The New Orleans Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen after a 2-7 start to the season and seven straight losses.
It's that time of year where NFL head coaches need to update their LinkedIn pages.
Whether it's a prospective coach looking for a job, or a former coach who just lost one, there are now multiple openings in the league to apply for.
Watch NBC6 free wherever you are
>
And, with a few more losses by certain teams, other jobs could soon become available.
Here are the vacant head coaching positions in the NFL and others that could have an opening.
Get local news you need to know to start your day with NBC 6's News Headlines newsletter.
>
New York Jets
The New York Jets were the first team to make a coaching change during the 2024 season. Robert Saleh was fired just five games into the season after going 2-3 with a win-now Jets team led by 40-year-old quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Saleh, who had one year remaining on his contract, was 20-36 over three-plus seasons with the Jets. His .357 winning percentage was the worst of any Jets head coach with at least 40 games.
For Jets owner Woody Johnson, it was the first time in his 25-year tenure that a head coach was fired during the season.
The Jets named defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich the team's interim head coach -- and then lost their next three games to fall to 2-6. Ulbrich, who played linebacker for 10 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers and was the linebackers coach with the Atlanta Falcons for six seasons, notched his first victory in Week 9 with a 21-13 win over the Houston Texans.
The Jets are looking to end the NFL's longest active playoff drought at 13 seasons. They'll try to become just the third team in league history to make the playoffs with an interim coach at the helm, joining the 2021 Raiders with Rich Bisaccia and the 1961 Oilers with Wally Lemm.
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints seemed like one of the NFL's surprise teams after a 2-0 start to the season. Just seven weeks later, their head coach Dennis Allen was fired.
The Saints let him go on Monday after losing their seventh consecutive game to fall to 2-7 -- the team's first seven-game losing streak since 1999.
Allen, who in 2022 replaced Sean Payton as coach in 2022, went 18-25 with the Saints. It was the second time Allen has been relieved of head-coaching duties midseason, having been fired by the Raiders in 2014 after an 0-4 start. He went 8-28 over two-plus seasons with the Raiders.
Following the Saints' first midseason firing since 1985, the team named special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi the interim coach.
Which NFL coach will get fired next?
How 'bout them Cowboys?
The Dallas Cowboys are 3-5, they sit third in the NFC East, and they reportedly have lost Dak Prescott for multiple weeks due to a hamstring injury.
Head coach Mike McCarthy has gone 75-45 over four-plus seasons with the Cowboys, but he is just 1-3 in the playoffs, including a humiliating 48-32 home loss in last season's wild-card round to his former team the Green Bay Packers.
McCarthy's five-year contract is set to expire after the season, but he has repeatedly received public support from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
"I’m good with Mike," Jones told reporters after Sunday's game, according to the The Athletic's Jon Machota. "I know how hard he works. I like his football mind. I know how good he works. He’s got, in my mind, an outstanding coaching record.
"He’s really good with the players. They think highly of him. He’s got a lot of fire in his belly. So, I’m just giving you this, I like the positives I see. And, by the way, frankly, some of the best coaches I’ve been around, I got to see them when times were bad."
Also on the hot seat is Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson. Coming off a season in which they lost five of their last six games to miss the playoffs, the Jaguars are now 2-7. The team has regressed each season since Pederson's first season as head coach in 2022 when they went 9-8 and pulled off an epic comeback victory in the wild-card round. It's been mostly downhill since.
The same could be said of New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll. He was named 2022 NFL Coach of the Year after his first season with the Giants after a surprising 9-7-1 season and upset win over the Minnesota Vikings in the wild-card round. But that seems like a long, long time ago. The Giants finished 6-11 last season and are now 2-7 this season.
We'll see what happens to these coaches and others on Black Monday...if they make it that long.
