An NFL team only try ‘cleaning things up’ until it’s time to trash it

It wasn’t over before it started. It may as well have been for the sinking Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Nov. 16.

Five minutes into their brutal 41-22 loss to the NFC West rival San Francisco 49ers, the Cardinals already found themselves trailing, 13-0, at State Farm Stadium. It felt like ugly regurgitation from a week earlier in Seattle when Arizona trailed 21-0 just 10 minutes into the first quarter of their 44-22 shellacking by the Seahawks.

As bad as that one was, this was worse. Far worse.

And head coach Jonathan Gannon might end up paying for it with his job.

That’s because the Cardinals found a new way to completely embarrass themselves. In losing for the seventh time in their past eight games, they set a dubious franchise record for committing the most penalties in a single game. Arizona was flagged 17 times for 130 yards, and it contributed way more than you might think to a second straight blowout loss.

The 17 flags top the previous franchise record for most penalties accepted (16 set in 1936 by the Chicago Cardinals) and in falling to 3-7 on the year and looking bleaker than ever, it’s doubtful this team will finish with more wins than the 1936 team that went 3-8-1.

The five consecutive close losses were one thing. These two latest epic disasters were quite another.

I figured Gannon’s job was safe beyond this year if for no other reason than it appears the Cardinals will be moving on from Kyler Murray and looking to add a new, young quarterback in the offseason. However, owner Michael Bidwill might be running out of patience.

And who can blame Bidwill for that?

Just about every time the Cardinals were whistled for some type of penalty in Week 11, it usually was immediately followed up by a boneheaded play or another sort of silly mistake. Gannon said the loss falls squarely on him “because I’m the head coach and I’m obviously not doing a good enough job right now.”

Since he arrived as coach prior to the 2023 season, Gannon has repeatedly said he and general manager Monti Ossenfort talk with Bidwill all the time, sometimes multiple times per week if not every single day during the regular season.

Asked what he thought Bidwill would ask him after Sunday’s latest debacle, Gannon said this:

“He just asked me. We’re going to get off the mat and go play our brand of ball vs. Jacksonville (Sunday, Nov. 23). I just talked to him.”

Funny, but moments earlier, Gannon said that was his own message to the team in the losing locker room.

“Yeah,” Gannon said. “He heard me – what I told the team.”

Considering the Cardinals keep getting exposed by either playing with poor technique, being caught out of position or failing to execute when plays are there to be made, it’s fair to wonder if Gannon’s latest message will make a bit of difference. How many times have we heard him say this team needs to “clean things up?”

Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who set an NFL regular-season, single-game record with 47 completions against the 49ers (for 452 yards and two touchdowns), said he and his teammates have been trying everything.

“It’s like a stain,” Brissett said. “You try putting baking soda on it. You try putting club soda on it. You try washing it. You’ve got to figure something out.”

In the NFL, which has always been known as a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” business, sometimes you end up burning it and tossing it in the trash. Is that what is to become of Gannon and/or Ossenfort? Would Bidwill seriously consider making such a major mid-season change?

There have been three casualties of sorts already in 2025. The Titans fired coach Brian Callahan. The Giants canned coach Brian Daboll. The Dolphins mutually parted ways with GM Chris Grier. The Cardinals were supposed to be contenders in Year 3 of the Ossenfort/Gannon era, but this season is toast.

Brissett believes the Cardinals will keep pushing forward as professionals.

“It’s the mindset of not quitting on the process and not quitting on the idea that we can’t clean it up,” he said, adding, “I’m not going to say we’re not going to fail again, because we probably are. But at the same time, you’ve got to be man enough, you’ve got to be strong enough to say, ‘I’m still putting my all into it’ and then the results are going to be the results.

“Hopefully, sometimes the ball just bounces your way, calls bounce your way, things go your way. But it’s like coach says, ‘Just gettin’ off the mat.”

Call me skeptical, but I’m curious as to how the Cardinals “get off the mat.”

“Come back to work, Bob,” Gannon told me when I asked him that question after the game. “I told them. I said, ‘You can be down, but understand this is a privilege and it should be a joy to come to work. And that group will do that. I don’t have any hesitation that they won’t come to work tomorrow with the right attitude and mindset.

“We need to keep our foot down and when we hit some adversity we have to respond, collectively. … We’re not handling that the right way to me. Today, at least.”

Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. on Roc and Manuch with Jimmy B on ESPN 620 (KTAR-AM).

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