NFL 2025 Black Monday Coach Firing Predictions
Happy New Year. You’re history. Happy Hanukkah. Clean out your desk. Merry Christmas. You’re fired. The NFL coaching carousel is about to spin like a dreidel. The NFL is a cold place in losing environments. The annual ritual of firing coaches on Black Monday is a long-established NFL tradition. As retired coach Jerry Glanville used to say, the NFL stands for “Not For Long.”
Thankfully, Black Monday now comes past the holiday season, allowing coaches to enjoy time with their families. The pink-slips come afterward.
This season’s NFL 2025 Black Monday Coach Firing Carousel:
The 2025 regular season coaching carousel saw two coaches fired during the season. The Tennessee Titans fired Brian Callahan. The New York Giants fired Brian Daboll. More changes will come Black Monday.
A time to fire: Rules of the Black Monday coach firing ritual
Owners can fire any employee they want whenever they want, but that does not mean they should. There are certain unwritten rules that owners should consider before firing (or not) NFL coaches on Black Monday.
Never fire a coach after a winning season. No matter how badly the team underachieves, some teams would kill to go 9-8.
Do not fire a coach unless it is absolutely definite that a better replacement option exists.
Do not fire a coach after one season unless there is zero hope for improvement. Bill Parcells won only three games in his first season as an NFL head coach. Jimmy Johnson won one game. Tom Landry won zero games and tied one.
Do not fire a coach after two losing seasons if they had four or five winning seasons prior. Allow two or even three bad seasons if the coach has the ability to turn things around.
If a coach has won a Super Bowl for you, leave him alone for a few years.
If he has won two Super Bowls for you in non-consecutive years, give him a lifetime contract.
Lastly, if it is a close call, give the coach one more year.
With that, here are the NFL 2025 Black Monday Coach Firing predictions.
Black Monday firings that are necessary:
New York Giants: Mike Kafka
What should happen:
Mike Kafka is just a placeholder. The Giants may go for a big name. The team needs a quarterback whisperer who will unleash Jaxson Dart.
What will happen:
Kafka is gone.
Tennessee Titans: Mike McCoy
What should happen: Mike McCoy is also just a placeholder. The Titans need to develop rookie quarterback Cam Ward. This team also needs a quarterback whisperer.
What will happen: McCoy is gone.
Arizona Cardinals: Jonathan Gannon
What should happen: In 3 years, Gannon has gone 15-35. That is just terrible. While Kyler Murray has been injured, the Cardinals have made no improvements since Gannon took over.
What will happen: Gannon is gone-on.
Deserve to stay but will be fired:.
Pete Carroll: The Raiders have no offensive line and a quarterback in Geno Smih who makes too many dumb decisions. The big issue is the offensive line. It takes time to build a roster. Pete Carroll is a proven winner. Based on his entire body of work, he deserves better. Sadly, the Raiders keep recycling coaches in a never-ending rebuild. Forget Tom Brady. He can either be an announcer or an active de facto general manager, but not both. It would be utterly foolish to make Carroll the fool guy, but the Raiders have been foolish for far too long.
Deserve to stay and will stay:
New York Jets: Aaron Glenn: Again, it takes time to build a roster. The Jets need a quarterback and more. Aaron Glenn is a Bill Parcells disciple. Parcells won 3 games in his first season before becoming a legend. Aaron Glenn is a leader of men. It would be a terrible mistake to saddle him with a terrible roster and t hen throw him under the bus. Woody Johnson is a fairly patient owner. Glenn will survive.
Miami Dolphins: Mike McDaniel: This innovator has not forgotten how to coach. His offense hung a whopping 70 points on a good Denver team last year. Tua Tagovailoa has regressed, but much of that is due to injuries. McDaniel wanted to give Quinn Ewers a shot, and the team was vindicated by that decision.Tagovailoa will be gone after the season. Stephen Ross should realize that his coach is not the problem. Give the Dolphins a speedy wide receiver to replace or complement Tyreek Hill. The team has not quit on him, so he should survive.
Could go either way:
Cleveland Browns: Kevin Stefanski
What should happen: He ended the Browns curse by going into Pittsburgh and whipping them in the playoffs before barely falling to Kansas City. Then the ownership ran Baker mayfield out of town and brought in Deshaun Watson. Now they are saddled with Shedeur Sanders. While sanders is not Spergin Wynn or Johnny Manziel, he is not Otto Graham either. The Browns have a slid defense. Wit better quarterback play, they can be competitive.
What will happen: Flip a coin. In a close call, give the coach one more year. Yet Jimmy Haslam might throw Stefanski under the bus to take the heat off of his own bumbling as owner.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Todd Bowles:
This may seem odd given that the Buccaneers have a shot at winning their fifth straight NFC South Championship. Todd Bowles is a very good defensive coordinator. Yet this year his offense collapsed after a 6-2 start. The problem is Bowles wins just enough games to survive but does not seem to be able to get a team with talent to the next level. This Buccaneers team is loaded on offense, and they have regressed since Bruce airman’s retired so Bowles could take over. Keep in mind that the division is terrible, so wining it is not much of an accomplishment.
What will happen:
If the Buccaneers make the playoffs, Bowles isn’t going anywhere. If the Buccaneers collapse against a weak Carolina team in their finale and miss the playoffs, his ground might be shakier. He may be gone next year unless he can finally make a deep playoff run with a talented roster, but that should have been this year.
Cincinnati Bengals: Zac Taylor: Taylor keeps getting a free pass due to injuries to Joe Burrow. To be fair, a stubborn refusal to invest in a good offensive line falls on ownership. Yet Taylor may have worn out his welcome by squandering some of Burrow’s years. Burrow is entering his prime. With a healthy Burrow, the Bengals are explosive on offense. The defense is not what it was in past year.Owner Mike Brown is a notorious cheapskate, so he may keep Taylor out of expediency. With a healthy Burrow next year and Kansas City possibly on the decline, the Bengals will be out of excuses. Taylor may get some sympathy for holding a roster without Burrow together, but next year the Bengals have to make a deep playoff run for him to continue.
Give them lifetime contracts:
Pittsburgh Steelers: Mike Tomlin
The man has never had a losing season.
Baltimore: John Harbaugh:
He overcame a 1-5 start due to a team wracked by injuries, including Lamar Jackson.
Both of these coaches face a do or die regular season finale. The loser misses the playoffs. Either way, both the Rooneys and steve Bisciotti should thank the football gods that they lucked into the platinum standard of coaches. Players come and go and these guys keep winning. Just sign them to lifetime contracts and be done with it. The Steelers fans who grumble about Tomlin need their heads examined.
eric