The annual purge of underperforming NFL head coaches right after the regular season ends, commonly referred to as “Black Monday,” brought four more firings with another big one following Tuesday.
The Raiders’ Pete Carroll, the Falcons’ Raheem Morris, the Cardinals’ Jonathan Gannon and the Browns’ Kevin Stefanski were all let go Sunday night/Monday, with the end of the line coming for John Harbaugh in Baltimore on Tuesday after 18 seasons, a 180-113 record and a Super Bowl championship with the Ravens.
That brings the total of open NFL head coaching jobs to seven after the in-seasons firings of the Titans’ Brian Callahan and the Giants’ Brian Daboll.
There could always be more to come as some teams take longer to evaluate the situation.
None of the four firings Monday came with any surprise, while there had been plenty of speculation about whether the Harbaugh Era had run its course in Baltimore.
Here are some parting thoughts on each.
Analyzing NFL Head Coach Firings
Saddest Outcome
Pete Carroll fired after one season with the Raiders
Carroll really didn’t need to come back after a season away from coaching and a storied career in both the college and NFL ranks, winning national championships at USC and a Super Bowl (nearly two) with the Seattle Seahawks.
All to be the oldest coach in NFL history at 74 years old for the perpetually doomed Raiders?
Carroll went 3-14 in his lone season with Las Vegas — by far the worst record of his 19-year NFL career — but did at least secure the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft for the organization.
He thought he’d get the band back together this year, bringing his former Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith to Las Vegas, but that didn’t work out. Smith passed for 3,025 yards, 19 touchdowns and a league-worst 17 interceptions while tying with Titans QB Cam Ward for the most sacks taken (55).
Carroll and the Raiders also sought to address a rushing attack that ranked dead last in the NFL in 2024 (79.8 yards per game) by spending the 6th overall pick in the draft on Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty. And yet somehow Las Vegas got worse in the run game, again ranking last in the NFL by a wide margin with 77.5 rushing yards per game — 15.6 less than the next-worst team.
It was clear the offensive line was the root of the Raiders’ deepest issues, which was also a tough look for the head coach as he hired his son Brennan Carroll to coach the unit.
Meanwhile, Carroll brought in high-profile offensive coordinator Chip Kelly from Ohio State, making him the highest-paid coordinator in the league at $6 million a year only to fire him after 11 games.
This almost surely will be Carroll’s last head coaching job, and it’s a sad final chapter of a storied career.
Fired HC Who Should Feel Relieved
Fired Browns coach Kevin Stefanski
There’s plenty of reason to think Stefanski is actually a good NFL head coach, who could really succeed (again) in the right situation.
This was not that situation, and he should be relieved to be set free, honestly.
Stefanski spent 14 years with the Minnesota Vikings from 2006-19, working his way up from “assistant to the head coach” to offensive coordinator while building his reputation as an up-and-comer in the coaching ranks. The Browns gave him his first head coaching opportunity, and he responded with immediate success.
It’s easy to forget now with the sideshow the franchise has become (yet again), but in his first season in 2020 Stefanski led the Browns to an 11-5 finish for their first winning season in 13 years, their first playoff appearance in 18 years and their first playoff win in 26 years. He was deservedly named AP NFL Coach of the Year.
After finishes of 8-9 and 7-6 the next two seasons, Stefanski guided the Browns back to the playoffs in 2023 with an 11-6 mark despite cycling through five different starting quarterbacks (Deshaun Watson, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, P.J. Walker, Joe Flacco and Jeff Driskel). Again, Stefanski was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year.
Since the Cleveland Browns returned to the NFL as an expansion team in 1999, Stefanski is the franchise’s winningest coach by a mile in terms of total wins with 45 (Butch Davis and Romeo Crennel are next with 24 each) and also tops in winning percentage at .446 (Gregg Williams had a .625 winning percentage in going 5-3 as interim head coach during the 2018 season).
But he was saddled with arguably the worst quarterback situation in the NFL and went 3-14 and 5-12 in his final two seasons.
The Browns have come to regret trading six draft picks (including three first-round picks) for QB Deshaun Watson (with a sixth-round pick coming back) in the spring of 2022 and consequently trading away QB Baker Mayfield, their former No. 1 overall pick, to the Panthers for a conditional fifth-round pick.
They even more regret (so many regrets) giving Watson — who had already been accused by two dozen women of sexual misconduct during massage sessions and would ultimately be suspended the first 11 games of his Browns debut season — a fully-guaranteed five-year, $230-million contract.
One of the NFL’s top passers while in Houston, Watson was flat-out terrible for the Browns when he did play. After starting the final six games of that 2022 season, Watson played just six games in 2023 before a season-ending shoulder injury and seven games in 2024 before sustaining a torn Achilles tendon. In those seven games last year, the Browns went 1–6 and ranked last in the NFL with 253.9 yards per game.
Overall, Watson has passed for 3,365 yards, 19 TDs and 12 INTs while going 9-10 as the Browns starter. More to the point, his contract has saddled the franchise and precluded it from effectively replacing him, as the team patched together the QB position this year with veteran Joe Flacco (before trading him to Cincinnati) and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.
It would be hard for any coach to succeed with such a situation at QB.
Stefanski doesn’t get a total pass, though. His relationship had reportedly soured with Mayfield, which factored into the decision to move a different direction, though CBS NFL columnist Pete Prisco said it’s his understanding Stefanski was against the decision to invest in Watson.
Maybe that’s true, or maybe it’s convenient timing to now put that out there.
Also, the predominant subplot of this Browns season was weekly questions about Stefanski’s relationship with Sanders and handling of that situation. Even still, the team won its final two games (including an upset of the playoff-chasing Pittsburgh Steelers) and gave up the fourth-fewest yards in the league defensively.
The bottom line is that the Watson trade doomed the Browns with Stefanski becoming collateral damage despite being a two-time NFL Coach of the Year and by far the most successful coach the franchise has had since its return to the NFL.
Stefanski should feel set free.
The Browns will have a hard time hiring a better coach to come into that situation, while there is plenty of Buzz about Stefanski already being a coveted target for other head coach vacancies.
Fired HC Who Won’t Be Out Of Work Long If He’s Ready
Former Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.
This feels somewhat reminiscent to the Eagles parting ways with Andy Reid after 14 seasons, only for him to start a significant (and in his case, even more successful) chapter with the Chiefs.
Harbaugh was in Baltimore even longer — the second-longest-tenured head coach in the league at 18 seasons, behind only Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh — and won a Super Bowl there while having just three losing seasons. That includes the 8-9 mark this year thanks to a missed 44-yard Tyler Loop field goal, otherwise the Ravens would be in the playoffs and who knows what becomes of Harbaugh’s future with the team at that point.
But change doesn’t have to be a bad thing for either side.
The Baltimore Sun reported last week there was a strain in the relationship between Harbaugh and star quarterback Lamar Jackson, which both roundly rejected. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. Either way, a fresh voice might be what Baltimore needs.
Harbaugh’s Super Bowl win with Baltimore was 13 years ago. Since then, they’ve been to the playoffs seven more times but only got past the divisional round once, reaching the AFC championship game two years ago.
Meanwhile, Harbaugh will likely have an opportunity to hop right to another job this cycle like Reid did after getting let go by the Eagles. Or, he can take a year or two off and still have plenty of opportunities, like Bill Cowher for years after he retired from the Steelers.
In a league that gives second chances to the likes of Adam Gase, Hue Jackson and Dennis Allen (among many other questionable retreads), a Super Bowl winning coach with the consistency and high floor that Harbaugh delivered throughout his Ravens tenure will always be in demand.
Fired HC Who Should Have Biggest Regret
Raheem Morris in Atlanta
There’s two ways to look at Raheem Morris’ ouster in Atlanta.
First, it’s hard to mount an aggressive defense that he is the right guy for the job and got a bad break, because quite frankly, he simply hasn’t been a successful NFL head coach over a long sample size now.
He seems to be a solid defensive coordinator (winning a Super Bowl with the Rams), but Morris has just one winning season in six years as a head coach (back in 2010 with Tampa Bay). Between his three-year stints with the Buccaneers and now the Falcons, he’s 37-56 overall, winning 4 or fewer games in half those seasons.
So we’re not saying the Falcons got it wrong here in parting way with Morris after back-to-back 8-9 seasons with a pretty talented roster overall (Bijan Robinson, Drake London, etc.).
But … he would probably still be the head coach entering 2026 if not for the decision to go all-in on young QB Michael Penix Jr. when he proved that he wasn’t fully ready for it.
Now, is that all on Morris or shared blame with general manager Terry Fontenot, who was also fired? Hard to know.
The Falcons gave then-soon-to-be 36-year-old veteran QB Kirk Cousins a four-year, $180-million contract in the 2024 offseason only to draft Penix with the No. 8 overall pick that spring. Cousins struggled last season, passing for 3,508 yards, 18 TDs and 16 INTs in 14 games before he was benched.
Penix finished out his rookie season as the starter, going 1-2 and finishing with 3 TDs and 3 INTs overall (plus a rushing TD) and a meager 58.1% completion rate, tossing a pick in each of his starts. Despite the mixed results, the Falcons went all in on Penix as the unquestioned starter for 2025 with Cousins the most expensive backup QB in the league.
Well, Penix went 3-7 as a starter this year before a season-ending torn ACL, throwing just 9 TDs (but also only 3 INTs) in the nine and a half games he played as the Falcons talent-rich offense lagged with just 18.4 points per game in his nine full games.
In seven starts the rest of the way, Cousins went 5-2 — including four straight wins to end the season, with an upset over the Rams — despite playing without the team’s star receiver London for much of that stretch. During that four-game winning streak, Cousins accounted for 8 TDs (including 1 rushing) and 2 INTs and was at least efficient and capable in moving the offense.
The Falcons finished one win short of the playoffs. Would they be in the postseason right now — and would Morris still have his job — if Cousins had started the whole season?
That’s a question Morris will have to sit with, and again, it’s unclear whether going all in on Penix was a mandate from above or his own decision.
Most Uninteresting Fired Coach
Former Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon
What is there to say about Gannon’s Cardinals tenure other than he wasn’t the right guy for the job?
Gannon went 4-13, 8-9 and 3-14 in three seasons in Arizona for a 15-36 record.
It can’t even be said that he was building momentum with that 8-9 finish last year as the Cardinals still finished three games out of a playoff spot and lost five of their final seven games after a 6-4 start.
Basically, his tenure never quite took off.
It didn’t help this fall that QB Kyler Murray sustained a Week 5 foot injury that would keep him out the rest of the season despite initial expectations he’d return at some point. But, quarterback wasn’t even the problem for the Cardinals as backup Jacoby Brissett passed for 3,366 yards, 23 TDs and 8 INTs.
The problem was that the Cardinals’ defense gave up 28.7 points per game (fourth-worst in the NFL) despite Gannon being a defensive coach.
After a 2-0 start, the Cardinals lost 14 of their final 15 games, including nine straight to end it. Unlike Stefanski or Morris, whose teams played mostly competitive to the end while closing the season strong, Arizona was listless down the stretch, losing its final five games by an average of 19 points.
Gannon was hired after two years as defensive coordinator of the Eagles, contributing to the 2022 Philadelphia team that lost the Super Bowl to the Chiefs.
He spent just five years as a full-fledged NFL assistant, including three coaching the defensive backs for the Colts, after working his way up as a quality control assistant with the Falcons and Titans and an assistant DBs coach with the Vikings.
Ultimately, Gannon may well just not have been ready to be a head coach.
