On the day he was announced as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, Jonathan Gannon issued a proclamation.
“Don’t get it twisted,” Gannon said. “We’re gonna win games.”
Nearly three years later, on Monday, Jan. 5, the Cardinals fired Gannon because he could not fulfill that promise. The news came the morning after their 3-14 season came to a close in a 37-20 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
Firing Gannon means that the Cardinals will likely have an entirely new coaching staff in 2026, parting ways with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing and defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. General manager Monti Ossenfort, who was hired along with Gannon in 2023, remains in his role and will oversee the coaching search.
Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon speaks to reporters after an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif.
In three seasons at the helm, Gannon finished with a record of 15-36. Of the 15 Cardinals head coaches who have lasted multiple seasons in the Super Bowl era, Gannon’s .294 win percentage was the worst.
But it’s an end that was difficult to envision back in September. Across his first two seasons, Gannon appeared to have the Cardinals on a positive trajectory.
In 2023, they won four games with a roster widely regarded as the league’s worst, including a 3-5 record after Kyler Murray returned from his torn ACL. Stability had replaced the chaos of Kliff Kingsbury’s final season, and Gannon was credited for the change.
In 2024, they doubled that win total, finishing 8-9. The defense exceeded all expectations and the offense was a top-12 unit, bolstered by an elite run game.
It was a team that fit Gannon’s ethos. They were disciplined. They tackled hard. The offense line was a defined positive. The defense created chaos.
But in 2025, those tenets disappeared.
The offense collapsed, unable to recreate the run game success from a year earlier. Even in a 2-0 start, those struggles were evident. Then, in Weeks 3 and 4, the Cardinals lost James Conner and Trey Benson — their top two running backs — for the season. They never recovered.
But it wasn’t just the running backs. With offensive line coach Klayton Adams having departed to take the Cowboys' offensive coordinator job, that entire unit regressed, even before injuries struck.
Without that rushing threat, Murray’s effectiveness waned. He played with timidity, checking the ball down more than nearly any other quarterback in the NFL. He was averaging a career low in yards per attempt (6.0) and yards per game (192.4), then suffered a mysterious foot injury in Week 5.
The injury ultimately sidelined him for the season, though Gannon acknowledged that on-field performance played a role in the decision to turn to Jacoby Brissett.
For a short stretch, Brissett revitalized the offense, unlocking improved production for both Trey McBride and Michael Wilson — while former No. 4 overall pick Marvin Harrison Jr. continued his inconsistencies. But in the Cardinals’ nine-game losing streak, Brissett’s best work came in garbage time, once blowout losses were out of hand.
Through it all, Gannon maintained his support for embattled offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, whose offenses did not seem to accentuate Murray’s skill set.
“I had no problems with the offensive play calling,” Gannon said in September, after a 16-15 loss to the 49ers. “Never will. I know exactly what we're calling. So if you've got a problem with that, you should look to me.”
Both Gannon and Petzing arrived in Arizona with a plan to lean on the under-center, play-action passing game rather than a shotgun, spread offense. But Murray, who is 5 feet 10 and struggles to read defenses from inside the pocket, is not best suited for that ideology.
Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon walks on the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif.
That seemed to lead to a stylistic clash between organization and quarterback, as the Cardinals acquired big-bodied tight ends and wide receivers to fit Petzing’s scheme. In part because of that scheme, Murray’s rushing usage trended downward. With Petzing, he averaged 5.0 rush attempts per game. With Kingsbury, he averaged 6.7 rush attempts per game.
Last week, both Gannon and Petzing maintained that they did enough to build the offense around Murray.
“I’d like to think I did,” Petzing said. “I always am gonna build the offense around whoever our best players are.”
But this season, the Cardinals’ struggles extended far beyond their offense. Despite investing nearly all of their free agent dollars and draft capital into the defense, that group experienced significant regression. Over the final nine weeks of the season, no team allowed more points.
As with the offense, the defense dealt with significant injuries. No team in the NFL placed more players on injured reserve this season or missed more games to injury.
Yet, there was also an overarching trend of poor defensive investments. Defensive lineman Darius Robinson, cornerback Max Melton and edge rusher B.J. Ojulari have all disappointed, despite being drafted inside the first two rounds. Defensive tackles Dalvin Tomlinson, Justin Jones and Bilal Nichols all provided minimal impact out of free agency over the past two years, as did linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither and cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting.
In December, Gannon seemed to acknowledge those failings. He said that the Cardinals would spend the offseason re-evaluating their approach to both health and player development.
Now, he won’t get that opportunity. It’s a move that speaks to issues that went beyond injuries or player development. The Cardinals, once defined by their discipline and aggression, were among the league leaders in both penalties and missed tackles.
By December, they had morphed from a team that couldn’t win close games to a team that couldn’t even stay competitive. Six of their final nine losses came by at least three scores.
Ultimately, it was too much to bear.
