Source:GM Hurney and coach Fox are likely to keep their jobs in 2010.

[panthers55]

fox's competition for the 5 or 6 HC jobs that might open up will be holmgren, cowher, shannahan, schotty, billick, gruden (not buying that he is done and wouldn't find someway out of his contract).

also he'd be competing with the other fired coaches...possibly turner, fisher, phillips, lovie smith, zorn, cable, haley, kubiak, mangini....there are more than a couple "good" coaches in that group (and some real stinkers). still, a lot of solid competition.

he'll also be battling against the desire of the vast majority of teams to hire rookie coaches.

2009: 12 coaching changes, 10 went to rookies

2008: 7 coaching changes, all went to rookies

2007: 8 coaching changes, 6 went to rookies

point is...fox has a very slim chance of getting hired as an HC after leaving here. i don't care how good anyone thinks fox is, out of 27 HC changes in the past 3 years and only 4 going to retreads....he's looking at a very small group of teams that will hire a retread at all. then consider who his competition is among the retreads and potentially available retreads...honestly, he doesn't really stand out.

Looking at your retreads, Shottenheimer doesn't want to coach. Gruden is under contract and says he will broadcast another year. The fact that Bruce Allen got the GM job today in Washington may change that as Gruden will be his first choice for Zorn's job.

I am hearing that Holgrem may go to Seattle in a GM role.

Billick isn't considered that good leaving only Cowher and Shannahan who both carry the issue of wanting complete control which may turn some teams away from them.

As for the list of possibly fired coaches, none of them are thought of as highly as Fox -Zorn, Smith, Phillips, Cable and Mangini. Guys like Turner and Fisher aren't going anywhere and Haley and Kubiak may very well remain.

But even from your list it looks like there will be several positions open and frankly Fox has a great record taking a team from 1-15 to the Super Bowl in 2 years. I can think of a bunch of teams that would take our success including our Southern Neighbor- Tampa. Fox has struggled to maintain consistency but frankly there are a lot of teams trying to go from perennial losers to contenders and Fox did that for us. I think that you will find that the rest of the league has a much higher opinion of Fox than people here on this message board or Panther fans in general.

[rayzor]

you should change your name to rosie.

[Mr. Scot]

Cleveland has offered Holmgren their "football czar" role. No word yet if he'll take it.

[panthers55]

Cleveland has offered Holmgren their "football czar" role. No word yet if he'll take it.

Everything I have heard is that is not his ideal situation. He might take it if other things fall apart, but I had heard he has things in the works with a few other teams.

[rayzor]

cleveland's not ideal for anyone....