Here’s what people were saying about the Arizona Cardinals about a year ago: They were a team that was caught tampering in the process of hiring Jonathan Gannon, the defensive coordinator of a team that gave up 38 points in the Super Bowl, and overlaying him atop a flamed-out franchise that featured a quarterback unable to play for most of the 2023 season due to a torn ACL. The coach’s first introduction to the public world was a horribly-edited speech about public transportation and gut irritation.
Here’s what we missed until Sunday, when the team blasted the New York Jets 31–6 to retain sole possession of first place in a division with three of the (other) smartest coaches in the NFL: That first year, Arizona’s first two losses were by a combined seven points; in Week 8, the offense put up 24 puts on a world-beating Baltimore Ravens defense with a combination of Joshua Dobbs, Emari Demercado and Rondale Moore; and the team finished the final eight games of the season as one of the 10 most efficient offenses in the NFL in terms of EPA per play.
So now that we’re all caught up, what I’m about to say shouldn’t seem all that controversial and, hopefully, will come as less of a surprise. At this point in the season, unless we’re hell bent on giving Dan Campbell or Matt LaFleur their long overdue Coach of the Year awards, factoring in prior successes as well as 2024 performances, then the Cardinals should be in line for a sweep à la last year’s Houston Texans. Give Gannon Coach of the Year. Give Monti Ossenfort, the guy who continues to press the right buttons in terms of retaining valuable veterans and selecting the kind of dynamic young players that fit this team’s budding ethos, Executive of the Year. Give OC Drew Petzing, whose schematic brilliance from a year ago has been given new life with the addition of a healthy Kyler Murray and No. 4 pick Marvin Harrison Jr., Assistant Coach of the Year. Let them take a victory lap for the turnaround that not nearly enough people are talking about.
In hearing from candidates who were up for both coaching and executive jobs during the 2023 season, the Cardinals’ job stood out as one that was both simultaneously horrifying—a team with a culture worthy of long read, a quarterback who apparently needed (and then had removed) a study clause in his contract who didn’t seem to take to a Kliff Kingsbury offense tailored to his preferences, a defense that had taken big swings and misses on a handful of draft picks—and attractive for the right kind of person who was truly built for a slog.
Those who knew Gannon insisted he was taking this job to win and win quickly. With Murray. Without tanking. Without that long con that some play, forever insisting that if they only had this or that they’d actually be winning games. Without the passive acceptance of and then strategic throwing under the bus of the holdovers from the previous regime, inevitably replaced by players more familiar with the scheme.
It’s proof that there is no such thing as a rebuild in the NFL anymore. If Gannon could do it, forgive our lack of patience for another team in possession of a top-15 quarterback getting gutted on a regular basis. Just rewatch Sunday’s game. Sure, the Jets are hapless and, on this particular occasion, attempted to be the first team in the NFL to win a game without tackling anyone. Arizona had five different players bat down a pass. Four different players logged a QB hit. Four different players had three or more catches. This was a beatdown only possible when your roster is better, or at least better prepared, than almost every single player on the other side of the ball.
It’s also proof that there are times we truly cannot judge a situation unless we’re steeped in it.
NFL teams like to comb through old rankings to expose “cold” takes when a season is going well. It’s a cheap mechanism for easy and sometimes strange online engagement—when you’re 4–12 and praising the one asleep-at-the-wheel former player analyst who has watched four games all year and picked your team by accident in the weekly pool—but it’s also a window into the collective perception of a sport, of a team and of a time.
The value is that, with a team like the Cardinals, with a coach like Gannon, with these executives, these assistants, we underestimated the willingness to make something work that felt irreparably broken not all that long ago.
For those who are just checking back in on the Cardinals after all this time, welcome. It’s going much better than you thought it would.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as It’s Time to Give Cardinals Credit for an Impressively Quick Turnaround.
