HC Jonathan Gannon Press Conference – 10.20.2025 | AZ Cardinals

HC Jonathan Gannon Press Conference – 10.20.2025 | AZ Cardinals

injury front, I think we came out decently clean. Um, so nothing to report on that. Obviously, we got some guys working through some things. Um, obviously on the by-week here, so each player is a little bit different with how we’re treating that, but we do need to get rested up, I think, physically, uh, mentally, emotionally. Um, and I told him today, uh, we got some projects we got going on. come back in here Monday with a plan of action to get better uh coaches and players and um full steam ahead when we get back in here on Monday. What do we got? Do you expect Kyler to be back after the Bwise? Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. Keeps trending. Is there anything planned for the guys this week at all or they get the week off? Uh they’re all a little bit different, Craig, depending on their health. Um you know, their physical bucket, health bucket. Um, so kind of a little bit different, but they do need to get out of here a little bit. When you say you got projects going on, is that coaching staff working on stuff? Coaches and players. Yep. Say it again. What kind of project are the players working on? Um, they need to watch the tape and watch themselves um, and have a plan action what they want to work on to get better. Being that you have the personnel that you, you know, going back to last year, everybody seems to be healthy on that O line, but you do have a couple guys that are coming off injury will and then I know Jonah had dealt with injury in the offseason. How do you feel like that group has performed and how do you want to see them how can they take that next step? Yeah, I mean the the basics of offensive line play is move people in the run game um vertically or horizontally and keep the pocket firm. Don’t let your guy hit the quarterback. So um just like every position I think steps that we need to take to play a little bit better as a team and as a unit. Um, and they’re kind of in that boat. Michael Parson said that he was surprised by how many one-on-one opportunities he got. Why do you guys leave him one-on-one so much? Well, we didn’t a ton. Um, I think the times that we did, like I I think like off the top of my head here now, um, two of his sacks were in the red zone. Um, and there’s a lot of decision- making going on on third down and possibly on fourth down with what you want to do there. Sack doesn’t really kill you in the red zone. Not worried about that those two. Um, you know, we’re in two two-minute drives, which he had the one and the two minutes. So, you know, obviously he’s a premium player. Obviously, we had a plan for him. Um, can you double him every every play? No, you can’t. Um, and he made his plays. credit to him. Uh, do we need to do a better job versus elite edge rushers when we play him? Probably. Yeah. Does that when you say do a better job, you mean the plan or the execution? Uh, a little bit of both, probably. But again, like I know their plan for him. Um, which I thought was good. Obviously, I went okay it. Uh yeah, like I like I said, like the two, you know, I think if you flip side, they max pro us in the red zone and we made him kick a field goal. Like you got to get people out in the route in the red zone, especially when there’s a goal line on fourth down. So, um I was I was comfortable knowing that he was going to make his plays. Would you wish he you limited him a little bit more? Yes. Um but he’s a good player and hats off to him. There’s not a lot of historical precedent for five straight games decided by four points or less, losing all those. Is there anyone you turn to, talk to, and where you go to try to understand how to get over the hump? No. People in our building. Coach, do you have a sense of how the players are mentally, emotionally today? They need to get reset, you know, um as positive as you can be after losing how we just lost yesterday. Um but they’ll uh they’ll be ready to go on Monday. I know that you go on this last night with the by last. You obviously stopped the momentum here could also stop a different kind of momentum. What can a buy do? Like how can a reset these guys when you asked that yesterday? You asked that yesterday, right Josh? Somebody I think you did. I kind of I wasn’t ready for the question. I kind of smirked. I was like coming at a great time. You lose five in a row. I mean I’m not trying to be funny but you know it it you’re right. you know um if you believe in momentum what I I do think that um it is a it’s a you know emotionally the toll of being in you know one score games for seven weeks um which is what 70% of the games come down to so it’s not like that’s absurd in the NFL like you expect the margins are small for everybody u but I do think it’s a good little time to reset here and really focus on some controllables moving forward as it relates to everybody playing a little bit better. Coach, you said after the game that you had a moment where you said like I have to do more. What do you feel like you haven’t done enough of? Well, coach the players better, you know, so that’s, you know, just doing a little bit more. The whole Latin phrase majis, you know, Michael and I talk about that all the time like you got to do a little bit more, you know. So that’s what I really meant by that is is you know you got to take a a critical look at what you’re doing yourself um and see where you can impact the team and impact winning and losing more. You know over you know about two and a half years covering you now it’s kind of been a steady climb you know four and 13 the first season and eight and nine and then you win the first two games and there’s a lot of expectations this year with this fivegame losing streak. Does this feel like the first real I don’t know if crisis is the right word. I mean, do you or is every week a crisis in the NFL? I mean, does this feel like Does this feel like your first big test? You You said it, not me. I won’t use that word. I I would I would say um we have had adversity hit us since we’ve been here, since I’ve been here. Um and we are in it now, right? And there’s only one way to kind of flip the narrative, which I I feel really confident with how we’re going to do that, you know, and we’re going to put our best foot forward, put all the energy and effort into flipping it. Um, and then let the chips fall, you know, but I do feel good about where we’re going to what we’re going to do when we get back here on Monday. Are you giving the players the schedule? Yeah, they’re all they’re a little bit all of them are different. Is there any changes coming you think coach as you look at what you want to do ahead moving forward? Yeah, I got to look at everything. You know what I mean? I’ll I’ll reflect. I think this is a good time to reflect. You get, you know, you’re not preparing for a game and you don’t have who’s up and who’s down, who we’re elevating, all those things. You know, who’s ready to play, who’s not. So, um, take a little bit of a pause and look at what we’re doing. Yeah, absolutely. Craig, who’s taking a look at the quarterbacks for two quarterbacks and which one starts? Yeah, nothing’s changed. Bob, you want to examine it this week? Nothing’s changed. Bob, you said you know Conor will start, you know, when healthy. If he’s not healthy enough to go like he has been the last couple weeks, how nice is it to know you got a guy like Jacobe? I know that’s why you brought him in because you know what he can do, but now that he’s done it with this group a couple times, how nice is it to Yeah, I mean, you know, I was talking about that with somebody. It’s like uh there’s a reason we signed Jacobe, you know. Um, you know, you don’t want to, and not to discredit anybody, you know, that’s a that’s a backup quarterback, but we felt really good about him giving us a chance to win if he had to go in and play. And I think he’s done that honestly, you know, through two weeks now. Um, he’s played pretty good football and just like all of us, I know he’s hard on himself, wants some plays back, you know, that’s that’s all of us. Um, but I do think he’s done a good job. You think that gives confidence-wise to the guys around him, the rest of the players? Yeah, I mean, he goes out there and does his job at a high level. As a coach, what tells you or how do you know that your locker room that your team has what it takes to kind of fight through adversity like this? Yeah, I mean, it comes down to acquisition first. Um, and that’s why we spend a lot of time on the acquisition periods throughout a year. uh the fabric of who they are as people that matters when you’re in some adversity like we are. I told him that today. You know, if we didn’t have good team first, good dudes, high football character guys, team first guys, I’ll I’ll tell you flat out we’d be in trouble. We would um because there’s, you know, I’ve had some experiences that we don’t have the fabric of what we have here and it doesn’t go well. doesn’t it doesn’t you don’t dig yourself out of it. So, I’ve also had the experience where we had, you know, and and it really starts with the people, the players first, the coaches, the staff, everybody that’s in that building right now. Um, you got to stay fully committed to what we’re doing. Do it a little bit better, but continue to have high football character and not skip steps and stick to your process. Do everything a little bit better. uh and and punch your way out. Like Walter do this week if you know it’s not not the normal week obviously, but yeah, he he’s he’s got his he’s got a big time plan this week. meaning like you know with with certain guys that’s what you mean what you’re asking Josh Craig like uh everyone’s a little bit different with this you know what I mean it’s not just a week off here you know um so he has to keep progressing um as he would if we had a normal week I would say with uh 7 seconds left in the first half obviously kicking that ball in play would take off most of the clock there why did you guys opt to kick the touch back there yeah just a decision decision we made. You know, that falls squarely on me. Like I said yesterday, a couple different ways you can go about it. Um I liked where I I thought we we would have been in pretty good shape and you look at it and you critique it, you know, and each game’s a little bit different with who they have and what you got up and who you have, but um obviously it didn’t work out because I didn’t want to give him three points there at the end. So I critique it and say, “Hey, that’s, you know, when we get in this situation again, what do we want to do?” Coach, you were on when you were in Philly 2021, you guys started two and five, made the playoffs. Zay Jones was in here last week talking about how he was on a Jags team that started three and seven and made the playoffs. When you guys come back, do you have people come up and speak about their experiences and how they were able to kind of dig themselves out of that hole? Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s not one guy I mean, take the rookies out of it. There’s not one guy that has been on a 16 or a 170 team, you know what I mean? Um, my point with saying that, Zach, is everyone in that locker room has faced some type of adversity um with the team that they’re on or with themselves. Um, that’s natural. That’s the the, you know, part of the job. um that you have to have the focus and and you know competitiveness I would say to keep doing what you’re doing you know at a high level. Do you hear from and welcome the feedback or the input from players of what they feel that meets the difference? Yeah, talk to players every day. So is that fourth and one with six minutes to go by 58. Um would you change the call in hindsight or change personnel in the game at the time or would you do differently in that situation in hindsight? Yeah, I mean in hindsight I mean well because it didn’t work probably do something different. Um but I like the call there. You know we’ve been pretty good on those. It’s a yard. You know it’s unfortunate they made a good play. You know on the last drive when you guys got down to the 26 with the pass to Michael Carter 45 seconds left. Did you think about using a timeout there and why not? Um how many did I have left? 45 seconds left. When do we get the next playoff? Yeah, I try to say, you know, why I’m trying to think about it now, Taylor, that’s a really good question because a lot of different ways you can play that, you know. Um, we got all kind of SOPs for timeouts and time and score and all that. And it moves fast, too. Um, no. I typically try to when you need a touchdown, try to save my timeouts as long as I can. You know, now if there’s a sack that happens and you’re discombobulated, you’re trying to throw the ball down field, you might have to take one or there’s a lot of times you see explosive passes happen where you might not be able to get the play off and what we think you should be able to get the play off. There’s kind of a algorithm math equation to that. No, I I was comfortable with what we did there. What did you see out of Darius getting back in the side? It was good. I thought he was he looked explosive. You know, he I’m sure he wants a couple plays back just, you know, like all of us, meaning that he he wants to keep trending in the right direction, you know, but his first game back in a couple games. I thought he did look explosive though, which was good to see. Um he wasn’t afraid to reach out and grab people and touch people, which was good to see, you know, with the injury that he had. So, uh he’ll keep trending. How are you looking? uh getting better day by day. Is a Monday night game against Dallas better coming out of a by week where you got the extra a couple of days on the weekend? Just got to readjust the schedule honestly Craig you know when the schedule comes out you look at it and and kind of go from there. Um but we’ll obviously we end up getting a couple more days of work leading into that game have a setback at some point situations we’ll make this the last one. Okay. from the bye last year to this year. But Oh, start over, Nick. The situation Mark just cut you off. Very different from the Thanks, Mark. No, last year to this to the bye this year. But anything that you’re doing differently yourself? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now the bye-week came a little bit later. We’re we’re 10 games, right? We’re at seven now. So, um, you know, the schedule was the first thing that comes to my mind is the schedule. um coming off of this buy is not going to change much where last buy was changed significantly where we were at in the year. Um you look at you know Monday night game, you know, you look at Thanksgiving, Christmas, how many padded practices you’re allowed left, all those things. So you kind of, you know, put that the health of the team, what does it look like after this by week as opposed to last year? It’s going to be a lot different. Um then you just try to put the pieces together and put a good plan together, you know, um as far as what we’re doing this week. Um couple tweaks, you know, with the coaches and the players what I asked, but not much, you know. Um the main thing I want those guys come in here on Monday refreshed and positive and ready to go.

HC Jonathan Gannon addresses the media.

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