Fourteen NFL teams are still playing for the Lombardi Trophy, but the other 18 teams have moved on to the offseason. The first step in that process began with Black Monday when numerous teams decided to move on or stick with their current head coaches and coordinators.
While the true winners and losers won’t be known for years, it’s not too early to pass judgment on the outlook for different coaches and teams after Black Monday. Here are the most notable winners and losers that stand out from the early coaching process.
Early Winners From the 2025 Coaching Carousel
Mike Vrabel
One of the bigger surprises from last season’s coaching carousel was Mike Vrabel failing to land a job. After leading the Tennessee Titans to a 54-45 record and three consecutive playoff appearances between 2019-21, Vrabel had to settle for a role as a coaching and personnel consultant with the Cleveland Browns for the 2024 season.
However, Vrabel’s contract with the Browns shrewdly expired before Week 18, allowing him to get a jump on other coaching candidates for interviews. Consequently, Vrabel looks like the surest bet to land a job in this coaching cycle. He’s already completed an interview with the New York Jets, has one scheduled with the Chicago Bears, and is reportedly the preferred choice for the New England Patriots’ job.
The only question at this point is how much control Vrabel will be able to bargain for with multiple employers bidding for his services. One of the disagreements that reportedly caused a rift with Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk was Vrabel’s desire for personnel control. It’s unclear if Vrabel still desires that at his next stop, but he certainly has the clout.
Trent Baalke
With the Jacksonville Jaguars stumbling to a 4-13 record after owner Shad Khan called the team “the best assembled” in franchise history, head coach Doug Pederson was an obvious goner. While Pederson didn’t lose his job midseason as many expected, he was the first head coaching casualty on Monday after the season.
Nevertheless, Khan chose to keep general manager Trent Baalke, the architect of the roster he loved so much. The Jaguars formally announced Monday that Baalke would return for a fifth season as the Jaguars’ GM. This means he’ll get the opportunity to pick a third coach after hiring Urban Meyer in 2021 and Pederson in 2022.
A GM lasting through multiple coaching changes is not particularly common, especially when one of them fails as catastrophically as Meyer did. For whatever reason, Baalke seems to have a knack as a survivor: he was able to hire three head coaches with the San Francisco 49ers as well (Jim Harbaugh, Jim Tomsula, Chip Kelly) before finally getting the axe.
That history suggests that Baalke could be on his last chance. However, the Jaguars also loom as one of the more desirable coaching opportunities with tons of offensive talent, the ninth-most salary cap space of any team this offseason, and a premium draft pick. If Baalke can land one of the hot offensive coordinator candidates to help get Trevor Lawrence’s career back on track, he could preserve his job for years to come.
2025 Cleveland Browns Starting QB
The 2024 season was disastrous even by the very low standards of the Cleveland Browns. The Browns were the worst offense by virtually any metric you look at. In PFN’s Offense+ rankings, Cleveland graded out as the fourth-worst offense since 2019 and the worst of 2024.
Nevertheless, head coach Kevin Stefanski retained his job for 2025. With the Browns securing the second overall pick, Cleveland can theoretically move on from its QB mess of 2024 by drafting either Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward, the consensus top two quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL Draft.
As poorly as 2024 reflects on Stefanski, he’s a two-time Coach of the Year for a reason. The Browns were the 10th-ranked scoring offense in 2023 despite horrendous play from Deshaun Watson and 38-year-old Joe Flacco starting six games (including playoffs).
Cleveland was also the seventh-ranked offense in Offense+ during Stefanski’s first season in 2020 when they went 11-5 and saw a revived Baker Mayfield lead the team to its first playoff win since 1994.
Under Stefanski, the Browns have been a competent offense when the pieces are even remotely functional. While he’ll be under pressure to improve in 2025, a rookie quarterback could do far worse than joining an environment with Stefanski, Jerry Jeudy, David Njoku, and a veteran offensive line that should be healthier in 2025.
Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard
Unlike many coaches and GMs with uncertain outlooks, Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard didn’t have to squirm for long. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay reaffirmed his commitment to both for 2025 on Sunday night, ending any suspense about their job security.
While the Colts have plenty of questions themselves, they get the benefit of playing in what could be the worst division in 2025. The Houston Texans won the division as the only over-.500 team but have major problems at pass catcher and offensive line that cloud their outlook as well.
This gives Steichen and Ballard another opportunity to invest in the supporting cast around Anthony Richardson to try and accelerate his development. Richardson is still effectively a rookie in terms of experience, having started 15 games and thrown a total of 348 passes. If he can take a step forward in 2025, that could be all Steichen and Ballard need to stay in Indianapolis long-term.
Offensive Coordinator Candidates
One truism in NFL coaching searches is that teams typically hire the opposite of what they just fired. In this case, four of the five current head coach openings are from teams that had coaches with defensive backgrounds (Jets, New Orleans Saints, Bears, and Patriots).
Thus, candidates with an offensive background should be a hot commodity again after four of the seven coaches hired last cycle had defensive backgrounds. Among the reported head coaching interviews so far, 22 have offensive backgrounds and 15 have defensive backgrounds.
Clearly, the likes of Ben Johnson and Liam Coen will be popular names, but even more surprising candidates like Matt Nagy, Bobby Slowik, and Mike Kafka have gotten interviews. Apart from Vrabel and perhaps Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, it would be a mild surprise to see a defensive-minded coach get hired (unless owners choose to overlook Brian Flores’ active lawsuit against the league).
Early Losers From 2025 Coaching Carousel
New York Giants
The New York Giants made one of the more surprising decisions of the week, retaining both head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen for the 2025 season. However, owner John Mara sounded as though he was at the end of his rope when discussing both Daboll and Schoen’s job security.
Frankly, it’s almost never productive to retain a coach and general manager with this short of a leash. For a recent parallel, consider the case of the 2021 Bears. The Bears had a surprising playoff appearance in Matt Nagy’s first season in 2018 but strung together two straight disappointing years that had many expecting the team to move on from Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace.
Instead, Nagy and Pace were given an extra year, leading to the team drafting first-round quarterback Justin Fields. Injecting a young quarterback into a dysfunctional system resulted in a 6-11 record, both Nagy and Pace being fired, and Fields failing to develop amid a toxic environment with too much turnover.
Like that Bears duo, Daboll and Schoen surprisingly led a playoff team in Year 1 of their Giants tenure in 2022 but have disappointed in back-to-back years since. If Mara is really this frustrated with Daboll and Schoen and seemingly willing to pull the plug early in 2025, delaying that choice only serves as a further setback to the Giants’ perpetual rebuild.
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins posted their first losing season since 2019, but it sounds as though everything will be status quo for 2025. Miami is retaining head coach Mike McDaniel and Chris Grier. It also doesn’t seem as though major coaching staff changes abound, though special teams coordinator Danny Crossman could be in dicey shape after the Dolphins finished bottom-10 in special teams EPA for the fourth straight year.
However, the status quo may not be ideal for an 8-9 team that had the fourth-oldest roster in 2024, per Spotrac. The Dolphins have proven to be wholly inflexible, with well-defined weaknesses that show themselves when circumstances are not ideal.
Once again, the Dolphins failed to find an adequate backup quarterback for Tua Tagovailoa, going 2-4 and averaging 13.3 PPG in his absence. Miami also mostly subsisted off poor teams and a relatively easy schedule. The Dolphins went 7-4 with 23.0 PPG against teams with a losing record, compared to 1-5 with 15.3 PPG against teams above .500.
The status quo will undoubtedly deliver some highlights, mostly in favorable weather conditions against overmatched defenses, but it also doesn’t bring the Dolphins any closer to the Buffalo Bills or the other true contenders in the AFC, which could lead to a major overhaul next offseason.
The Patriot Way
The Patriots became a different organization the minute Tom Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March 2020. Still, the remnants of their dynasty were around with Bill Belichick coaching another four years in Foxborough, Mass., and former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo becoming his successor.
But with Mayo’s dismissal after one year, even the Patriots are moving away from the ethos that defined their organization since 2000. Although Patriots Hall of Famer Vrabel is their preferred candidate, Vrabel developed as a coach with Ohio State and the Houston Texans and had few Patriots-related ties on his Titans coaching staffs (particularly on offense).
That’s probably for the best, as the Patriots’ post-Brady identity has been defined by one of the worst offenses in the league. New England has finished 24th or worse in PFN’s Offense+ rankings each of the last three seasons. With Belichick’s coaching tree barely present in the NFL anymore, it’s time to close the book on “the Patriot Way” as a guiding principle.
Brian Callahan
The Titans earned the No. 1 overall pick with a 3-14 record in Brian Callahan’s first season. While Callahan didn’t end up one-and-done like Mayo, the recent pattern of Titans turnover bodes ominously for his future leash on the job.
2022: sided with Mike Vrabel, fired Jon Robinson.
2023: forced marriage of Ran Carthon and Mike Vrabel.
2024: sided with Ran Carthon, fired Mike Vrabel.
2024: let Ran Carthon pick Brian Callahan.
2025: sided with Brian Callahan, fired Ran Carthon.
A truly lost franchise.
— Jake (@JakeAndBall) January 7, 2025
Indeed, now-fired GM Ran Carthon was the man who hired Callahan, and there’s no guarantee that the next GM will have the same loyalty if the Titans start slowly again.
The only benefit is that Tennessee will get its choice of quarterback at the top of the 2025 NFL Draft, presuming that the Will Levis experiment is over. However, Callahan could be under pressure to produce immediate results to break the chain of annual firings in Nashville, Tenn.
Zac Taylor
The Cincinnati Bengals have been notoriously patient with their head coaches. Before Zac Taylor, Marvin Lewis coached 16 seasons in Cincinnati without so much as winning a single playoff game.
However, Joe Burrow has made it clear he would like the Bengals to change the way they do things, starting with proactively paying players like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. While there’s no indication that he’s dissatisfied with Taylor’s coaching job, a third straight year out of the playoffs in 2025 could change that idea.
With defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo fired, Taylor has played his biggest card in securing his own job. However, there’s a strong argument to be made that talent rather than scheme was the bigger problem with the Bengals’ defense, as evidenced by Anarumo’s game plan in Week 18 vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If the Bengals remain a poor defense that loses one-score games, Taylor won’t have many other directions to turn. Taylor’s game management came under fire multiple times in 2024, from the numerous botched sequences at the end of the Week 17 game vs. the Denver Broncos to the conservative overtime drive in the team’s Week 5 loss vs. the Baltimore Ravens.
A third straight non-playoff season with Burrow and Chase in their primes should be unfathomable. But if Anarumo wasn’t the problem, the spotlight could turn to Taylor at this time next year.