Matt Rhule is the first National Football League coach to be fired this season.

On Monday, the Carolina Panthers announced they'd fired Rhule, who was in his third season at the helm.

The team named assistant coach Steve Wilks as interim head coach.

The firing comes after the Panthers fell to 1-4 after losing 37-15 at home to the San Francisco 49ers, the Associated Press reported.

The news outlet reported that Rhule left Baylor to become the Panthers' head coach in 2020 after signing a seven-year, $62 million deal.

According to USA Today, Rhule is the first Panthers coach in franchise history to serve fewer than three seasons.

Panthers owner brought Rhule in to replace longtime head coach Ron Rivera, who Tepper fired during the 2019 season, the Associated Press reported.

The team went through four quarterbacks during Rhule's tenure, beginning with Teddy Bridgewater in 2020. Then the team saw Sam Darnold and Cam Newton behind center before they traded for former Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield during the offseason, the news outlets reported.

According to the news outlets, Mayfield, the former No. 1 overall draft pick in 2018, hasn't played well, only completing 54.9% of his passes this season for 962 yards.

Veteran NFL coach Anthony Lynn appreciates the league policy that requires teams to interview minority candidates for their top jobs and he has even benefited from it. Like many of his peers, though, the assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers believes the policy has fallen short of its good intentions.

There were three non-white head coaches when the Rooney Rule went into effect in 2003, and today, there are five. Skepticism about NFL hiring practices has remained steady among minority job candidates, who see parallels to the challenges corporate America faces.

A racial discrimination lawsuit filed this month against the NFL by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has magnified attention on the league's hiring practices.

Lynn said, “I really believe in the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but I just saw how people were abusing it and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told teams recently that the league will look to improve policies meant to encourage the hiring of minorities, particularly as head coaches.

"We will reevaluate and examine all policies, guidelines and initiatives relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, including as they relate to gender," Goodell wrote in a memo to the league's 32 clubs. The commissioner added that the league's record on hiring minority coaches has been "unacceptable."

A lawsuit filed last week which alleges the National Football League has followed racist hiring practices has now shed light on allegations from multiple coaches that claim NFL team owners have offered incentives, or bonuses, to coaches to lose games.

Two teams and two coaches sit at the center of a related controversy.

Brian Flores, the former coach for the Miami Dolphins who was fired last month by the team, said in a lawsuit that he was offered $100,000 by owner Stephen Ross in 2019 for each loss he was able to complete, Reuters reported. Flores claimed in the recent filing that the offer was meant to help the Dolphins get a better draft pick in 2020.

Hue Jackson, the former coach for the Cleveland Browns, who was fired eight games into the 2018 season and lost all 16 games in 2017, said he was offered incentives to lose while he was the coach for the Browns, the Associated Press reported. According to Reuters, the NFL draft of college players gives the highest pick to teams with the worst records. When Jackson was a coach for the Browns, the team lost 36 of 40 games.

Legal experts say that if the allegations are determined to be true, possible class action lawsuits for hundreds of millions of dollars could be filed, or even criminal liability could be possible, as experts told Reuters.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell delivered remarks on the controversy the NFL has been going through at an annual Super Bowl news conference on Wednesday. The NFL commissioner was grilled on two hot topics that have put the league under heavy scrutiny: racism and discrimination in hiring as he sat under a baking sun during an unseasonable week of weather in Southern California.

There were other issues that don't shine a positive light on pro football, including threats to the integrity of the sport, and misconduct by players and team executives. A week after former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who is Black, filed a lawsuit alleging both racism in the league and being offered money by team owner Stephen Ross to tank games, Goodell vowed action on several fronts.

As ESPN reported, Goodell said "We believe in diversity," during the news conference outside of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the site of Super Bowl 2022. He said, "I think we have to continue to look and find and step back and say, 'We're not doing a good enough job here.' We need to find better solutions and better outcomes. Let's find more effective policies. Let's make sure everyone understands. Let's make sure that we're looking at diversity and incentivizing that for everybody in our building."

The commissioner said, "We're not having the success we want with head coaches. How do we evolve that rule, or do we have to have a new rule? Do we need to find some other way of being able to achieve that outcome? I think we're not going to rest until we find that until we get those outcomes that are mandatory for us to move forward and have an inclusive league."

The NFL commissioner appeared to have more questions than answers on Wednesday as the league is embroiled in multiple allegations including racism and discrimination among hiring practices for head coaches, but also within at least one lawsuit filed and other comments on social media alleging that team owners have offered payments to coaches to throw games.

A lawsuit filed last week alleges the National Football League followed racist hiring practices and has shed light on allegations from multiple coaches that claim NFL team owners have offered incentives, or bonuses, to coaches to lose games.

Two teams and two coaches sit at the center of the latest controversial claims, with both team owners denying the allegations.

Brian Flores, the former coach for the Miami Dolphins who was fired last month by the team, said in a lawsuit that he was offered $100,000 by owner Stephen Ross in 2019 for each loss he was able to complete, Reuters reported. Flores claimed in the recent filing that the offer was meant to help the Dolphins get a better draft pick in 2020.

Hue Jackson, the former coach for the Cleveland Browns, who was fired eight games into the 2018 season and lost all 16 games in 2017, said he was offered incentives to lose while he was the coach for the Browns, the Associated Press reported. According to Reuters, the NFL draft of college players gives the highest pick to teams with the worst records. When Jackson was a coach for the Browns, the team lost 36 of 40 games.

Legal experts say that if the allegations are determined to be true, possible class action lawsuits for hundreds of millions of dollars could be filed, or even criminal liability could be possible, as experts told Reuters.

While the allegations contain claims that the two teams wanted to improve chances that their teams could be awarded opportunities to pick top prospects in the NFL draft, they also come at a time of huge growth in the legal sports gambling industry.

Ross refutes the claims calling the allegations "false, malicious and defamatory" and said he welcomes an investigation, according to Reuters.

As the Associated Press reported, the Cleveland Browns deny the claims by Jackson saying he "completely fabricated" the accusations. Jackson, who offered support for Flores on Twitter said that he received bonus payments from Browns' owner Jimmy Haslam.

Haslam denied paying former coach Hue Jackson for losing games and said his one-time employee is only good at “pointing fingers” and needs to accept some blame for his dreadful NFL record. In an exclusive interview with the Knoxville News, Haslam called Jackson’s claims “an absolute falsehood” and said the coach needs to be more accountable for his 3-36-1 record with the Browns.

Jackson has said that he didn’t understand what Cleveland was trying to do during his failed tenure.

As the Guardian reported, Flores' claims his refusal to comply with an agreement to accept money to throw games was the beginning of his end with the Miami Dolphins.

The NFL has moved quickly to take over an investigation into alleged sexual harassment by Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder.

The announcement came hours after the Commanders said the team had hired an outside investigator to look into allegations by former team employee Tiffani Johnston.

She told Congress that Snyder groped her thigh at a team dinner and pushed her toward his limousine with his hand on her lower back years ago.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says the league "will be retaining an investigator to determine the facts."

The Associated Press reported this isn't the first time the league has taken over an investigation that involved Washington.

In 2020, former team employees accused team executives of rampant sexual harassment. Initially, the team hired attorney Beth Wilkinson’s firm to investigate, but the league took it over, the news outlet reported.

After Wilkinson turned the finding over to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Snyder was fined $10 million.

He also temporarily turned the team's day-to-day operations over to his wife, Tanya, the AP reported.

According to the AP, Wilkinson's findings have never been released publicly.

For the first time in league history, the National Football League will host a regular-season game in Munich, Germany, in 2022.

In a press release, the league announced on Wednesday that they would host four other international games in 2022, including three in London and one in Mexico.

"We are very pleased to welcome Munich and Frankfurt to the NFL family and are excited to reward our fans in Germany for their passion by bringing them the spectacle of regular-season NFL football," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in the news release. "We look forward to staging our first game in Germany at FC Bayern Munich's fantastic stadium later this year and to exploring areas of [a] broader collaboration with the Bundesliga."

Two of the games in the UK will be played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and the Jacksonville Jaguars will host their home game at Wembley Stadium.

The NFL is set to play games in Germany over the next four years, with two games being hosted at Bayern Munich Stadium, the home of the Bundesliga champions, and the other two will be played at Frankfurt Stadium.

The 2022 NFL schedule will be announced later this year.

The National Football League issued a memo Friday advising the remaining eight teams left in the playoffs that unvaccinated players no longer need daily COVID-19 tests.

COVID-19 protocols updated by the league and NFL Players Association have been updated "to eliminate the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated players to determine testing cadence," the NFL said in its memo obtained by CNN.

This only affects about 12 unvaccinated players who are not on testing holiday, which refers to when an individual who tests positive doesn't have to take a test for 90 days, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told CNN.

The NFL and players association have made multiple changes this season to the protocols in response to the pandemic. At one point, fully vaccinated individuals were required to test weekly and unvaccinated individuals daily.

On Dec. 28, the league said it had reduced the amount of time that players who test positive for the virus may have to isolate from their team after updated CDC guidance was released.

Effective immediately, any player or staff member who reports symptoms will be tested promptly, according to the latest memo. "Targeted surveillance testing," which has been in effect since December 18, will continue.

"This comprehensive, symptom-based approach to testing, reflects our recent experience with the omicron variant and conforms to current public health recommendations and best practices employed in health care, and offers the best opportunity for identifying and treating cases promptly and avoiding spread within the facility," the memo says.

On Dec. 15, the league stated nearly 95% of its players were fully vaccinated along with "100%" of other NFL personnel. The NFL, like other sports leagues, does not mandate that players be vaccinated.

The 2021 NFL season is coming to a close, with only the Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers remaining.

Super Bowl LVI is scheduled to be played on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.