Black Monday: 7 sacked

Coaches Ken Whisenhunt (left) and Lovie Smith were fired by the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears, respectively. Whisenhunt and Smith were two of seven NFL coaches to be fired Monday.

Coaches Ken Whisenhunt (left) and Lovie Smith were fired by the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears, respectively. Whisenhunt and Smith were two of seven NFL coaches to be fired Monday.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

— A whole bunch of pink slips were handed out to high-ranking officials Monday across the National Football League.

Seven coaches and five general managers were fired Monday, the day after the 2012 regular season came to an end.

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, Pat Shurmur in Cleveland, Romeo Crennel in Kansas City and Chan Gailey in Buffalo.

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 fired 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 was fired from a head coaching position for the third time. San Diego won the AFC West from 2006-2009, but didn’t make the postseason the past three years.

“Both Norv and A.J. [Smith] are consummate NFL professionals, and they understand that in this league, the bottom-line is winning,” Chargers President Dean Spanos said in a statement.

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 victories than any other Cardinals coach, 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 Graves and Whisenhunt their jobs.

Gailey was dumped after three seasons with the Bills; Shurmur after two; 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 title 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.

“When you have a season like that, it’s embarrassing. It’s personally crushing to me and it’s terrible,” Lurie said at a news conference. He said he respects Reid and plans to stay friends with him, “but, it is time for the Eagles to move in a new direction.”

Shurmur went 9-23 in his two seasons with the Browns, who will embark on yet another off season of change - the only constant in more than a decade of futility. Cleveland has lost at least 11 games in each of the past five seasons and made the playoffs just once since returning to the NFL as an expansion team in 1999.

“Ultimately our objective is to put together an organization that will be the best at everything we do,” Browns CEO Joe Banner said. “On the field, our only goal is trying to win championships.”

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 the53 years the franchise has been in existence. The only other time the Chiefs finished 2-14 was 2008, the year before Pioli was hired.

Gailey, the former Dallas Cowboys coach, compiled a 16-32 record in his three seasons in Buffalo, never doing better than 6-10.

Smith and the Bears went 10-6 this season and missed a playoff spot when Minnesota beat Green Bay early Sunday evening. But Chicago started 7-1 and has struggled to put together a productive offense throughout Smith’s tenure. His record was 81-63 with the Bears, and he took them to one Super Bowl loss and to one NFC championship game defeat.

Receiver and kick return standout Devin Hester was bitter about Smith’s firing.

“The media, the false fans, you all got what you all wanted,” Hester said as he cleared out his locker. “The majority of you all wanted him out. As players we wanted him in. I guess the fans - the false fans - out ruled us. I thought he was a great coach, probably one of the best coaches I’ve ever been around.”

The fired GMs included Mike Tannenbaum of the Jets; Gene Smith of the Jaguars; A.J. Smith of the Chargers and Tom Heckert of the Browns and Graves of Arizona.

Sports, Pages 13 on 01/01/2013