Former Eagles assistant Nick Rallis has now outlasted Jonathan Gannon in Arizona.

Rallis, a former Eagles assistant coach, is being retained by the Cardinals as their defensive coordinator under new head coach Mike LaFleur, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported on Friday.

Rallis, 32, was with the Eagles in 2021 and 2022 as a linebackers coach before Gannon got the head coaching job in Arizona and poached Rallis to be his defensive coordinator. Rallis served as the Cardinals’ DC for the past three seasons under Gannon, who was fired earlier this offseason. Gannon has since been hired as the Packers’ defensive coordinator under Matt LaFleur.

Rallis will now stay on staff as the defensive coordinator under an offensive-minded head coach in Mike LaFleur.

So now both Gannon and Rallis are DCs under a LaFleur brother.

In three years as the Cardinals’ head coach, Gannon had a 15-36 record and his defense never finished better than 21st in the NFL. But Rallis has long been considered an up-and-coming coach and was thought of in that way when he was in Philadelphia. In fact, Nick Sirianni and the Eagles were not very happy when Gannon took Rallis with him to Arizona when Rallis was still just 29 years old.

The Eagles hired Rallis as their linebackers coach back in 2021 when Rallis was just 27. 

“I really like his energy. This guy loves football,” Sirianni said to the Eagles’ website that offseason. “I just don’t know if there’s a better compliment than that. He eats, drinks and sleeps ball. He loves it. He loves it. And that’s contagious. And I can feel that. I can feel it. And just to hear him talk about linebacker play, he’s intense. He still looks like a linebacker, I’m not sure he still couldn’t play. I just think his ceiling is so high. He’s just gonna keep going [up]. He’s already a great coach but he’s just going to keep going [up] because he loves it. He loves what he does.”

Before joining the Eagles, Rallis was a defensive assistant with the Vikings from 2018-2020 and began his coaching career with Wake Forest in 2017. He has been on a steep incline ever since.

After the Eagles lost Rallis in 2023, they hired former Temple defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot, who lasted just one year in that role. The last two seasons, the Eagles’ linebackers have been coached by Bobby King under defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.