Official 2026 NFL Black Monday Thread

[Joemailman]

Arizona fires Jonathan Gannon

Fired So Far

Brian Callahan - Tennessee
Brian Daboll - New York Giants
Raheem Morris - Atlanta
Kevin Stefanski - Cleveland
Pete Carroll - Las Vegas
Jonathan Gannon - Arizona

[pbmax]

Arizona fires Jonathan Gannon

Fired So Far

Brian Callahan - Tennessee
Brian Daboll - New York Giants
Raheem Morris - Atlanta
Kevin Stefanski - Cleveland
Pete Carroll - Las Vegas
Jonathan Gannon - Arizona

Gannon is the former Super Bowl D coordinator for the Eagles.

[Patler]

Have to disagree with you. Kraft had fully broken out and was THE focal point of the offense. He had become our Kittles. Wyatt has been damn good as well. The failure of this team is all on the GM. He simply drafts for shit in the early rounds and overpays for guys that he shouldn't. I could go on and on, but I've laid it out several times. Gutes has hamstrung his coach at every turn. I gave him a small pass early on because we were winning 13 games a year, but once he lost the TT legacy guys we have mired in mediocrity....because we have a good coach.

I think we were all hoping Kraft would become the focus of the offense, but he really wasn't quite there yet. His last 5 games he had 22 targets. I kept waiting for them to go to him more, but except for a couple games, they didn't. Too many games with just 2, 3 or 4 targets. His results when targeted were great, yet they didn't capitalize on it as much as they should have.

Wyatt? Good player, not yet a great player.

As for Gutekunst, Alexander, Love, Gary, Jenkins, Reed, Walker, Wyatt, Watson, Cooper, Bullard, Belton all taken in the first two rounds and starters on the team. Then you have Morgan who I think can be a good player too, if the coaching staff allows him to be. A gem in the 3rd round with Kraft. That's not a bad hit rate on draft picks.

Then there is Golden. Bad draft pick, or coaching staff not having a clue how to take advantage of him? Not at all clear, but a wasted year for and from him it seems, especially after Reed went down for most of the season.

Maybe I am just a bit frustrated this year, but I have a hard time "trusting" a coaching staff that can't win games (or even always score a lot) in games that they don't have to punt, can't hold multi-score leads in the fourth quarter, and for several years now can't seem to develop any kind of team identity. They lost too many games they should have won this year. They were in position to win, easily could have won, but did not.

Is it coaching or the GM primarily responsible for mediocre results the just four years? Maybe it's both? Time to clean house???

Yes, I am frustrated, but I feel better now!

[MadScientist]

His targets were reduced because he had to spend a lot of time blocking, because the OL was porous.

[pbmax]

Perhaps Rich B can take over play calling. From Jason Wilde at Channel 3000.

As a result, Whelan finished the season as the NFL’s top punter, averaging 51.7 yards per punt — a full yard better than second-place finisher average won the title by more than a yard. He also finished fourth in net punting.

[Bretsky]

Trying to figure out what the stellar roster has here. Is it Gary instead of Burns or Sweat. Shit we could have drafted Sweat instead of savage. McGinn's scouts had savage as the 6th best DB in that draft and we made him the first one off the board. The entire planet wanted Creed Humphry, we got Meyers. Want to talk about taking Amari Rodgers as our gadget guy instead of Kenny Gainwell who I wanted? The day we drafted kraft I told you he was a better TE than the track star chip n dales dancer we took in the 2nd round. Gutes has failed over and over, and its not hindsight. These are all things I saw immediately. Even this year. How long have we wanted a 1st round WR when there were big guys available like Pittman and we didn't have any real WR talent?? We wait until we are loaded at the position and finally pick a skinny track star. Could have had Josh Simmons who just finished a successful season at LT for the chiefs.

the roster has been a hot mess of lesser talent since he took over. Rodgers and MiLF helped cover it up for awhile, but then we paid a decent QB like he's Rodgers or Josh Allen. Now we have a problem and MiLF will probably pay the price.....but he won't go to dallas and fail like fat mike. He'll make someone really happy.

Agree; I'm not giving Gutebag any more free passes. He should NOT shit on himself when he signed two guys for about 30 Million Either. Let a decent center walk, pulled his All Pro Guard and placed him at center, and then signed junk to replace him. Not only were we less effectiive, the changes cost way more CHING

And drafting Van Ness was another TURD when you look at players he could have had. How good would the Seattle WR look at that pick ?

[Bretsky]

I think we were all hoping Kraft would become the focus of the offense, but he really wasn't quite there yet. His last 5 games he had 22 targets. I kept waiting for them to go to him more, but except for a couple games, they didn't. Too many games with just 2, 3 or 4 targets. His results when targeted were great, yet they didn't capitalize on it as much as they should have.

Wyatt? Good player, not yet a great player.

As for Gutekunst, Alexander, Love, Gary, Jenkins, Reed, Walker, Wyatt, Watson, Cooper, Bullard, Belton all taken in the first two rounds and starters on the team. Then you have Morgan who I think can be a good player too, if the coaching staff allows him to be. A gem in the 3rd round with Kraft. That's not a bad hit rate on draft picks.

Then there is Golden. Bad draft pick, or coaching staff not having a clue how to take advantage of him? Not at all clear, but a wasted year for and from him it seems, especially after Reed went down for most of the season.

Maybe I am just a bit frustrated this year, but I have a hard time "trusting" a coaching staff that can't win games (or even always score a lot) in games that they don't have to punt, can't hold multi-score leads in the fourth quarter, and for several years now can't seem to develop any kind of team identity. They lost too many games they should have won this year. They were in position to win, easily could have won, but did not.

Is it coaching or the GM primarily responsible for mediocre results the just four years? Maybe it's both? Time to clean house???

Yes, I am frustrated, but I feel better now!

HOW MANY Blue Chip players has Gutebag drafted ? Truly, Pro Bowl type players (you can ignore that GB pretty much was skunked on draft picks being names to the Pro Bowl.

IT's why the Parson's trade made so much sense. We actually traded for a "football players" instead of an athlete with a high RAS score.

[Bretsky]

would REALLY like to see a "legit OC" come in here who can give the Flower some fresh and innovative ideas and challenge him.

Not guys from the Flower tree; not internal upgrades. Any suggestions ?

[texaspackerbacker]

+1 on that, Bretsky. LaFleur is a decent head coach, but a mediocre play caller.

As for Gutekunst, he has been hot and cold. Part of his problem in not drafting superstars his the winning records and subsequent lower draft picks.

[Patler]

HOW MANY Blue Chip players has Gutebag drafted ? Truly, Pro Bowl type players (you can ignore that GB pretty much was skunked on draft picks being names to the Pro Bowl.

IT's why the Parson's trade made so much sense. We actually traded for a "football players" instead of an athlete with a high RAS score.

Or has the coaching staff failed to develop players into the best (blue chip) players they could be? We can go around and around this circle all off-season and will never be able to answer your question or mine.

[Bretsky]

Or has the coaching staff failed to develop players into the best (blue chip) players they could be? We can go around and around this circle all off-season and will never be able to answer your question or mine.

Maybe we should value football players/instincts/production over ras
Scores. Did van mess really excel enough at the college level to warrant that high of a pick, for example ? Were his college coaches
Bad at development too ?

[ThunderDan]

All I will say and I am not defending Gute here; it is a lot easier 3 years later to bitch about the draft and who they should have taken.

I will fault him for moving Jenkins to C and signing Banks.

[pbmax]

Extensions ahoy:

https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/green-bay-packers-news/77772/adam-schefter-packers-priority-is-to-extend-matt-lafleur-brian-gutekunst

Adam Schefter: Packers’ priority is to extend Matt LaFleur, Brian Gutekunst
Money, not confidence in Matt LaFleur, is the issues with the Packers’ extension conversations with LaFleur, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

[pbmax]

From Acme Packing (thanks to Fritz for linking to them earlier, their website is a relief compared to the Gannett USAToday ad-disaster of Packers Wire these days).

As of now, Green Bay has 17 players on the injured reserve or physically unable to perform lists, after changing over their training staff in 2024.

Bring back the free weights!

Before that post, ESPN’s Rob Demovsky stated that he believes the Packers will go back to the team’s “old structure,” where the head coach directly reports to the general manager, instead of the head coach and general manager both reporting to the president/CEO independently. This, obviously, would be a pretty big boost for Gutekunst, who Demovsky claimed he assumes will be the GM in 2026.

Policy, a man who knows his limitations.

[pbmax]

The way information is trickling out, it seems like Policy never really put LaFleur and Gutekunst on the hot seat. First of all, I’ve been told that Gutekunst’s job was never on the line this year, and the issue was really an extension for LaFleur — and what the optics would look like if you extended one and not the other. Secondly, it seems like Policy likes the idea of LaFleur being the head coach, based on Schefter’s comments, but is simply balking at the price of business of extending NFL head coaches in this era.

This…is unfortunately a common trope in Green Bay. Sometimes the team hires a pricey coordinator or two, but rarely, from conversations I’ve had with people in the league, does the team have an expensive coaching staff as a whole.

Let’s go through a couple of examples.

When LaFleur was hired, he was a one-year play-caller for a 2018 Tennessee Titans team that went 9-7 and finished third in the AFC South. When the Packers brought him in as head coach, he was paid $5 million per year, which is on the low scale for first-time head coaches at the NFL level (Chicago’s Ben Johnson is making $13 million per year, for example) ...

>>>>> The article then references 2025 coaching pay rates to compare to LaFleur's original contract in 2019. Nonsense comparison. <<<<<

>>>>> The rest of the article goes over choosing cheap coaches focusing on the current offense's internal coaching promotions and previously keeping D staff on hand with new Head Coaches, but then undercuts the critique's currency to identify where they have spent money on the D side and ST to correct past mistakes <<<<<

My first reaction was the flip out, but after reading the details and Schefter's quote again, this might old news. the Packers have cheaped out before but have spent on coaches recently, mostly on D and ST.