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The Washington Redskins have announced that they have fired head coach Jay Gruden.
Washington becomes the first team to hop on the coaching carousel after an 0-5 start to the 2019 season. It was well known that Gruden’s seat was hot upon entering the season, but injuries and the general ineptness of their play has ended his tenure following a 33-7 loss to the New England Patriots.
It isn’t really a surprise that Gruden was fired, but that it came with the season barely a month old does come as a surprise — generally coaches don’t start getting fired until the holiday season is a lot closer, if not already under way.
So far, Redskins’ general manager Bruce Allen has survived the team’s poor play with him as one of the team’s primary decision makers.
It has been announced that offensive line and assistant head coach Bill Callahan will be taking over as Washington’s interim head coach.
The #Redskins will make OL coach and assistant head coach Bill Callahan their interim coach following the firing of Jay Gruden, source said. The former #Raiders and #Nebraska head coach.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 7, 2019
Callahan is very familiar with the NFC East, previously being the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive line coach from 1995 to 1997 and the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line coach and offensive coordinator from 2012 until he was hired by Washington in 2015. Callahan has previous head coaching experience in college with Nebraska and in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders. With the Raiders, Callahan produced the league’s top rushing offense in 2000 and top passing offense in 2002.
Callahan will have the next 11 games to audition to be Washington’s head coach in 2020. But from the Giants’ perspective, the team they will see on Dec. 22 might be quite a bit different than what they have become familiar with under Jay Gruden.