The Annual Shuffling

There is so much pressure to win in the NFL. That's what it's all about for the fans. They don't give out awards for "Hardest Working Senior". The Pats have shown a a great degree of stability under the ownership by the Kraft family. Three coaches in twenty years is quite an achievement. In earlier years, the Pats were changing coaches as often as people switch jobs.

The rest of the league has varying degrees of stability. Andy Reid was fired from the Eagles after 14 seasons. Lovie Smith was fired by the Bears after finishing 10-6, but out of the playoffs.

Black Monday showed the state of flux in the NFL. The seven coaches fired on Monday were more than had been dismissed in the last three years combined. Five GM's also met the same fate. That is a huge swing from the four that were fired from 2007-2011.

Will things change for these teams? In some cases, it will be a positive step. Some will make the playoffs next year, but others will continue their ways. Buffalo let Chan Galley go after missing the playoffs again since 1999.

Teams will start with a clean slate, bit others will have their same institutional problems.The Cowboys will continue to flounder as long as owner Jerry Jones is their GM. Earlier this season, he said the GM should have been fired. However, he couldn't fire himself. He was having too much fun as spokesman for the team and seeing himself on television.

Next year at this time, we will go through this all over again. The teams will get shuffled and some of the fired coaches will just end up on another team.