Sports Time Radio

The Monday after the NFL regular season ends has come to be known a “Black Monday”. It’s become the day when NFL teams fire their head coach.

This season we had the Washington Redskins and the Carolina Panthers fire their head coach during the season. In an interesting twist Carolina’s former head coach Ron Rivera was hired by the Redskins to be their new head coach. What was a bit surprising was their where only two coaches fired on Monday; well technically one was fired Sunday night. On Monday the New York Giants decided to move on from their head coach Pat Shurmur after two seasons. On Sunday night after what can only be described as a disappointing season the Cleveland Browns fired head coach Freddie Kitchens after just one season. Kitchens was informed by the Browns Sunday night after they returned from their Week 17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals that he would be retained. The Browns are not only moving on from Kitchens, but yesterday they decided to make a change at general manager after two seasons.

Now there was also a report out there that the Jacksonville Jaquars would be making a head coaching change, but not it’s being reported that Jacksonville will be keeping Doug Marrone as their head coach. After Jacksonville fired Executive Vice President of Football Operations Tom Coughlin it appeared a though Marrone would also be let go, but the team announced that Marrone would be staying on as head coach. While Marrone is going to return you have to think that he’ll be on the hot seat as the 2020 season starts.

Now will still waiting to see what the Dallas Cowboys are going to do. It seems that after a disappointing 8-8 season the Cowboys would move on from their head coach Jason Garrett, but no announcement has been made. Garrett has met with Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones these last couple of days, but it appears as though nothing has been decided. 

Garrett has been the Cowboys head coach since taking over for Wade Phillips on an interim basis in 2010. He’s went 85-67 as their head coach, but he’s taken the team to just three playoff appearances in his 9 plus seasons on the job.

You have to wonder what the hold up in Dallas is. Jones does have a personal relationship with Garrett who also played for the Cowboys from 1993-1999; so maybe that’s making it tough on Jones. Then there’s just another part of me that sad Jones is enjoying the media attention. Any time there’s an NFL story reported on the Cowboys are the first thing they talk about even though the league is headed into wild card weekend. It’s clear that Jones loves being a media personality and with this going on the media wants to talk to him everyday. Remember Jones is the only owner/general manager that has a weekly radio show; so it wouldn’t be a surprise to me that Jones is stretching this out just to get a little more media attention on himself. Since there aren’t that many coaching vacancies this off season a stunt like this won’t really hurt Jones if he just trying to draw a little more attention to himself.

So now that we have these openings; who’s going to fill them? No surprise that we’re already hearing some names. Josh McDaniels the New England Patriots offensive coordinator is a very popular choice for teams. Eric Bieniemy who is the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator is another name that multiple teams have mentioned as wanting to interview. Former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy is also a name that has been mentioned with a couple of these openings. Then there are the college coaches that will be looked at for these openings. Matt Rhule of Baylor has a history with the Giants and has also been mentioned by Carolina as someone they want to interview. Lincoln Riley of Oklahoma is also a name will hear quite a bit; just like last off season. Urban Meyer’s name has also been mentioned, but only in association with the Cowboys.

I’m sure there will be some other names that come out as teams get eliminated from the playoffs. With just 4 actual coaching openings it will be interesting to see how quickly these teams act in hiring a new head coach.

After going 12-4 in 2018 there was a lot of excitement heading into the 2019 season and there was a lot of hype locally about them going to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately most of those people forgot that the Bears played one of the easier schedules in 2018 and they prospered from it. Heading into the 2019 season the Bears schedule would be much tougher and it showed in their record. The Bears couldn’t come anywhere close to living up to expectations as they struggled just to finish 8-8. It took a 21-19 victory over the Minnesota Vikings second stringers in Week 17to get the Bears to .500.

Not surprisingly after a down season there was a lot of outcry from the fans and media to make changes. Interestingly when it comes to the Bears there weren’t as many people calling for a head coaching change. It’s a quarterback change that they wanted.

I guess these stories must’ve found their way into the Bears front office as yesterday their general manager Ryan Pace came out and said that Mitchell Trubisky will be the Bears unquestioned starter in 2020. Pace shot down any talk of their being a quarterback competition in training camp next season and also mentioned that they won’t be bringing in another quarterback which means Chase Daniels should be the back up.

Now it shouldn’t be a shock that Pace has come out behind Trubisky. Pace is the general manager that traded up one spot to select Trubisky with the 2nd pick of the 2017 draft passing on the likes of Patrick Mahomes and  Deshaun Watson.

No the Bears did make some changes, but it was to the coaching staff as they fired four assistant coaches. Offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, tight ends coach Kevin Gilbride and assistant special teams coach Brock Olivo where all let go.

Will have to see if these changes make any difference at all for the Bears next season, but head coach Matt Nagy calls the plays on offense; so it’s difficult to see anything being different.

We’ve been off for the holidays at Sports Time Radio, but will be back starting this Friday January 3rd. You can listen to us live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but the podcast is also available for you to listen to at TuneIn.com.

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

Have a Happy New Year