Seven coaches and five general managers were fired Monday in a flurry of pink slips that were delivered the day after the regular-season ended.
There could be more, but so far the sent-packing scorecard looks like this:
Andy Reid in Philadelphia, Lovie Smith in Chicago, and Ken Whisenhunt in Arizona, all coaches who took teams to the Super Bowl, Norv Turner in San Diego, former Browns coach Romeo Crennel in Kansas City, Chan Gailey in Buffalo along with Pat Shurmur in Cleveland.
Three teams made it a clean sweep, saying goodbye to the GM along with the coach — San Diego, Cleveland, Arizona. General managers also were fired in Jacksonville and in New York, where Rex Ryan held onto his coaching job with the Jets despite a losing record.
Reid was the longest tenured of the coaches, removed after 14 seasons and a Super Bowl appearance in 2005 — a loss to New England.
Smith spent nine seasons with the Bears, leading them to the 2007 Super Bowl — a loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
Turner has been fired as coach by three teams. San Diego won the AFC West from 2006-09, but didn’t make the postseason the last three years.
Whisenhunt was fired after six seasons, including taking the Cardinals to a Super Bowl loss to Pittsburgh after the 2008 season. He had more wins than any other coach in Cardinals history, going 45-51, and has one year worth about $5.5 million left on his contract. GM Rod Graves had been with Arizona for 16 years, nine in his current position. A 5-11 record after a 4-0 start cost him and Whisenhunt their jobs.
Gailey was dumped after three seasons with the Bills, and Crennel had one full season with the Chiefs.
Reid took over a 3-13 Eagles team in 1999, drafted Donovan McNabb with the No. 2 overall pick and quickly turned the franchise into a contender.
He led them to a run of four consecutive NFC championship games, a streak that ended with a trip to the NFL title game. But the team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2008 and after last season’s 8-8 finish, owner Jeffrey Lurie said he was looking for improvement this year. Instead, it was even worse. The Eagles finished 4-12.
Crennel took over with three games left in the 2011 season after GM Scott Pioli fired Todd Haley. Kansas City will have the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft as a result of having one of the worst seasons in its 53-year history.
Gailey was 16-32 in his three seasons in Buffalo.
Smith and the Bears went 10-6 this season and just missed a playoff spot. But Chicago started 7-1 and has struggled to put together a productive offense throughout his tenure. He was 81-63 with the Bears.
The fired GMs included Mike Tannenbaum of the Jets; Gene Smith of the Jaguars; A.J. Smith of the Chargers and Graves of Arizona.
Chiefs lineman retires
Veteran offensive lineman Ryan Lilja, who helped block for Peyton Manning during the Colts’ Super Bowl-winning 2006 season, announced his retirement Monday.
Lilja said he was going to “hang it up” after the Kansas City Chiefs finished a 2-14 season with a 38-3 loss to the Denver Broncos on Sunday. Lilja had played guard his entire career until injuries along the Chiefs’ line forced him to play center most of this season.
Doty ruling favors NFL
In probably his last NFL-related ruling, U.S. District Judge David Doty sided with the league this time. The NFL Players Association’s claim of collusion by league owners was rejected on Monday by Doty, who has previously sided with the players during more than two decades of judging NFL labor matters.
