Packers Hire Jonathan Gannon, But What Happened With Cardinals?

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have a new defensive coordinator, with former Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon replacing new Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley.

Gannon spent the last three seasons with Arizona, where he compiled a 15-36 record. During a season-ending nine-game losing streak, the Cardinals allowed 37-plus points in six games. However, during his final year as defensive coordinator of the Eagles in 2022, Philadelphia reached the Super Bowl behind a high-level defense.

Donnie Druin is the publisher of Cardinals On SI. He provided some insight on Gannon.

1. Jonathan Gannon’s track record in Philadelphia was really good. Not so much in Arizona. The big-picture question is what do you think went wrong?

Druin: That’s the big picture and golden question in Arizona. What happened?

After a clear reset year in 2023, when quarterback Kyler Murray missed the first half of the season while recovering from an ACL injury, the Cardinals narrowly missed the playoffs in 2024 with an 8-9 record. In free agency this past offseason, they invested heavily on the defensive side of the ball ahead.

Arizona started 2-0 but collapsed to proportions rarely seen in league history. After the back-to-back wins, it lost five consecutive games – all by four points or less – including Week 7 against Green Bay. After winning at Dallas after the bye, the Cardinals dropped their final nine games to finish 3-14.

Ultimately, two things led to Gannon’s demise. The obvious talking point in the desert has been injuries. The Cardinals used upwards of 80 players entering the final few weeks, which led the NFL. People inside the building described Arizona’s as a “preseason” roster, as deep-depth-chart guys and practice-squad call-ups were relied upon heavily.

The #Packers have a new defensive coordinator, going with Jonathan Gannon, who helped the Eagles get to the Super Bowl before a failed run as head coach of the Cardinals.https://t.co/2l9VeEOH3T
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) January 25, 2026

Everybody across the league deals with injuries, though Arizona’s massive amount was simply too much to overcome. In fact, by one measure, no team in the NFL was hit harder by injuries than the Cardinals.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, Gannon’s hopes of playing a CEO-type role as head coach came back to haunt him. Gannon allowed his coordinators to call plays, which is fine if things are going good, though far too many times Gannon failed to intervene when things were going sideways on either side of the ball.

He simply had too much trust in his coordinators, publicly and seemingly privately. Gannon bet on a young and inexperienced staff around him, and that wager didn’t pay off.

2. Philosophically, it probably depends on how he views Green Bay’s personnel, but what can we expect as far as man, zone, blitzing and the like?

Druin: It is important to note that while Gannon obviously had a heavy influence on defensive personnel and game planning, he did not call plays in Arizona. That was left for coordinator Nick Rallis, so these numbers might not allow for full context on how Gannon will run things in Green Bay.

With that being said, Arizona rarely used man coverage with just 19 percent usage in 2025. When they did use man, their most-called coverage was Cover-1 at 15 percent. The Cardinals mostly deployed zone coverage, with the majority of those looks coming in Cover-3 (27 percent) and Cover-4 (25 percent). In fact, the Cardinals and Falcons played more Cover-4 than any other team.

As far as blitzing, the Cardinals were about average in terms of sending the house. They blitzed on just 23.9 percent of plays, which ranked 14th in the league, and ahead of Green Bay’s 21 percent rate, as well. Gannon deemed himself a guy who is aggressive when he feels the need to be. Is he Brian Flores? Absolutely not, but he’ll pick and choose when he thinks he needs to dial things up.

3. I know there was the incident with running back Emari Demercado after that infamous fumble against the Titans. Generally, though, how do you think the players thought of him as a coach? Because he’ll be replacing a popular coordinator here with Jeff Hafley.

Druin: Yeah, that incident wasn’t Gannon’s best moment. For what it’s worth, it didn’t feel like the locker room folded or turned on Gannon after that happened. And I think that drives me to my next point: The players really did fight for Gannon.

Obviously, the Cardinals weren’t close to being what they should have been, but that felt like anything but an effort problem in Arizona. The scoreboard and final record don’t reflect that, but even during exit interviews the morning Gannon was fired, every player that reporters talked to vouched for Gannon to return, which includes franchise faces such as Jacoby Brissett, Trey McBride and Paris Johnson among many others.

I can’t speak on how successful he’ll be calling Green Bay’s defense, but what I’m most confident in is the person the Packers are getting. During his time in Arizona, he was intent on only bringing on high-character players. Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was turning around a Cardinals culture that desperately needed work after Kliff Kingsbury left.

Maybe some are better coordinators than head coaches. Maybe Gannon was unprepared for his first time as a head coach. But the Packers could have done much, much worse in terms of getting a defensive coordinator.

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Some apples to oranges here, for sure, but here's a statistial comparison between Jeff Hafley's Packers defenses and Jonathan Gannon's previous defenses. ⬇️https://t.co/e9BvbVdXu6
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) January 25, 2026

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