Nick Rallis Didn't Run When Asked About Cardinals Collapse

ARIZONA — The Arizona Cardinals' defense collapsed to near epic proportions last season.

After upsetting the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football, the team lost their final nine games of the year while allowing 37 or more points in six of those games.

"It was bad ball," said Cardinals defensive coordinator Nick Rallis when reflecting back on what transpired.

"There's a lot of factors to that. There's things that I felt like I could have set up plans better, right? Things you could say we should have been executing better. You could look at certain things and say, you know, 'was it a product of this or this or this?' So you kind of take all of those into account, made changes where you feel like you need to make changes," he said.

Change has been a buzzword around the team's facility in Tempe, as the Cardinals fired head coach Jonathan Gannon and have changed some different defensive personnel both on staff and roster entering 2026.

"I think in some ways the harder thing is where do we not want to make changes? Even if it wasn't looking successful, was it successful for us in 2024 early in the year and in 2025 and not just throwing everything away," Rallis continued.

"So really kind of picking our spots there, and at the end of the day, like, no matter what we're doing schematically, how do we get the players to be in the best spot where they're playing at their best, and they can go out there and win the game? And so that was ultimately like the underlying thing, is like, are the players going to be really good at executing this? And if not, throw it out. It's so layered, so many variables to this game, and you're not going to be able to say, 'Oh, yep, I have the answer right there.'

"But you better be ready to adapt, and you better be ready to continue adapt as we go through OTAs and training camp and the season."

After the team's performance in 2025, Rallis came under heavy fire. Many believed he would have been a casualty alongside Gannon, and to that point, the Cardinals did bring in multiple defensive coordinators for interviews before they settled on Rallis for the coming season.

With Gannon out of the picture, many are curious to see what Arizona's defense looks like both fully healthy and under Rallis' full control. His work done with a much less talented 2023 Cardinals defense made many believe he had the makings of a future head coach.

Change is always a constant in the NFL — but exactly how much was driven by last year's failures?

"I would say it drove like a certain amount, because at the end of the day, every year I'm looking to adapt and change because you're never going to have the perfect plan going into a season because there's going to be new challenges that offenses present," Rallis said.

"Even with teams that you're going to play a lot, there could be new personnel that you got to really account for, so that's always going to occur. But then you also look at, okay, it wasn't to where we needed to get to, why was that, and how can we change those things as well? So, yeah, maybe a little bit more changes than normal, but kind of both played a role."

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