The 2025 NFL season is about to close another chapter this weekend on the final weekend of the regular season. The Arizona Cardinals travel to Los Angeles to take on the Rams.
The next day became known as “Black Monday.” This is the day that NFL owners fire their head coaches and general managers. The New York Football Giants and Tennessee Titans have fired their head coaches. As many as six clubs are reportedly set to sack their managers on Monday.
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Related: Gannon says he’s doing ‘good’
For many fans, Black Monday was a day of relief and a chance to turn things around by changing the head coach and/or general manager. Double-digit losses in any season are never fun. Fans are exhausted after spending a lot of money on a team that underperforms week after week.
Does the series need a few changes here and there, or a complete rebuild?
Jonathan Gannon joins in 2023 after a successful season with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles just lost the Super Bowl, but Gannon’s defense played a great game. He was seen as another young buck with tremendous talent who could lead the Cardinals to the promised land.
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He proposed a three-year plan. In that first season, Arizona went 4-13-0, followed by 8-9-0. Very typical rebuilding strategy. The first year, there was not much progress, but the second year there was a lot of progress. This means that by the third season, fans and media should expect at least a 10-win season and most likely a playoff berth.
Instead, what happened was exactly the opposite. The third season under Gannon has been a throwback to his first year on the job. The Cardinals are currently 3-13-0 and have a chance to become the first team in the franchise’s 127-year history to lose 14 games in a season.
Fans of Gannon pointed out that the team won a lot of games in the final minutes of the game, only to have the victory taken away from them in the end. It was also mentioned that the team has lost eight games this year by seven points or less.
Not to mention the team has been blessed with a 2-0 start and currently has full teams (25 teams, to be exact) listed on IR. The injured include the starting running back and backup, starting punter, starting quarterback, starting LT, RT and RG, the team’s leading tackler, two backup tight ends and two contributing receivers.
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Now, after three seasons at the helm, will the winds of change blow through Tempe again as the team enters its latest “most important offseason?”
Michael Bidwill is the only person who fully understands the thoughts of store owner Michael Bidwill. He didn’t stop piling on the rumors and linking to a “feel” of what was going to happen Monday morning, especially as it related to Gannon.
What about general manager Monty Ossenfort? Is he safe? Or is another member of the organization not living up to expectations? After all, he arrived the same year as Gannon. He’s responsible for contracts and player arrivals, so he’s definitely a major contributor to the three-year plan, right?
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Look at his record of drafting players. The verdict is still out on WR Marv Harrison, who is looking more and more like a WR2 than a Hall of Famer. OG Isaiah Adams is a bust. DE Xavier Thomas has been waived. Paris Johnson was injured in overtime, as were defensive tackle Walter Nolen and running back Trey Benson. BJ Ojulari, like OG Jon Gaines, did very little.
So what about his free-agent signings? Defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson was released by the Cleveland Browns while still under contract due to lack of production, and that’s been the story since he landed in Arizona. OT Kelvin Beachum is a liability, so what happened to WR Zach Pascal’s two-year contract? QB Josh Dobbs looked like the Messiah for a while and then fell off the face of the earth.
LB Marcus Bailey? Signed DE Bilal Nichols and Justin Jones, CB Sean Murphy-Bunting, LB Mack Jones and RB Deejay Dallas to three-year contracts. Are these blue chip signings successful? WR Simi Fehoko? LB Mikal Walker? OL Jack Cohan?
During the free agency period, Oxenford’s greatest free agent signings include DT Calais Campbell, WR Greg Dortch, LBs Josh Sweat and Akeem Davis-Gathier, C Hjalte Froholdt and QB Jacoby Brissett.
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So, what do Cardinals fans and the media covering them think will happen?
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Theo Mackey – azcentral.com
About Gannon:
“Ultimately, this decision will not be Gannon’s to make. It will fall on Bidwill and Oxenford, neither of whom has spoken to reporters since September. Some of the factors in their minds are obvious. The Cardinals are 15-all under Gannon 35 wins. If they lose to the Rams in Week 18, his winning percentage will be the worst of any Cardinals coach in the Super Bowl era who has been in charge for multiple seasons. The other factors are less self-evident, and the veterans here know how bad the lack of effort can be.
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About Ossenfurt:
“Osenford, who arrived in the same offseason as Gannon, also needs to take a look at his roster construction. In three years, he has not acquired a Pro Bowler, whether through the draft, free agency or other means. His most worrying job will be in the 2024 draft, when he has 12 picks. Of those, only one — fourth-round safety D’Adrien Taylor-Demerson — has exceeded his draft-day expectations. Was the issue the talent evaluation of Gannon’s primary recruiting staff?
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Josh Weinfuss – ESPN Arizona
About Gannon:
“The initial diagnosis of how and why this season derailed will yield obvious reasons, starting with injuries to the starting quarterback, the top two running backs, two of the top four tight ends, both starting offensive tackles, and a 2025 first-round draft pick. Then there’s the defense, which gave up 40 points three times in five games and then 37 points two weeks later. The Cardinals regressed in 2025 after growing steadily in four wins under coach Jonathan Gannon Gannon reached eight points in his second year in 2023. However, Arizona hasn’t had much success this season, and the quarterback situation is to retain Kyler Murray or run with Jacoby Brissett. If Bidwill fires Gannon, who has two years left on his contract, the new coach will want to draft his own quarterback.
About Ossenfurt:
“According to the ESPN Football Strength Index, the Cardinals have an 83% There are a lot of layers to why the Cardinals’ process hasn’t translated to wins, so they’ll be in prime position to draft one of the top three signal-callers. That will be combined with what Arizona does with the rest of the quarterback room and depending on whether Bidwill decides to make changes at the head coach and general manager — or if Bidwill fires Gannon and Oxenford, there’s a chance the new regime decides to save the day with Murray.”
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Johnny the Lord – gophnx.com
About Gannon:
“Gannon never watched game tape with Michael Bidwell after the game. He had more influence and respect than any other head coach. Bidwell understood Gannon’s perspective on the NFL. Here’s my train of thought: Do I believe this has been done? I don’t. I believe the Cardinals plan Keep Gannon? Right. However, with the results last week and this week, Bidwell is starting to wonder, what are the fans saying? What’s the direction? Will all of this ultimately lead to us getting answers on Monday?
Albert Brill – Sports Illustrated
About Gannon:
“I certainly don’t think he’s safe right now. I don’t know what the ownership will do, but I do feel some level of change is coming. You can’t expect to lose (10 of 11) and expect that to go unchecked. I think there’s going to be significant changes after this year anyway. They’ve made a decision at quarterback; they have a team with some really good young talent. But based on what their draft capital has been over the past few years? I think there are a lot of legitimate questions about the future of this team.”
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Mark Harris – Heavy.com
About Gannon:
“A complete disaster” might have worked better for the 3-13 Cardinals. Despite all the negatives, Arizona head coach Jonathan Gannon isn’t worried about his future in the desert. No NFL head coach would come out and say he expects to be fired, but Gannon seems more confident than one might think for a coach in his position. Losing to the Bengals is one thing, but scoring just 14 points against Cincinnati’s poor defense? Attack that can fire. Gannon currently has a 15-35 record as Arizona’s head coach. That’s a .300 winning percentage. It doesn’t take a mathematician or a football expert to know that this is a very poor record. From Gannon’s point of view, a 4-13 record in his first year wasn’t terrible considering he inherited a bad program and a bad roster. It seems strange that Jonathan Gannon is so confident about returning to Arizona in 2026. Maybe he knows something we don’t. “
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David Brandt – WKYC.com
About Gannon:
“Fortunately, a horrific season for the Arizona Cardinals is coming to an end. Now one question looms over the team: Will coach Jonathan Gannon keep his job and return for a fourth season? Cardinals owner Michael Bidwell has been relatively quiet with the team, but ever present, and has revealed little about what he wants to do. Arizona got off to a 2-0 start, but has since gone into brutal free fall to 13 of 14 games. . On the positive side, Gannon still seems to have his share of negatives, with the Cardinals experiencing a lot of embarrassing moments and performances in their free fall this year, which quickly erased the fond memories of Gannon’s first two seasons as Arizona’s coach, as they fell to 15-35 — 20 games below .500 — in three seasons.
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Ben Garcia – The Ben Garcia Show
About Gannon:
“It’s time to fire Jonathan Gannon. He has earned the right to be fired. All the goodwill he had is gone. I personally felt cheated, confused, and out of control by Gannon because I was enamored of leadership. I was enamored of what he was doing in Philadelphia. He was the only defensive coordinator with four rushers and 10-plus sacks. His arrival really changed the culture. Players gave him an A+ on his NFLPA report card. ’s rating. But he took care of Drew Petersin’s defense from the beginning and then watched him score 14 points against the Cincinnati Bengals, and it wasn’t Petersin’s problem anymore — you guarded him, and combined with the defense being ill-prepared, that’s what it should be for Jonathan Gannon.”
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So with the team in the basement twice in three years in the NFC West, the rest is
Ownership to decide who to move forward with.
If Gannon is released, he will continue his journey to become a rising coordinator in the league. He did this very well.
Everyone in Arizona has high hopes for this year’s roster. Instead, the division’s other three clubs have playoff invites. The Cardinals ended up losing by double digits. Needless to say, Cardinals fans were frustrated with the outcome.
Ultimately, the vote was 1-0 to retain Gannon and/or Ossenfort. No one knows exactly what Bidwell was thinking. The good news is that we are only days away from all the speculation about the future employment of Gannon and Ossenfort.
