The 2025-26 NFL regular season has officially concluded. For some teams, it means the chance to compete in the postseason and fight for a Super Bowl. For others, it means the chance to tear it all down, and for the latter teams, Black Monday exists.
For those unfamiliar, Black Monday refers to the first day after the end of the NFL regular season. It’s usually on this day that teams coming off disappointing seasons choose to fire their head coaches or general managers, giving them a start on their search for new candidates.
A couple of big moves were made long before Black Monday. Head coaches Brian Callahan and Brian Daboll got fired midseason by the Tennessee Titans and New York Giants, respectively. Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier got canned in the middle of the year, too.
So far, there have been five significant firings to come after the end of the season: four head coaches and one general manager. Let’s grade each of the biggest moves to come out of Black Monday for the 2026 NFL offseason.
Cleveland Browns HC Kevin Stefanski
It feels unfair to make Kevin Stefanski the scapegoat of the Cleveland Browns’ failures. The two-time NFL Coach of the Year has dealt with plenty of adversity. Odell Beckham Jr. regressed quickly, Nick Chubb missed most of 2023 and 2024 due to injury, and his general manager added just two starters in the draft from 2022 to 2024.
The biggest mistake of all, though, was the Browns trading for Deshaun Watson and signing him to a fully guaranteed contract extension. Not only did they have to give up significant draft capital for him, but Watson played so poorly that his unmovable contract ranks as arguably the worst in NFL history.
With the Browns winning just eight games in the last two seasons, one could say a divorce between the two sides might be best. However, Stefanski is a good NFL head coach who got dealt a horrible hand. He should easily get a head coaching job in this cycle if he chooses to take one.
GRADE: D+
Arizona Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon
Heading into 2025, things looked pretty encouraging for Jonathan Gannon and the Arizona Cardinals. After going 4-13 in his first year as the team’s head coach, the Cardinals bounced back in 2024 with an 8-9 record. With an active free agency and a defensive-minded draft, they projected as playoff contenders going into the new season.
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In the end, the only thing they contended for was the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Gannon was a victim of Black Monday after a combined record of 15-36 as Arizona’s head coach. A former defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles, his supposed strength didn’t translate this year: the Cardinals’ defense had the fifth-lowest Defense Impact grade in the league.
The Cardinals kept many games competitive, but they failed to finish consistently. They went 2-8 in one-score games, notably losing five close games in a row from Weeks 3 through 7. They seemingly gave up down the stretch under Gannon, too; in their nine-game losing streak to end the year, six of them came down three scores or more.
GRADE: A
Las Vegas Raiders HC Pete Carroll
The Las Vegas Raiders will be looking for their fourth head coach in as many seasons after firing Pete Carroll on Monday. He finished his lone season with the team with a 3-14 record, finishing with the third-worst point differential in the NFL and the fewest points scored of all 32 teams in the league.
Carroll, 74, was brought in to establish a culture of winning in the Raiders’ organization. He was likely always going to be a short-term hire, considering he became the oldest active head coach in NFL history this season. However, few could’ve anticipated that his tenure with the team would be this short, much less that it would result in a worse record than in 2024.
As a two-time college national champion, a Super Bowl champion, and a head coach with 12 playoff appearances to his name, there’s no denying the incredible legacy Carroll has as a football coach. That said, he was a bad fit with the Raiders from the very start of the year. It was a no-brainer to let him go.
GRADE: A
Atlanta Falcons HC Raheem Morris
Despite winning their final four games in the 2025-26 NFL season, the Atlanta Falcons still decided to fire head coach Raheem Morris. He didn’t even make it to Black Monday, as he got canned mere hours after playing in the Saints’ final game of the regular season.
In just two seasons as the Falcons’ head coach, Morris went a combined 16-18. Both of those seasons resulted in 8-9 records. In 2024, they started hot but ended the year on a cold streak. This season, though, it was practically the opposite. A tough stretch losing seven of their eight games between October and the start of December prevented them from making the playoffs, but they bounced back with a four-game winning streak.
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The timing of the move made it seem like the Falcons knew they were firing Morris from the start, and that he never stood a chance, even with his hot finish to the year. Two years is a short tenure for an NFL head coach, and Atlanta was never bad with him at the helm. They were never great with him, either, but this feels like it might be one year premature.
GRADE: C+
Atlanta Falcons GM Terry Fontenot
The Falcons made another big move before Black Monday kicked off, firing general manager Terry Fontenot on Sunday night. The firing ends his five-year tenure as the team’s GM, and he finished with a cumulative 37-48 record, falling short of the .500 mark each season.
There were plenty of good draft picks that Fontenot made during his time in charge of the Falcons. Players like Bijan Robinson, Drake London, James Pearce Jr., and Jalon Walker give the new general manager a solid young nucleus to work with.
However, the Falcons’ inability to get over the hump in Fontenot’s half-decade with the team means the writing was on the wall. Morris’ firing as head coach makes more sense when you consider Atlanta didn’t want to force their new GM to take on a carry-over head coach.
Perhaps most notably, the Falcons’ bungling at quarterback in 2024 is the big move that many will use to define Fontenot’s tenure with the team. Paying Kirk Cousins $180 million over four years, only to turn around and take Michael Penix Jr. in Round 1 of the 2024 NFL Draft, was a major surprise. It hasn’t worked out, either: Cousins ended up getting benched, and Penix ranked just 30th in QB Impact this year.
GRADE: B
