ESPN's Adam Schefter Makes Final Raheem Morris Prediction Ahead of Black Monday

The NFL's regular season will be over after the games are completed on Sunday, leading into Black Monday, the day most head coaches are fired.

Sitting at 4-9 and eliminated from the playoffs in a division that will be won with an 8-9 record, it seemed as if a decision had basically been made on Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris.

Then the Falcons did something they're prone to do after being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs: they started winning. In the last decade, the Falcons are 12-4 after being eliminated from the playoffs, sabotaging their own draft position with meaningless wins.

Atlanta has reeled off three straight wins, and they'll face the New Orleans Saints on Sunday with a chance to make it four and sweep their bitter rival for the first time since the 2016 season.

Will the Falcons rallying after being knocked out of another playoff race be enough to convince Arthur Blank to stick with Morris?

ESPN's Adam Schefter ran through the gauntlet of coaches sitting on the hot seat ahead of Black Monday and made a prediction for each of them... sort of.

He was a bit more wishy-washy on Morris than he was definitive about some of the other coaches.

Latest intel on the coaches who stay and the coaches who go: pic.twitter.com/uG2evNVsBW
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 4, 2026

"People feel like there's going to be change," Schefter said in a segment on ESPN. "They brought on the head-hunting firm Sportsology. I think people feel like with Raheem Morris winning his last three games with a chance to win his fourth, he may have saved his job.

"And the leaning is 'safe' here on Raheem Morris. There could be changes that involve their general manager, Terry Fontenot, but right now Raheem Morris has done a great job of keeping his job."

Falcons fans will remember another underachieving team in 2019 that began the season 1-7, only to finish 6-2, including a four-game winning streak. Blank decided to keep then head coach Dan Quinn, only to watch the team start 2020 0-5.

Morris was on staff both seasons, including going 4-7 as the interim head coach.

Schefter referenced that Fontenot could be in trouble this week. Fontenot is in rare company after being in charge of a team for five consecutive losing seasons.

"Of the 18 sitting general managers with at least five years of experience, only one -- the Rams' Les Snead, in the middle of a move from St. Louis to Los Angeles -- failed to produce a winning season through the first five years," Jeremy Fowler wrote on ESPN.

Fontenot gambled big when he signed Kirk Cousins and then drafted Michael Penix Jr. The move didn't pay off with a playoff spot or a division crown in a decidedly mediocre division.

All of this speculation rides on the Falcons actually beating the Saints on Sunday, which isn't a given. The Saints have won four in a row.

It's another lost season in Atlanta with more questions than answers heading into the offseason, but the good news is, there should be some answers in the next 24-48 hours.