Feb. 13, 2026, 7:26 p.m. MT<\/p>\n
In what might have been a bit of a surprise, after interviewing several defensive coordinator candidates, the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> are retaining Nick Rallis, their defensive coordinator for the last three seasons. His defenses have statistically not been great, so why did the Cardinals keep him when they could have started anew?<\/p>\n According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler<\/a>, the Cardinals prioritized previous playcalling experience.<\/p>\n Most of the Cardinals’ candidates had not previously been a defensive playcaller. Aubrey Pleasant has been the Rams<\/a>‘ assistant head coach and passing game coordinator. Houston’s Dino Vasso is a defensive backs coach. New York’s Charlie Bullen has been a linebackers coach (although he called plays to end last season as the interim defensive coordinator). Seattle’s Karl Scott is a defensive backs coach. All would have been DCs for the first time.<\/p>\n The one experienced playcaller, Gus Bradley, turned down the Cardinals’ offer of calling plays and more money to be the Tennessee Titans<\/a>‘ defensive coordinator and work with Robert Saleh.<\/p>\n Michigan defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, who has vast playcalling experience in the NFL, was considered “a name to watch”<\/a> early in the process, but there was not any reported interview.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n And so it is a return to Rallis, who is lauded as a defensive genius around the league, although his Cardinals defenses in three seasons have ranked 25th, 21st and 27th in yards allowed and twice in three years have been in the bottom three in the league in points allowed.<\/p>\n At least there will be continuity, so we already know about whether or not certain players fit the scheme. Now we will see who comes back next season, and we will see if Rallis’ playcalling strategy changes under Mike LaFleur.<\/p>\n Get more Cardinals<\/a> and NFL coverage from Cards<\/a> Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Apple podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 13, 2026, 7:26 p.m. MT In what might have been a bit of a surprise, after interviewing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2078],"tags":[95878,375,390,2604,1327,7,6,95973,95974,95882,95890,95892,95924,95896,95888,95895,95899,95975,95883,95889,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-751425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-arizona-cardinals","11":"tag-arizonacardinals","12":"tag-cardinals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcardinals","16":"tag-sstsncardinals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagarizona-cardinals","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-taglos-angeles-rams","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagrobert-saleh","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-tagtennessee-titans","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116068634050667331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751425","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=751425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}