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Jonathan Gannon was hired by Arizona in 2023. (AP/Ross D. Franklin)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jonathan Gannon's short tenure as the Arizona Cardinals' head coach has come to an end. Gannon was fired by the Cardinals on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Gannon was hired as the Cardinals' head coach 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.
After a 2-0 start to the 2025 season, the Cardinals went on a significant skid. A moment of hope — a 27-17 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football — was then followed by back-to-back blowout losses to division rivals, first with the Seattle Seahawks and then to the San Francisco 49ers.
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.
The pressure seemingly boiled over for Gannon relatively early in the season, with the coach laying into running back Emari Demercado for a goal-line drop in a one-point loss to the Tennessee Titans. Gannon later apologized for his behavior and was fined $100,000 by the league.
Some of the team's struggles have had to do with injuries: The Cardinals placed quarterback Kyler Murray on injured reserve on Nov. 5 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'table to single-handedly turn around the season. Murray's future with the franchise now also looks dim, after Gannon essentially benched the start and then announced he was done for the year, stating his recovery from injury hadn't progressed as hoped.
Cardinals ownership, though, seemingly placed blame on Gannon — and Gannon may have seen it coming. In a press conference in mid-November, Gannon acknowledged potential hot-seat talk.
"Yeah, not a controllable for me," Gannon said. "That’s the business we’re in. If you don’t want to be in that business, we laugh, we joke, go work somewhere else. I’m going to control the controllables for myself. You know, come to work and do the best job that I can."
It was a disappointing result considering some saw the Cardinals as a team on the rise after the team improved from four wins in 2023 to eight wins in 2024. While things looked promising early, the Cardinals collapsed, leading to Gannon's third straight losing season with the franchise.
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 only had one coach (Ken Whisenhunt, who coached from 2007-2012) who has lasted longer than four seasons.
This story will be updated.
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