‘Black Monday’ Kind Of a Let Down

BY ADAM GREENE

As someone who loves to see grown men getting paid millions for doing a job poorly get their just desserts, the NFL’s so-called “Black Monday” was kind of a bummer. With two jobs already open (Washington Redskins and Carolina Panthers), we expected a veritable bloodbath Monday. Instead, what we’ve gotten is measured responses, no shocks and no overreactions.
What’s happened to this league? Where’s the panic button? We’re the franchise-saving desperation move?

The fact is, we only had two firings Sunday night/Monday morning. Freddie Kitchens of the Cleveland Browns and Pat Shurmur of the New York Giants were both sent down the railroad with their hobo bindles as they rightly should have been.

But, after that, nobody?

Jerry Jones and his present head coach Jason Garrett are reportedly having a “second meeting” Tuesday about his job. A meeting about what? How quickly Garrett can clean out his desk? If this isn’t a Bill Murray – Bobcat Goldthwait Scrooged “Code 9” situation, then what the hell is Jones doing? People talk about Jones being a difficult guy to work for and this being a job nobody wants, but I don’t see it. Look at how he’s agonizing over firing Garrett. You think that’s a tough dude to punch a time card for? A man that’s struggling to justify firing Jason effing Garrett?

It’s going to happen because it has to. But even that’s not a shocker.
Guys that should have gotten canned, Dan Quinn in Atlanta and Matt Patricia in Detroit all got last-minute reprieves from the governor. Anthony Lynn’s name was never mentioned as even being in danger with the Los Angeles Chargers and no one, not a soul, cared.

Other guys that have no business being a head coach in the NFL Mike McCarthy-ed their way into the playoffs thanks to superior rosters and each will flame out immediately, as they always do. I’m looking at you Bill O’Brien and Mike Vrabel.

Shad Khan seems to be holding off on firing Doug Marrone just because he’s pissed that it got leaked that he was going to Sunday. And here’s the thing. I’m not sure he should fire Marrone. Yeah. I wrote that. Like Adam Gase in New York, he’s been dealt this hand from a previous regime. He might have a quarterback, he might not. But I don’t think he’s a bad coach.

If Jon Gruden had any other name, any other owner and a sane contract, he would have been fired after this season. The Oakland Raiders have been flaming garbage scow all of 2019, literally beginning in the offseason when they unleashed a series of moves that defined the final year of their franchise’s stint in Northern California. The only way it would have been worse is if they HADN’T cut Antonio Brown. Jay Gruden, like Lynn and Vrabel, had no business being an NFL head coach in the first place so the fact he hung on the Redskins’ back like an engorged tick for so long is an indictment of Dan Snyder, again, as the owner. To fight the reputation he’d garnered for firing guys too quickly in the past, Snyder rode the team right into the cesspool with Gruden.

The second guy fired, Ron Rivera, shouldn’t have been fired at all and if the Panthers don’t nail his replacement, that’s the end of them as a competing franchise for the next half decade. Rivera, as I was writing this, was officially hired by Redskins and, for the first time since bringing in Mike Shanahan, Snyder will have a competent NFL head coach at the head of his team.

The Cowboys were a natural fit for Rivera and, frankly, this is what Jerry Jones gets for dragging his feet. Or, it might be what keeps Garrett a job, giving Cowboys fans just one more reason to hate the Redskins.

Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter!

BetOnline.ag on Instagram–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!