Malcolm Henry
Black Monday has started in the NFL with Minnesota, Miami, and Chicago joining the Denver Broncos in making changes to the coaching staffs. Two of those moves were extremely predictable, while Miami making a move was a little more surprising.
Zimmer went 72-56-1 in eight seasons, plus 2-3 in the postseason over appearances in 2015, 2017 and 2019. They won the NFC North twice. Zimmer also went 7-8-1 against the Packers but was never able to shift the balance of power in the division, nor gain consistency in winning.
The Bears fired both general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy.
Chicago went 48-65 with one winning season and made the postseason twice in the seven years since Pace was hired out of New Orleans’ front office in 2015 to replace Phil Emery. Nagy went 34-31 in four seasons.
Chicago never finished higher than 21st on offense under Nagy, though he was touted as an offensive genius, and that ‘success’ was in his first year.
Pace had been undone with his inability to land a quarterback. He traded up to get Mitchell Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes with the No. 2 pick in 2017. He also signed Mike Glennon, traded for Nick Foles and paid up for Andy Dalton. And Justin Fields’ future is an ongoing question.
Flores went 24-25 in his three seasons in Miami, not making the playoffs in any of those seasons but finishing this year with eight wins in the final nine games.
Flores was hired in February 2019 and immediately began overseeing a rebuild. Miami started 0-7 in his first season, 1-3 last season and 1-7 this season. But it always found ways to get better as the season went along, going 20-8 in games played in November, December and January under Flores.
