Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill has a big decision to make in a couple weeks.
Should he fire coach Jonathan Gannon and GM Monti Ossenfort?
Here are five reasons why it’s not that complicated of an answer.
1. The Cardinals are historically bad
With road losses to the Bengals and Rams over the final two weeks, Arizona would finish with the worst record in franchise history since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
That says a lot, because the Cardinals are one of the most historically inept franchises in the NFL and have plenty of disastrous seasons on the books.
This team isn’t as bad as Steve Wilks’ 2018 group, which had a minus-200 point-differential, but to even be in that conversation in Year 3 of a rebuild is an epic embarrassment.
Unless the Rams sit their starters in the finale, Gannon and Ossenfort are likely to wrap their first three years in the desert with a win-percentage under .300. No competent owner brings back a duo with that type of resume.
2. The quarterback switch was an unmitigated disaster
Career backup Jacoby Brissett had three solid games in place of an injured Kyler Murray, but instead of thanking him for keeping the team afloat, Gannon and Ossenfort inexplicably made a full-time change at the position.
The Cardinals are 0-7 with a point-differential of minus-102 since that decision was made, going from an unlucky team to a terrible one, and Brissett is 26th in the NFL in Total QBR despite the hot start.
Murray had one of his poorer five-game stretches to begin the year, but still outpaces Brissett in efficiency numbers this season.
The Cardinals were a top-10 offense by EPA/play when Murray started in both 2023 and 2024, and positive regression would have almost certainly been on the docket had Murray re-entered the starting lineup, which makes the quick hook particularly glaring.
Gannon’s belief that Murray was holding the team back was a grave miscalculation, and making such an evaluation error at the most important position on the field is fire-worthy in itself.
3. The defense is not improving
The Cardinals didn’t win with Murray under center in large part because of a defense that finished No. 31 and No. 24 in EPA/play in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
That was supposed to change in 2025, as Ossenfort added Josh Sweat, Walt Nolen, Calais Campbell, Dalvin Tomlinson, Will Johnson, Denzel Burke, Jordan Burch and others in an offseason almost exclusively focused on the defense.
The result?
The Cardinals are 29th in points allowed this season, 26th in yards allowed and 24th in EPA/play.
Gannon is a defensive head coach, and Arizona has the fourth-worst defense in the NFL since he was hired. If he can’t even get that group to play effectively, why would there be any faith in his ability to get the offense rocking?
4. The game management is poor
The most pivotal game of the 2024 season was in Minnesota, a contest the Cardinals very well may have won except for a major coaching blunder.
Gannon went against the analytics by kicking a field goal to go up six late in the fourth quarter, and the Vikings scored a touchdown to win the game.
This year, the defining game was the loss to the Titans, in which the Cardinals ran the ball three times – including on 3rd-and-9 – when a first down would have sealed a win.
The coaching staff has shown no ability to seize games, instead preferring the try-not-to-lose approach, which has, predictably, resulted in losses.
There has been no progress made by Gannon in his three years at the helm, which is the biggest reason why the Cardinals have struggled so badly in close games.
5. The future is bleak
The Gannon/Ossenfort regime is 2-17 when Murray doesn’t start, and that’s a marriage that will be ending in the next couple months.
From what I’m hearing, Murray would like to end up in Minnesota or Atlanta, which have good offensive coaches and personnel. Going to a team like the Jets would be a Cardinals redux, and that doesn’t have much appeal.
Wherever Murray ends up, the Cardinals will be desperately searching for a capable replacement, and there aren’t any realistic veteran options in the NFL.
So what does that foretell? Ossenfort, on the hottest of seats if he does return in 2026, will be desperate to add a rookie quarterback in April’s draft that he can sell to Bidwill and the fanbase.
For three years, Ossenfort has hoarded draft picks and patiently built the roster. If the Cardinals were close at all to contending, this would certainly be the offseason to strike.
But as we see, Arizona is again among the dregs of the league, and trading multiple first-round picks to move up for a quarterback is an extremely risky play.
If the Cardinals bring in a new GM and coach this offseason, they can take an unbiased look at Fernando Mendoza and Dante Moore and determine how much they want to participate in a potential bidding war.
If the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, they would sit out, tank with Brissett for a year, and put all eyes on the 2027 draft. But Ossenfort will be out of a job by then if he doesn’t make a splash, a type of desperation that harkens back to the Josh Rosen pick in 2018.
The Cardinals are going to be bad again in 2026, but every ounce of focus should be on finding the right quarterback prospect in the next year or two.
Should Gannon and Ossenfort be the ones to make that decision? The results from the first three years give us a resounding answer.
