{"id":656462,"date":"2026-01-05T17:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/656462\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T17:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:49:11","slug":"cardinals-fire-jonathan-gannon-following-third-straight-losing-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/656462\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals fire Jonathan Gannon following third straight losing season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Gannon’s short tenure as the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach has come to an end. Gannon was fired by the Cardinals on Monday after his third straight losing season, the team announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals went just 3-14 this season and were a combined 15-36 under Gannon in his three years.<\/p>\n

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Gannon was hired in part to toughen up Arizona\u2019s defense, and that didn\u2019t really happen. This season’s unit was 26th in EPA per play allowed, 27th in success rate allowed, and in general, hasn\u2019t taken a step forward despite 17 of Gannon\u2019s 28 draft picks being on that side of the ball, including six of seven last spring. It\u2019s hard to say the Cardinals are demonstrably better than they were when Gannon was hired.<\/p>\n

Gannon was hired as the Cardinals’ head coach<\/a> in 2023, coming off a two-year stint as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator. Gannon’s hire came with controversy, with Arizona admitting that the team had contacted Gannon about the position before the Eagles’ season had ended. The two teams later settled the issue with a draft-day trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Get more Cardinals news: Arizona team feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n

After a 2-0 start to the 2025 season, the Cardinals went on a significant skid. A moment of hope \u2014 a 27-17 win<\/a> over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football \u2014 was followed by back-to-back blowout losses to division rivals, first with the Seattle Seahawks<\/a> and then to the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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That proved to be the start of a lengthy losing streak, in which the Cardinals dropped games to future playoff teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams and Houston Texans. The team also lost to both the Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals down the stretch.<\/p>\n

The pressure seemingly boiled over for Gannon relatively early in the season, with the coach laying into running back Emari Demercado<\/a> for a goal-line drop in a one-point loss<\/a> to the Tennessee Titans. Gannon later apologized for his behavior and was fined $100,000 by the league<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some of the team’s struggles have had to do with injuries: The Cardinals placed quarterback Kyler Murray on injured reserve on Nov. 5<\/a> with a foot injury that has kept him out since Week 5, leaving backup Jacoby Brissett to take over. Though Brissett put up some solid showings for Arizona, he wasn’t able to single-handedly turn around the season. Murray’s future with the franchise now also looks dim, after Gannon essentially benched the starter and then announced he was done for the year<\/a>, stating his recovery from injury hadn’t progressed as hoped.<\/p>\n

Cardinals ownership, though, seemingly placed blame on Gannon \u2014 and Gannon may have seen it coming. In a press conference<\/a> in mid-November, Gannon acknowledged potentially being on the hot seat.<\/p>\n

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“Yeah, not a controllable for me,” Gannon said. “That\u2019s the business we\u2019re in. If you don\u2019t want to be in that business, we laugh, we joke, go work somewhere else. I\u2019m going to control the controllables for myself. You know, come to work and do the best job that I can.”<\/p>\n

While Gannon is out, general manager Monti Ossenfort will stay. Ossenfort and team owner Michael Bidwell will meet with the media Monday to discuss Gannon’s firing and talk about the franchise’s future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ossenfort was hired by the team in 2023. Notable players drafted by Ossenfort include Marvin Harrison Jr. and Paris Johnson, both of whom should be part of the Cardinals’ core moving forward.<\/p>\n

It was a disappointing result considering some saw the Cardinals as a team on the rise after it improved from four wins in 2023 to eight in 2024. While things looked promising early, the Cardinals collapsed, leading to Gannon’s third straight losing season with the franchise.<\/p>\n

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Arizona will now open the search for a new coach, after burning through six head coaches in the past two decades. Since moving to Arizona in 1988, the Cardinals have had only one coach who has lasted longer than four seasons: Ken Whisenhunt, who coached from 2007-2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Gannon’s short tenure as the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach has come to an end. Gannon was fired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,254,1327,256,257,7,253,125,7523,7062,4827,58,3374,6,109,252,261,394,6957],"class_list":{"0":"post-656462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","14":"tag-dallas-cowboys","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-houston-texans","17":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","18":"tag-jacoby-brissett","19":"tag-jonathan-gannon","20":"tag-kyler-murray","21":"tag-los-angeles-rams","22":"tag-marvin-harrison-jr","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","25":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","26":"tag-seattle-seahawks","27":"tag-tennessee-titans","28":"tag-the-cardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}