Bears head coach Marc Trestman doesn’t have a winning season in two years with the team, but he does have some of the worst defenses in team history to his name.
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Cleveland Browns vs Baltimore Ravens – Connor Shaw gets the start for Browns as Hoyer, Manziel and Josh Gordon sit San Diego Chargers vs Kansas City Chiefs – Chargers play Chiefs with playoff berth on the line New York Jets vs Miami Dolphins – Rex Ryan coaches his final game for the Jets
Black Monday: The Monday after the end of the NFL regular season when team ownership cleans house and gets rid of head coaches and executives that haven’t made the playoffs often enough.
This year the pendulum is expected to swing with a little less frequency than in years past (especially with a rather poor selection of high-quality candidates available) but there are still more than enough coaches to make the offseason very interesting for a number of NFL teams.
The list of coaches could get much bigger or much smaller depending on what options become available. Certainly the Atlanta Falcons are expected to fire Mike Smith if the Falcons miss the playoffs, by the same token the Dolphins elected to retain Joe Philbin even though his Dolphins missed the playoffs for the third straight season. Anything is possible come Black Monday but there are some names that are simply gone no matter what happens.
Here are the five head coaches who will be out of a job come Monday December 29th:
Rex Ryan, New York Jets – Six seasons filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows have given the Jets no choice but to let go of the bombastic head coach. His legacy among Jets fans will be mixed, but no one will deny that he took them higher than anyone expected with an offense more putrid than many teams have ever had. Nonetheless, his inability to develop a young QB has been his downfall, and the offseason mistakes of his GM John Idzik have caused him to fall on the sword for the team.
Marc Trestman, Chicago Bears – In many ways the anti-Rex Ryan: a soft-spoken offensive genius who gets no production from his defense, Trestman wore out his welcome in Chicago with repeated embarrassments in prime time and the failure of QB Jay Cutler to develop into a franchise QB – a failure that has also nuked Chicago’s cap room after they gave him a massive contract extension. Trestman will take the fall and may not get another head coaching job for a long time.
Jim Harbaugh, San Francisco 49ers – Despite owning one of the best regular season records in NFL history, Jim Harbaugh has worn out his welcome in San Francisco and his alma mater Michigan has come calling (with a large bag of money to boot). Maybe Harbaugh will return to the NFL in the future for a team that’s willing to pony up enough cash to pull him away from the celebrity of Michigan, but for now he’ll be back in the college ranks.
Tony Sparano, Oakland Raiders – The Raiders’ interim coach since Dennis Allen was fired in late-September, Sparano has done a better job than many were anticipating by reaching 3 wins in the last five weeks, with two of them coming against former playoff teams. But Sparano is not the answer at head coach, but will still likely find himself as a top candidate for a high-ranking assistant job with another team.
Doug Marrone, Buffalo Bills – This one is a bit of a sleeper, but after squandering a great start to the season despite one of the best defensive performances in back-to-back week in recent memory, the new Bills ownership will likely be looking for a change and will be looking for someone else who can either groom QB EJ Manuel into a starter or build around a new young QB.
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