It's Black Monday in pro football, as the bill comes due for coaches of losing NFL teams

The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Super Bowl-winning coach Doug Pederson in what's likely to be multiple "Black Monday" terminations across pro football.

Pederson and New England's Jerod Mayo were the first casualties of the NFL's dark annual ritual of finding fall guys for a disappointing 2024 season, which came to an end Sunday.

The Patriots jumped the gun, axing their rookie head coach Mayo on Sunday, moments after completing their 4-13 campaign. Patriots owner Robert Kraft apologized for leaving Mayo with a depleted roster in the post-Bill Belichick era.

"This whole situation is on me," Kraft told reporters on Monday. "I feel terrible for Jerod because I put him in an untenable situation. I know he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job."

Pederson ended his three-year Jacksonville tenure with a disastrous 4-13 season after going 9-8 in both 2022 and 2023.

It's been a long fall from grace for Pederson, once the wunderkind field general who led the Philadelphia Eagles to the 2018 Super Bowl title.

He'll always be credited for calling the "Philly Special," a fourth-and-goal trick play that paid off in Philadelphia's title game win over the New England Patriots.

Jags owner Shad Khan kept GM Trent Baalke and explained his choice to can Peterson: "It's where we need the most change, is really on the coaching side, and that's where we're starting."

"As the season progressed, obviously we weren't doing well. We were close, like yesterday (a 26-23 OT loss to Indianapolis), but not close enough to win the game," Khan said Monday. "I just came to the conclusion, what we were doing was not working, a change in direction was needed."

The 4-13 Las Vegas Raiders appear to be sticking with coach Antonio Pierce, who spoke Monday at length about off-season plans and keeping his staff intact.

Pierce thanked players and fans for their support and said he understood the task before him.

"We got to win more games, and that's what everybody expects," Pierce said.

The Dallas Cowboys' spot was still in question through mid-day Monday.

Dallas coach Mike McCarthy is 49-35 at the Dallas helm. But the franchise that calls itself "America's Team" has won just one playoff game in McCarthy's five years in charge.

The Cowboys remain one of the most talked-about and watched teams despite a 29-season-long Super Bowl-winning drought. Dallas last won it all on Jan. 28, 1996, in the middle of Bill Clinton's two-term White House stay.

The New York Jets, Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints were already operating with interim coaches and are expected to start searching for permanent replacements on Monday.

The New York Giants took themselves out of the Black Monday carousel, announcing that coach Brian Daboll would stay for his fourth season — though he appears to already be on a short leash for 2025.

The Giants went 3-14 this past season and Daboll's three-season record stands at 18-32-1 (.363). The team set a franchise record for losses this season and will have the third pick in the upcoming draft.

Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen both survived what was a particularly painful season as their former star running back, Saquon Barkley, thrived with division-winning Philadelphia.

Giants fans were constantly reminded of Barkley due to cameras from HBO's behind-the-scenes franchise "Hard Knocks," which captured co-owner John Mara explaining how much it'd hurt losing Barkley.

“I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that,” Mara said to Schoen, in a remarkably prophetic moment of contract talks with Barkley. “As I’ve told you, just being around enough players, he’s the most popular player we have, by far.”