Revenge of the Birds
The Arizona Cardinals are said to be the New York Jets with palm trees.
Of course, that is meant to be mean. But when your roster doesn’t win and remains on the sidelines while each year’s playoffs get rolling, insults are going to be a part of life.
Cardinals’ fans are cynical. They know their team isn’t good and won’t go anywhere anytime soon. They expect defeat and failure. They don’t trust the system and know that sooner or later, whatever is going on will end in sneering and disparaging treatment of their own loyalty and fandom.
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And they wish things could be different. And frustrated that it isn’t.
Yet.
Now that head coach Jonathan Gannon has been given the pink slip as head coach of the Cardinals, the search begins for the next guy to take control. Will he be an offensive guy or a defensive mind? Can the franchise turn around and become an annual playoff-caliber roster?
Seven NFL clubs have fired their head coaches this season. Several media outlets have ranked these teams and rated which franchise is the best job on the market, to the worst.
#7: Cardinals
“The Cardinals lost 14 of their last 15 games. Injuries impacted their season, but not that much. It was simply a bad football team. And what’s the main selling point? General manager Monti Ossenfort will stay, and in this era of GMs and coaches coming in a package deal, that might not be a positive.
Kyler Murray’s time with Arizona seems to be over, and even if he returns, that’s not a great thing either. There’s no quarterback, the team’s best player is a tight end, the defense was bottom six in points and yards allowed, and the franchise has just one playoff appearance (a one-and-done loss) since the 2015 season. Maybe the possibility of drafting a quarterback third overall will be appealing, but it’s not like this is a great quarterback class. Arizona has been a dead-end job for many years, and there’s not much reason to believe that will change soon.”
#7: Cardinals
“Unclear as it was whether deposed Gannon would move forward with Kyler Murray, it’s equally unclear if another coaching staff would embrace a player who tends to freelance and hasn’t done much to craft a rep as the locker room CEO most successful NFL quarterbacks are. Murray is guaranteed $36.8 million in 2026, and cutting him would incur a cap hit of nearly $55 million – though that’s hardly prohibitive in this era of the ballooning salary scale. A decision on his future could be further accelerated given nearly $20 million more will be guaranteed to Murray in 2027 if he remains on the roster on March 15. The two-time Pro Bowler and top pick of the 2019 draft is also only 28 and might yet fetch something on the trade market...
