Once again, the Arizona Cardinals are on the search for the person to bring success to the Valley after Jonathan Gannon was fired on Monday.

Despite some in national media circles branding him as sitting on the hot seat coming into the season, in September on this site, I wrote that barring genuine disaster Jonathan Gannon’s job security wasn’t in the balance. The team had made year-on-year progress and they seemed to be “on track” in their rebuild.

Some notable offseason moves for Josh Sweat, Calais Campbell and Dalvin Tomlinson had fans excited to see Nick Rallis’s defence make a leap while they were running back an offence that had impressed in a number of metrics in 2024.

The 2025 NFL season wasn’t anything else but a genuine disaster for the Arizona Cardinals. The team were defeated a record 14 times, managed one win in their final 15 games and found themselves in the familiar embrace of fourth in the NFC West. At this point, fourth place in the NFC West for the Arizona Cardinals is like your favourite chair at home. It’s got the Cardinals butt print and everything.

I am genuinely upset that things didn’t work out for Jonathan Gannon. Not in the “I’m sat at home crying over old photos of him” way but because there’s nothing much more in life that I want than the Arizona Cardinals to be successful and it felt like they were slowly getting there.

For the first two years, Gannon and his staff had a much less talented roster than the one they had this year fighting tooth and nail in games most Sundays. It made you proud to tune in even if results weren’t going our way but he had to go after this season. It has been inexcusable from so many angles.

The same issues around in-game decision making and schemes were as apparent in his first game as Head Coach as they were in the loss to the Rams that brought the curtains down on his time here. Rather than being a fighter in 2025, Jonathan Gannon looked like a drowning man without a life vest on the sidelines and in interviews, incapable of going against the current.

None of us are actually in the locker room or at practices day-to-day so only the players *truly* know if he built a real culture or not and they seemed to like him a lot though some of the performances this year, epitomised by the weak tackling and defensive collapses might point to the opposite.

In a global sports world where so many people are media trained, acutely aware of saying the “right” thing and not wanting to stir up trouble, pre-and-post game comments aren’t usually my bag. They don’t hugely uplift me or upset me yet Gannon’s refusal to acknowledge the glaring errors on display every week and treating injury issues as CIA secrets royally pissed us all off.

Though Michael Bidwill and Monti Ossenfort seem to have made the decision to fire Gannon begrudgingly, I can’t imagine JG turning the ship around. Keeping him on would’ve likely been a stay of execution and the Arizona Cardinals can’t afford to keep hand-waving season after season.

It is 8 years since Bruce Arians left the organisation. That’s almost a decade without the Cardinals having a genuinely successful Head Coach at the helm. Sure, there have been glimmers – the 7-0 start in 2021, being top of the NFC West in 2024 – but nothing tangible. Even the solitary playoff appearance capped off an embarrassing collapse to the end of that 2021 season.

And unfortunately, glimmers aren’t enough in the battleground of the NFC West. While 8-9 records are good enough to compete and even win some divisions in this league, you have to be excellent to keep pace around here The 49ers would have won every other NFC division this year with their 12-5 record. Instead, they came 3rd and have to go through the Wild Card round in the play-offs.

That’s the kind of excellence that Monti Ossenfort has to unearth as he spearheads the search for the next man in Arizona, a decision that will define his time as General Manager. Get it right, he will be celebrated. Get it wrong, he will find himself looking for a new job himself.

There are certainly arguments to be made for and against Ossenfort continuing in his post and it’s a discussion I want to dive into before the new league year starts. As of right now, I feel better about Monti Ossenfort finding a new Head Coach than I do about Michael Bidwill finding a new GM, IF and it’s a big IF, Ossenfort is actually in charge of this search.

There are plenty of avenues that Ossenfort can go down in this search, as he routinely pointed towards player development being a key area the team need to improve during Monday’s presser, and that’s reflected in the current list of requested interviews the team have made so far.

They could go for a battle-scarred vet, someone with prior NFL head coaching experience or look to an exciting, young coordinator. Ossenfort might want to keep some of the perceived positives of Gannon’s time by bringing in a “player’s coach” or he may feel the need to go for a hard-nosed leader. He might want a blend of the above or the organisation may go into this without any preconceived notions.

What we know is that no matter what, there is not a single perfect candidate on the market. No matter the name recognition or the media buzz around a candidate, they will all come with some form of caveat. If they didn’t, they would be a Head Coach right now. Head Coach candidates are either damaged goods looking to get back into a job or an up-and-comer that isn’t battle-tested at the top of the tree.

Every fan of every team with a head coach opening will have a #1 option and even then, that person will have *something* going against them. It’s a matter of personal judgement on where you draw the line.

Even John Harbaugh, who immediately forced every team with an opening (and some without) to adjust their plans for this interview cycle, comes onto the market with questions around him. There are reports that he “lost the locker room” in Baltimore and there have been concerns amongst Ravens fans over the team’s schemes for a number of years. Would I take Harbaugh by any means neccessary, though? Absolutely.

Another former Super Bowl winning coach is also on the market in Mike McCarthy who was the “safest” bet before Harbaugh became available. He essentially guarantees a floor of GOOD and he often surrounds himself with strong coordinators, with current Head Coaches Brian Scottenheimer, Dan Quinn and Kellen Moore all spending time on McCarthy’s staff in Dallas.

His years of experience would lend itself to building out a good staff. Whether McCarthy can level a team up to GREAT is the question and from a Cardinals perspective, he did reject an interview with the team in 2019.

Defensive guru Brian Flores, who many Cards fans had as their #1 option prior to the news of Harbaugh’s departure, would instantly plug some of the major issues that led to Gannon’s departure. He would do away with the soft-as-hell defensive scheme and is brutally honest and upfront. That attitude plagued his time in Miami but there have been a number of reports that his experiences in Minnesota have mellowed some of those spikier edges down to a create a more professional but no less commanding presence.

With Flores, the main concern from a football perspective would be about who would run his offence. He burned through offensive coordinators in Miami and it would be interesting to see if he would dip back into his Patriots contact book or tempt away one of Kevin O’Connell’s disciples.

Off the field, the issue of the lawsuit Flores is part of against the NFL with Steve Wilks and Ray Horton could be a factor especially as the Cardinals are part of Wilks’ portion of the suit, though Flores did interview for the vacant post that was eventually filled by Gannon in 2023.

Robert Saleh, who the team has requested for an interview, would signify a real attempt at competing against the NFC – not many current coordinators know more about trying to outsmart the Rams and Seahawks than Saleh – and he does have prior experience after leading the Jets. His connections to the likes of Mike LaFleur and Klay Kubiak could cover the offensive side of things, as neither currently call plays so could theoretically be poached while pairing him with the recently fired Mike McDaniel feels like a dream scenario for any team.

Though his record with the Jets is less than flattering (20-36, .357 win percentage) and has to be reflected on, the Jets are an even bigger organisational mess than the Cardinals and Saleh did have to cope with choosing between Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle, Trevor Siemian and the husk of Aaron Rodgers at quarterback at various stages.

2x NFL Coach of the Year Kevin Stefanski will be one of the most attractive candidates on the market. A good coach that was ultimately hamstrung by an atrocious quarterback situation in Cleveland, he will have a job for 2026 if he wants one.

From a Cardinals viewpoint, the main pitfall with Stefanski would be the fact that his offensive scheme and in-game decision making mirrors the issues fans have had around Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petzing over the past three seasons, though I would feel much more confident of duking it out with the rest of the NFC West with Stefanski than with Gannon and Petzing.

Vance Joseph, Raheem Morris and Matt Nagy have all also been requested for interviews and would bring experience to the post but are probably the most bashed up in terms of their previous coaching outings in the eyes of fans. A former candidate for the Cardinals job in 2023, Lou Anarumo, would bring NFL experience but none as a head coach.

Klint Kubiak who is the “hottest” name currently linked to the Cardinals would be an exciting acquisition while also stinging a rival. Kubiak has supercharged the Seahawks offence this year and is a bit of a media darling in this cycle.

He would bring experience of unlocking the Rams and 9ers defence though you would be relying on him making the jump up to head honcho for the first time. There are some rumours that his laid back, reserved personality might not be a good fit for the all-encompassing role of Head Coach and that’s one of those things that you don’t know until you know it.

There is also plenty of buzz around Rams’ coordinators Mike LaFleur and Chris Shula, who can’t be requested due to league rules yet, in this cycle. Both have overseen a tremendous season for the Rams with Shula especially drawing plaudits for the team’s defensive output. If either of them take head coaching jobs this year, it will be for the first time, and their ability to build out a strong staff would be up for debate.

Previous Rams coordinators have experienced varying degrees of success since leaving for pastures new.

Kevin O’Connell has established himself well in Minnesota and Liam Coen has blown expectations out of the water so far in Jacksonville while Brandon Staley and Raheem Morris have both ultimately failed in their efforts at the Chargers and Falcons respectively.

Other young hotshots like Jesse Minter and Joe Brady will also have question marks over both their ability to build a staff and also to step out from the shadows of established figureheads in Jim Harbaugh and Sean McDermott as first-time NFL Head Coaches.

We’ve briefly touched on fourteen potential candidates there with their own potential pitfalls. That’s without factoring who, if any, of those names would seriously consider the post and there’s a number of others available too. That’s the scope of Monti Ossenfort’s task and it’s a task that he simply can’t afford to fail.

It’s a cliche and an understatement, but the next man for the Arizona Cardinals has to be the right one.

Image Credits: Getty Images, Arizona Cardinals, Mark J. Rebilas – Imagn Images, Kyle Terada – Imagn Images, USA Today, ESPN