Washington fires Gruden
Owner Dan Snyder and President Bruce Allen summoned coach Jay Gruden to the Washington Redskins’ facility before dawn Monday to tell him he was being fired.
“It was a brief conversation,” Allen said.
Gruden is out after an 0-5 start to his sixth season and is the latest in a long line of Redskins coaches to take the fall for significant organizational shortcomings.
The Redskins haven’t won much lately, going 35-49-1 overall under Gruden with one playoff appearance in the 2015 season. A popular coach among players and a smart offensive mind, Gruden struggled in preparing his teams: Washington went 1-5 in season openers and lost a win-and-get-in game in Week 17 in 2016 against the New York Giants, who had nothing to play for.
Despite never before being a head coach in the NFL, and despite never winning more than nine games in a season, Gruden managed to stick around longer than anyone else who’s held that job during Snyder’s unsuccessful stint as owner.
None of the six coaches hired since Snyder bought the team has a winning record, including Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs and two-time Super Bowl champion Mike Shanahan. Offensive line coach Bill Callahan becomes the seventh after he was selected to replace Gruden on an interim basis.
Callahan has coached the Raiders in the NFL and Nebraska in college football. He was the offensive line coach at Wisconsin from 1990–’94.
Titans cut Santos: The Tennessee Titans released kicker Cairo Santos a day after he missed three field goals and had a fourth blocked.
Santos apologized at his locker after the game, saying he’d never had a day like that anywhere.