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Well, it looks like Matt LaFleur won’t be waiting for Jim Leonhard after all. On Sunday morning, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported that the Green Bay Packers will be hiring Jonathan Gannon, the former head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, as their next defensive coordinator. Many reports stated that Leonhard and Raheem Morris were at the top of Green Bay’s lists to fill the void that Jeff Hafley left when he joined the Miami Dolphins as their next head coach, but that obviously didn’t come to fruition.
As far as we know, the interviewed candidates for the Packers’ job were Eagles pass game coordinator Christian Parker, who took the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive coordinator opening, Vikings pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Daronte Jones, Chicago Bears pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Al Harris and Gannon. Agents usually like to get interview news out there to build buzz for their clients, so those four candidates might be the only ones who came in for a visit. Yes, Hafley’s interview wasn’t reported prior to him inking a deal with Green Bay in 2024, but those were under specific circumstances — as Hafley was a sitting head coach of a college football team.
Per the reporting, Harris and Parker were interviewed on Wednesday, Jones was interviewed on Thursday and Gannon came in on Friday.
Here is what we wrote about Gannon’s resume at the time of his interview becoming public:
From 2021 to 2022, Gannon’s Eagles were 12th in opposing passer rating (88.7). For perspective, those were during Joe Barry’s first two years in Green Bay, and the Packers were 9th with an 87.6 mark. In Arizona, Gannon didn’t call plays on defense, deferring to young defensive coordinator Nick Rallis, who was still in his 20s when he got the position, through three seasons. The Cardinals had the third-worst passer rating allowed in the NFL (98.4) during Gannon’s time with the team. Arizona went 15-36 under his watch.
One of the things that the Cardinals did well was disguise their coverage shells until the last second. This was something head coach Matt LaFleur brought up ahead of their matchup on October 19th of this year. Green Bay spent most of the game playing very slowly on offense, using every second of the play clock to run motions that would give them tells on whether the Rallis/Gannon unit was actually in the coverage that they were presenting, or whether it would be changing it post-snap.
In that Packers-Cardinals matchup, which Green Bay won 27-23, the Packers only ended up running 53 plays because of the slow pace of the game. Gannon has no prior ties to Green Bay, LaFleur or key members of the defensive staff. He has interviewed for the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive coordinator opening, but Gannon has yet to be requested for the New York Giants, New York Jets or Washington Commanders.
It’s difficult to know what type of defense Gannon will be coaching in Green Bay, considering how...
