NFL coaching updates: Raiders fire Tom Telesco as GM, completing overhaul

Tracking the NFL’s coaching and front-office changes after the end of the regular season.

Raiders fire Tom Telesco as GM, two days after firing Antonio Pierce as coach

The Las Vegas Raiders made it a complete overhaul of their football-decision makers by firing Tom Telesco as their general manager Thursday, two days after they fired Antonio Pierce as their coach.

The moves come after the Raiders completed a disappointing 4-13 season.

“We appreciate his efforts in helping build a foundation for the future,” the Raiders said in a written statement Thursday announcing Telesco’s dismissal.

The Raiders hired Telesco, formerly the general manager of the Los Angeles Chargers, last January.

Mark Davis, the team’s principal owner, and Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback approved in October as a part-owner of the Raiders, now will oversee the hiring of both a new GM and a new coach.

Their reconstruction of the team’s football brain trust is unlikely to include a reunion between Brady and Bill Belichick, his former coach with the New England Patriots who is just settling into his new job as a college coach at North Carolina.

Brady had a conversation at one point with Belichick, but the Raiders have not given serious consideration in recent days to trying to hire Belichick as their coach, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Belichick is “completely committed, 1,000 percent committed” to his new job at North Carolina, Michael Lombardi said Thursday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” Lombardi, a former NFL executive, is working with Belichick at the school as the general manager of its football program.

NFL Network reported this week that multiple NFL teams inquired about whether Belichick would reconsider his move to college football. That included Brady speaking to Belichick on behalf of the Raiders, according to that report.

Raiders fire Antonio Pierce after one season as non-interim coach

Antonio Pierce’s first full season as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders was his last. The Raiders fired Pierce on Tuesday after they finished 4-13.

Mark Davis, the team’s principal owner, had refused to offer public assurances late in the season that Pierce’s job was safe. That became a precursor to Tuesday’s move, which leaves Davis, Raiders part-owner Tom Brady and General Manager Tom Telesco in the market for a new coach during an offseason in which the team also could seek a franchise quarterback in free agency, via a trade or in the draft.

“We appreciate Antonio’s leadership, first as an interim head coach and this past season as the head coach,” the Raiders said in a statement. “Antonio grew up a Raiders fan and his Silver and Black roots run deep. We are grateful for his ability to reignite what it means to be a Raider throughout the entire organization.”

Pierce went 9-17 in his 1½ seasons. He directed the Raiders to a 5-4 record last season as their interim coach following the firing of Josh McDaniels. That led Davis to remove Pierce’s interim tag last offseason. But that proved transitory as the Raiders struggled this season, failing to overcome an unsettled quarterback situation in which Gardner Minshew II, Aidan O’Connell and Desmond Ridder each served as the starter.

NFL team owners voted in October to approve a deal by which Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback for the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Tom Wagner, co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management, are believed to have purchased approximately 10 percent of the Raiders. Brady served as the lead analyst on Fox’s NFL broadcasts this season, operating under restrictions imposed by the league because of his dual role as media member and part-owner of a franchise.

“We wanted to get to this point first before we started defining anything of that nature and all that,” Davis said on the day the owners ratified Brady’s ownership deal. “But it’s just exciting. … Although Tom can’t play, I think he can help us select a quarterback in the future and potentially train him as well. So it’s a huge benefit for the organization.”

It remains to be seen how much say, if any, Brady will have in a coaching search that will be conducted as he continues to carry out his Fox broadcasting duties during the postseason. One prominent candidate could be Brady’s former Patriots teammate Mike Vrabel, the 2021 NFL coach of the year for the Tennessee Titans who was a consultant to the Cleveland Browns this season after being fired by the Titans last offseason.

Vrabel interviewed last week for the New York Jets’ coaching job. He’s scheduled to interview Wednesday with the Chicago Bears and is considered a strong candidate for the Patriots’ vacancy.

Titans fire Ran Carthon, retain Brian Callahan

The Tennessee Titans will keep Coach Brian Callahan for a second season but fired the general manager who hired him, Ran Carthon.

The Titans announced the dismissal of Carthon on Tuesday, two days after completing a season in which they went 3-14 in Callahan’s rookie season as an NFL head coach. They hired Callahan last offseason as the successor to Mike Vrabel, the 2021 NFL coach of the year for Tennessee.

“It’s impossible to ignore that our football team hasn’t improved over the past two years,” Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk said in a statement. “I am deeply disappointed in our poor win-loss record during this period, of course, but my decision also speaks to my concern about our long-term future should we stay the course. … To our fans: [W]e know this level of performance isn’t acceptable.”

The Titans have the top choice in the draft in April. But Carthon will not be making the selection. He spent two seasons as the GM after being hired in January 2023. The Titans went 9-25 over that span.

Strunk said in Tuesday’s statement that Chad Brinker, the president of football operations, will oversee the search for a new general manager and added, “Brian Callahan will continue in his role as head coach.”

The Titans have had three straight losing seasons, the first two of them with Vrabel as their coach, after six consecutive winning seasons under Mike Mularkey and Vrabel. They reached the AFC championship game in the 2019 season, Vrabel’s second.

The Titans surprisingly fired Vrabel last offseason and hired Callahan, then the offensive coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals.

But Callahan could not duplicate the success he had in Cincinnati while helping to develop Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. Will Levis did not resemble a franchise quarterback in the making in his second NFL season with the Titans. Mason Rudolph also made starts at quarterback. But nothing the Titans did worked very well - they ranked 26th in total offense.

Giants keep Brian Daboll, Joe Schoen

The New York Giants resisted any temptation they may have felt to start over with a new set of football decision-makers. The team stuck to what co-owner John Mara had vowed during the season, retaining Brian Daboll as coach and Joe Schoen as general manager Monday following a 3-14 season.

The announcement came on the day after the Giants finished their dreary season with a loss in Philadelphia, even with the Eagles resting tailback Saquon Barkley and other key starters. The Eagles, with the NFC East title and the NFC’s No. 2 playoff seed already in hand, opted against allowing Barkley to pursue the NFL’s single-season rushing record against his former team.

“As disappointing as the results of the season have been, Steve [Tisch, the franchise’s other co-owner] and I remain confident in the process that Joe and Brian have implemented and their vision for our team,” Mara said in a written statement released Monday by the Giants.

The Giants have gone 18-32-1 in three seasons since they hired Daboll and Schoen from the Buffalo Bills organization. The duo had immediate success as the Giants went 9-7-1 and reached the playoffs in the 2022 season. Daboll was named the NFL’s coach of the year. The Giants upset the Minnesota Vikings in the opening round of the playoffs but lost in lopsided fashion in the divisional round at Philadelphia.

The success has not been sustained. The Giants slumped to 6-11 last season and were even worse this season. Mara said at a public event in October that he would not fire Daboll or Schoen during the season and did not anticipate making any moves afterward, either. The Giants kept losing, doing little to reinforce that public vote of confidence. But Mara and Tisch did not change course.

Mara, while meeting with reporters later Monday, was asked how long it will take for the Giants to improve.

“It better not take too long,” Mara said, “because I’ve just about run out of patience.”

The team benched and then released quarterback Daniel Jones in November. That’s after the Giants allowed Barkley to leave in free agency in the offseason. He signed a three-year, $37.75 million contract with the Eagles and became the ninth player in NFL history to have a 2,000-yard rushing season.

Another change would have required the Giants to hire their fifth coach since Tom Coughlin resigned following the 2015 season. Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge lasted two seasons each (Steve Spagnuolo followed McAdoo as the interim coach for four games at the end of the 2017 season). The Giants have reached the playoffs only twice in 13 seasons since Coughlin and quarterback Eli Manning won their second Super Bowl. They have one postseason victory over that span.

The Giants have the No. 3 overall pick in the draft in April and perhaps will try to land a franchise quarterback then.

Jaguars fire Doug Pederson

The Jacksonville Jaguars did not fire coach Doug Pederson during a season in which they were among the NFL’s worst teams even after making quarterback Trevor Lawrence one of its highest-paid players. But the team’s struggles cost Pederson his job at season’s end; the Jaguars dismissed him Monday.

The move comes after the Jaguars lost Sunday on the road to the Indianapolis Colts to finish with a 4-13 record. Their season-long struggles followed owner Shad Khan telling Jaguars players at the outset of training camp last summer that this was “the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars ever” and that “winning now is the expectation.”

Pederson, who won a Super Bowl coaching the Philadelphia Eagles, just completed his third season with the Jaguars. He coached the team to a regular season record of 22-29 and a 1-1 postseason mark. The Jaguars joined the New York Jets, New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears and New England Patriots in searching for new coaches.

The Jaguars’ coaching change had seemed inevitable for much of the season. It had appeared all but certain following a 52-6 defeat Nov. 17 at Detroit. That lopsided loss came as the Jaguars were entering their bye week. But Khan surprisingly did not make the move then.

The Jaguars signed Lawrence, the top overall selection in the 2021 NFL draft, to a five-year, $275 million contract extension in June. But they went 2-8 in his 10 starts this season. Lawrence finished the season on the injured reserve list after suffering a concussion on an illegal hit by Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair during the Jaguars’ loss Dec. 1 in Jacksonville. The NFL suspended Al-Shaair for three games, and that suspension was upheld on appeal.

Dolphins keep McDaniel, Grier

The Miami Dolphins’ disappointing season did not cost Coach Mike McDaniel and General Manager Chris Grier their jobs.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross announced Sunday night that both will be retained.

“Their positive working relationship is an asset to the Dolphins, and I believe in the value of stability,” Ross said in a written statement. “However, continuity in leadership is not to be confused with an acceptance that status quo is good enough. We will take a hard look at where we have fallen short and make the necessary changes to deliver our ultimate goal of building and sustaining a winning team that competes for championships.”

The announcement came after the Dolphins lost to the New York Jets earlier Sunday to finish with an 8-9 record. They were eliminated from the playoffs a short time before that when the Denver Broncos defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, who were resting quarterback Patrick Mahomes and other key starters, to secure the AFC’s final wild-card spot.

McDaniel has directed the Dolphins to a 28-23 regular season record and has reached the playoffs twice in his three seasons. But they have gone 0-2 in postseason play. They have finished in second place in the AFC East in each of McDaniel’s three seasons, in each case behind the Buffalo Bills.

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was selected to the Pro Bowl last season and was among the league’s most productive quarterbacks when he was healthy, getting the ball to speedy wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jayden Waddle and tailback De’Von Achane. The Dolphins had a 70-point game against the Broncos early last season on their way to going 11-6.

But Tagovailoa has suffered three diagnosed concussions since the 2022 season, leading some observers to question whether he should continue playing. He missed four regular season games and the Dolphins’ playoff loss in the 2022 season. He played in every game last season and the Dolphins signed him to a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension in July. But he missed four games early this season after suffering a concussion during a Sept. 12 defeat to the Bills. He also was sidelined in recent weeks by a hip injury and ended up playing in 11 of the Dolphins’ 17 games.

Hill told reporters following Sunday’s game that he may seek to leave the Dolphins in the offseason.

Colts keep Shane Steichen, Chris Ballard

The Indianapolis Colts’ fourth straight non-playoff season did not produce the organizational housecleaning that some had expected, as owner Jim Irsay retained Shane Steichen as the team’s coach and Chris Ballard as its general manager.

Irsay announced the decision Sunday after the completion of a season in which the Colts went 8-9. They closed with a triumph over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Steichen has coached the team to a record of 17-17 over the past two seasons.

He is the third head coach to work for the Colts alongside Ballard, following Chuck Pagano and Frank Reich. The Colts hired Reich in 2018 after Josh McDaniels accepted the job, then stepped down to remain the offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots. When the Colts fired Reich during the 2022 season, Irsay made the unconventional choice of hiring Jeff Saturday, the team’s former center, as the interim head coach, despite Saturday’s lack of coaching experience above the high school level.

The Colts went 1-7 under Saturday to finish a 4-12-1 season. They hired Steichen, then the offensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles, after the Eagles lost the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs to conclude the 2022 season.

Ballard has spent eight seasons as the team’s GM after being hired in 2017. The Colts have reached the playoffs twice during that span, have managed only one postseason victory and have had a revolving door of starters at quarterback.

The Colts used the No. 4 overall selection in the 2023 draft on quarterback Anthony Richardson. But his rookie season was cut short by shoulder surgery, after which Gardner Minshew nearly led the Colts to the playoffs. This season, Richardson was benched following an unusual episode in which he asked to come out of the game for one play because he was tired. But veteran Joe Flacco failed to get the Colts winning. Richardson regained the starting job before having his season ended early by a back injury.

Former Colts punter Pat McAfee, now a broadcaster with a daily show on ESPN, was sharply critical of the team this season. He said recently that the Colts needed a “full reset” that would include trading Richardson and tailback Jonathan Taylor. He took to social media late last month to question players’ work ethic and commitment, writing that players had been late to team meetings and had skipped or been late to medical treatment sessions.

Patriots fire Jerod Mayo after only one season

Jerod Mayo lasted only one season as the chosen successor to coaching legend Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots.

The Patriots fired Mayo on Sunday after they went 4-13 in his rookie season as an NFL head coach. They had utilized a succession plan written into the contract of Mayo, then their linebackers coach, to promote him last January to head coach on the day after they parted ways with Belichick following 24 seasons and six Super Bowl victories, without conducting a search or being subject to the NFL’s usual minority interviewing requirements.

Mayo was the first Black head coach in franchise history. He was, then at 37, the NFL’s youngest head coach when he was hired. He commanded respect as a successful former player who’d been a first-round draft choice out of Tennessee and a two-time Pro Bowl selection as a linebacker for the Patriots between the 2008 and 2015 seasons. He’d won a Super Bowl as a player and he’d joined Belichick’s coaching staff in 2019.

But the Patriots struggled all season, first when Mayo opened the season with veteran Jacoby Brissett as the starter at quarterback and then after he made the move to prized rookie Drake Maye.

Maye, the third overall selection in the 2024 draft in April, showed great promise at times during his rookie season. But it became increasingly clear as the season progressed that the Patriots had a long way to go to put a capable team on the field around their young quarterback. Their season-ending victory Sunday over the Buffalo Bills cost them the top overall pick in this year’s draft.

The Patriots will conduct a coaching search this time, unlike last offseason. Their candidates could include Mike Vrabel, the onetime Patriots linebacker who is a former NFL coach of the year for the Tennessee Titans. He served as a consultant to the Cleveland Browns this season after being fired by the Titans last offseason.