The Arizona Cardinals, the Cleveland Browns, and the Las Vegas Raiders all have something in common. As of recently, Kevin Stefanski, Pete Carroll, and Jonathan Gannon were all fired during early January 2026. But why is this? Well, it’s all thanks to Black Monday.
Black Monday is a notable day in the NFL campaign, where head coaches of NFL teams are fired and laid off. This usually happens because these teams didn’t make the playoffs, so teams who underperformed and didn’t make the cut fire their head coaches to get a fresh start for drafts. This tradition stemmed from an event during the early 1990s, when several college football teams fired their coaches for the same reason most NFL teams fired their coaches. This phrase only became memorable during 1998, when the Associated Press, New York, and Houston Chronicle all used the phrase “Black Monday” in their headlines after the season ended.
Black Monday has a major impact on the NFL campaign because so many coaching and assistant positions open up allowing a competitive hiring cycle for each candidate. Not only that, but throughout the regular season, coaches face pressure and urgency. Coaches with losing records often face speculation regarding their job security.
Although this may seem like a small issue, this tradition can be controversial. The layoffs of major NFL coaches and assistants affects their income in many ways. Being an NFL coach is considered “high risk, high reward” because of the lack of job security within the position, many coaches face stress with performance in the position.
This Black Monday firing tradition can also be considered controversial because many coaches are fired immediately and don’t get the chance to build a team. Many people criticize how coaches are laid off and do not have enough time for either success or to build a team, even if it’s a recently hired coach. On the other hand, it is also deemed necessary to be a part of the league, as many teams aim for improvement and both a fresh and ahead start for the next season.
The most recent coaches and general managers who were fired during Black Monday in 2026 include Raheem Morris, John Harbaugh, Mike McDaniel, and many more. But these aren’t the only people who were laid off. In more recent years, people who were fired on Black Monday in 2021 included two coaches, Anthony Lynn of the Chargers and Doug Marrone of the Jaguars. As of currently, Anthony Lynn is a running backs coach and run game coordinator for the Washington Commanders.
As mentioned earlier, Kevin Stefanski was one of the coaches fired during Black Monday this year. He was head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 2020-2025, where he was awarded the title NFL coach twice. After he was let off, he found a job coaching the Atlanta Falcons right after he was let go.
Many coaches who were fired during Black Monday are doing well as of right now, due to many other positions opening up on other teams within the NFL. The whole tradition is to cycle through coaches to get a head start on the upcoming season. Currently, there are no known coaches who have gone unpaid after being terminated from their positions on an NFL team.
Black Monday will always be a notorious day in the NFL campaign, and it’s safe to say it’s not ending any time soon.
