Shakur” posted a video on Instagram that purported to show Alex Yood had tried to pick up a 13-year-old girl online. Mr. Yood has not been charged by any law enforcement agency with any crime. “Boopac Shakur”‘s persona on social media seems to have been a “To Catch a Predator” wanna-be.

In the video, the man alleged to be Yood is wearing Michigan gear and seen carrying a bottle of alcohol at a store when he is confronted by two men.
At first, Yood appears to believe he has been caught by the police, but the men inform him that they are not the authorities.
When the men ask Yood what he is doing, he answers that he bought the liquor for a graduation party that he is hosting in a couple days.
Yood is asked how old he is and says he is 22.
The men ask him what he’s doing at the store and how far he drove, and Yood responds, “I’m not looking for trouble.”
The men then present Yood with photos of his online exchange with the person he allegedly thought was a 13-year-old girl.
Yood says he didn’t know she was 13, and they respond that he had been told her age twice in the exchange.
The two men then start screaming in the store: “This man is here to meet a 13-year-old girl!”

Again, Mr. Yood has not been charged with any crime, to the best of my knowledge and according to the reports I’ve seen.

Interestingly, “Boopac Shakur” (real name Robert Wayne Lee) was murdered not too long after the video was posted.

On Sept. 29 at around 10:30 p.m., Lee was in a restaurant in the area of Pontiac, Mich., — a city 30 miles outside of Detroit — when he was shot and killed by a person during an argument.
The following day, investigators told reporters Lee confronted two males sitting at a table and accused one of them of being a pedophile before punching him. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said one suspect pulled out a knife while the other pulled a gun, shooting Lee multiple times.
But in an updated statement on Tuesday, Bouchard said this no longer appeared to be the case.
“When we originally responded to the call, the community inferred he could have been there for that reason, to confront a pedophile,” Bouchard told NBC News.
“As we get deeper in the investigation, we have yet to find any corroborative information on that point,” he added.

Firings watch.

Wednesday, November 1st, 2023

What a great time of year. We’re in the middle of a cold snap right now…

…and the Raiders fired head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.

McDaniels and Ziegler, both hired in January 2022, inherited a 10-7 team that made an unexpected run to the playoffs during the 2021 season — the organization’s second postseason bid since 2002 — under interim coach Rich Bisaccia and then-GM Mike Mayock, who took over following the in-season resignation of coach Jon Gruden.
Davis said at the time that McDaniels and Ziegler were expected to take the team to the “next step” in its evolution. Instead, the Raiders went a combined 9-16 without a playoff appearance under the new regime, as McDaniels finished his tenure with the third-worst record of any Raiders coach with at least 25 games.

Edited to add: ESPN is now reporting that the Raiders also fired Mick Lombardi, offensive coordinator.

da Bears fired David Walker, running backs coach.

Interestingly, while da Bears stink, the firing apparently wasn’t for that reason, but for unspecified “workplace conduct” issues.

Also interestingly:

Walker is the second coach on Matt Eberflus’ staff to leave in 2023. Defensive coordinator Alan Williams resigned suddenly on Sept. 21 and said he was going to “take care of my health and family.” The Sun-Times later confirmed his departure was related to conduct at Halas Hall.