The 2025 NFL season is about to close another chapter with the final weekend of games in the regular season this weekend. The Arizona Cardinals travel to Los Angeles to play the Rams.
The following day is referred to as “Black Monday.” This is the day that NFL owners fire their head coaches and general managers. Already, the New York Football Giants and Tennessee Titans have given their head coaches the ax. It has been reported that as many as six clubs will let their head man go on Monday.
RELATED: GANNON STATES HIS STATUS IS “GOOD”
For many fans, Black Monday is a day of relief and an opportunity to right the ship with a change at head coach and/or GM. Double-digit losses in any season is no fun. Fans spend a lot of money on a team that plays poorly week after week, and fans are exhausted.
Does the franchise need a few pieces here and there, or a complete rebuild?
Jonathan Gannon arrived in 2023 after a successful stint with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles had just lost the Super Bowl, but Gannon’s defense had played a spectacular game. He was viewed as yet another young buck with immense talent who could lead the Cardinals to the promised land.
He offered a three-year plan. The first season, Arizona went 4-13-0, followed by 8-9-0. Very typical for a rebuild strategy. The first year, very little works, but good improvement in Year 2. This means by the third season, fans and the media should expect at least a 10-win season, and most likely, a playoff berth.
What occurred instead was the exact opposite. The third season under Gannon has reverted to the first year he took over. The Cardinals are now 3-13-0 and have the opportunity to become the very first roster in the 127-year history of the franchise to lose 14 games in a single season.
Fans of Gannon have pointed out the numerous games the team had won in the waning minutes of games, only to have victory snatched away. Others mentioned that this year’s team has lost eight games by seven points or less.
Not to mention the franchise mercifully got off to a 2-0 start and currently has a full team listed on IR (25 to be exact). Among the wounded are the starting running back and his backup, the starting punter, the starting QB, starting LT, RT, and RG, the team’s leading tackler, both backup tight ends, and two contributing receivers.
Now, after three seasons in charge and with the franchise heading into its latest “most important offseason,” are the winds of change about to blow through Tempe once again?
The only one who has complete knowledge of what is going through the mind of owner Michael Bidwill is Michael Bidwill. And he has not stopped the rumors stacked on top of innuendos and tied up with “senses” about what will happen come Monday morning, especially as it relates to Gannon.
And what about GM Monti Ossenfort? Is he safe? Or will it be another member of the organization that hasn’t lived up to expectations? After all, he arrived the same year as Gannon. He handles contracts and the arrival of players, so certainly he is a main contributor to the three-year plan, right?
Look at his track record of drafting players. The verdict is still out on WR Marv Harrison, who is looking more and more like a WR2 instead of a Hall of Famer. OG Isaiah Adams is a bust. DE Xavier Thomas is already cut. OT Paris Johnson hurt, so is DT Walter Nolen and RB Trey Benson. B.J. Ojulari has done very little as has OG Jon Gaines.
And his free agent signings? DT Dalvin Tomlinson was let go from the Cleveland Browns while still under contract for lack of production, which has been his story since landing in Arizona. OT Kelvin Beachum is a liability, and what happened to the two-year deal with WR Zach Pascal? QB Josh Dobbs looked like the Messiah for a spell, then fell off the earth.
LB Markus Bailey? Three-year deals to DE Bilal Nichols and Justin Jones, CB Sean Murphy-Bunting, LB Mack Jones, and RB Deejay Dallas. Any of these blue-chip signings come through? WR Simi Fehoko? LB Mykal Walker? OL Jake Curhan?
During the free agency period, Ossenfort’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.
So, what do Cardinals fans and the media that cover them think will happen?
———————————————————————————
Theo Mackie – azcentral.com
Regarding Gannon:
“Ultimately, that decision will not be Gannon’s to make. It will fall on Bidwill and Ossenfort, neither of whom has been made available to reporters since September. Some of the factors weighing on their minds will be obvious. The Cardinals are 15-35 under Gannon. If they lose to the Rams in Week 18, his win percentage will be the worst of any Cardinals coach with multiple seasons at the helm in the Super Bowl era. Other factors are less self-evident. The veterans here know how bad seasons can look. Finger-pointing. A lack of effort. Low energy practices.”
Regarding Ossenfort:
“Ossenfort, who arrived in the same offseason as Gannon, also needs to look at his own roster construction. In three years, he has not acquired a single Pro Bowler, whether through the draft, free agency, or otherwise. His most concerning work came in the 2024 draft, when he held 12 draft picks. Of those, only one — fourth-round safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson — has outperformed his draft day expectation. Is the issue Ossenfort’s talent evaluation? Or is it the player development capabilities of the coaching staff, which Gannon was primarily responsible for hiring?”
—————————————————————————
Josh Weinfuss – ESPN Arizona
Regarding Gannon:
“The initial diagnosis of how and why this season went off the rails will produce the obvious reasons, starting with injuries, including the starting quarterback, the top two running backs, two of the top four tight ends, both starting offensive tackles, and the 2025 first-round pick. Then there’s the defense, which gave up 40 points three times in a five-game stretch, followed by 37 two weeks later. The Cardinals regressed in 2025 after steady growth from four wins in coach Jonathan Gannon’s first season in 2023 to eight in Year 2. Publicly, Gannon has fallen on the sword. Yet, little that Arizona did led to wins this season. And the quarterback situation. To draft or not to draft a quarterback, keep Kyler Murray or run with Jacoby Brissett? If Bidwill fires Gannon, who has two years left on his contract, then the new coach will want to pick his own quarterback.”
Regarding Ossenfort:
“With an 83% chance of keeping a top-five pick, according to the ESPN Football Power Index, the Cardinals will be in a prime position to draft one of the top three signal-callers. Who, though, in reality, will still be on the board when they go on the clock is the biggest question. There are a lot of layers to why the Cardinals’ process hasn’t translated to wins. It’ll be in conjunction with what Arizona does with the rest of the quarterback room as well as hinge on whether Bidwill decides to make changes at head coach and general manager — or both. if Bidwill fired both Gannon and Ossenfort, then there’s an outside chance the new regime may decide it can run it back with Murray.”
———————————————————————————–
Johnny Venerable – gophnx.com
Regarding Gannon:
“Gannon has never watched game film with Michael Bidwell after games. He has more clout and respect than any other head coach. Bidwill is cognizant of Gannon’s perception around the NFL. This is my train of thought: Do I believe this is a done deal? I do not. Do I believe the Cardinals plan to keep Gannon? Correct. However, last week and the results of this week, Bidwill, as the owner, is starting to think, what is the fanbase saying? What is the direction? What’s the player buy-in? We are only taking this at face value. There’s an outcry. Will fans start to cancel season tickets in droves? All of that culminates in the fact that we won’t have an answer until Monday.”
Here’s the full comment from Albert Breer :
https://t.co/USboyj88Nv pic.twitter.com/Vhkc7vvVlP
— K1SinceDay1 (@KSzn2021)
December 9, 2025
Albert Breer – Sports Illustrated
Regarding Gannon:
“I certainly don’t think he’s safe right now. I don’t know what the owner’s going to do, but it does feel to me that some level of change is coming. You can’t expect to lose (10 out of 11) and expect that to go unchecked. I think there’s going to be a significant change after the year, regardless. They’ve got a decision to make at quarterback; they’ve got a team with some really good young talent on it. But is there enough based on the amount of draft capital they’ve had the last couple of years? I think there are a lot of fair questions to ask about the future of that team.”
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Mark Harris – Heavy.com
Regarding Gannon:
“Unmitigated disaster” could work better for the 3-13 Cardinals. And despite all the negativity, Arizona head coach Jonathan Gannon is not worried about his future in the desert. No NFL head coach is going to come out and say that he expects to be fired, but Gannon seemed more self-assured than one would expect a coach in his position to be. It’s one thing to lose to the Bengals, but to only score 14 points against Cincinnati’s awful defense? A fire-able offense. Gannon now has a 15-35 record as head coach of Arizona. That is a .300 winning percentage. It does not take a mathematician or a football savant to know that is a very bad record. In Gannon’s defense, a 4-13 first year is not horrible considering he was taking over a bad program with a bad roster. It seems odd that Jonathan Gannon is so confident that he will be back in Arizona for 2026. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
——————————————————————————–
David Brandt – WKYC.com
Regarding Gannon:
“A dreadful season for the Arizona Cardinals is mercifully nearing its end. Now one question hovers over the franchise: Will coach Jonathan Gannon keep his job and be back for a fourth season? Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill is a relatively quiet but constant presence around the team, and he has given little clue about what he wants to do. Arizona started the season 2-0, but has since dropped 13 of 14 in a brutal freefall. On the positive side, Gannon still appears to have the support of the locker room. As for the negatives, there are plenty. The Cardinals have had multiple embarrassing moments and performances during this year’s freefall, which are quickly erasing good memories from the first two seasons. Gannon’s record as Arizona’s coach has fallen to 15-35 in three seasons — 20 games under .500.”
———————————————————————————–
Ben Garcia – The Ben Garcia Show
Regarding Gannon:
“Now’s the time to fire Jonathan Gannon. He has earned the right to be fired. All of the goodwill he had is gone. I feel personally hoodwinked, bamboozled, run amok by Gannon because I fell for leadership. I fell for the things he did in Philly. He was the only defensive coordinator ever to have four pass rushers with 10+ sacks. He came in and did originally change the culture. The players gave him an A+ on his NFLPA report card. I fell for it. But he looks way over his skis. And the defending of Drew Petzing from the get-go, and then watching him muster up 14 points against the Cincinnati Bengals, one being a garbage-time score. That’s no longer a Petzing thing – that’s a you issue. You defended him, combined with the defense. Ill-prepared, not ready to play, disinterested. That should be it for Jonathan Gannon.”
————————————————————————————
So, with the team in the basement twice in three years of the NFC West Division under Gannon, that leaves ownership to decide who to go forward with.
If Gannon is let go, he will continue his trek of being a guy who is a rising coordinator in this league. That, he does well.
Everyone in Arizona expected great things from this roster this year. Instead, the other three clubs in the division all have postseason invitations. The Cardinals ended up with double-digit losses instead. Needless to say, Cardinals fans are frustrated with the results.
In the end, the vote to keep Gannon and/or Ossenfort will be 1-0. Nobody knows for certain what Bidwill is thinking. The good news is we are only a few days away from an end to all the speculation about the future employment of Gannon and Ossenfort.
