For the first time in NFL history, three teams in the same division finished with at least 12 wins, as the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers all got there in the NFC West.
Looking further down the standings, it’s easy to see how: the Arizona Cardinals finished just 3-14, gifting a pair of wins to each of three other teams in their divisions. The season was as tumultuous as the record might have indicated: Kyler Murray played just five games before suffering a season-ending injury, running backs James Conner and Trey Benson both saw their campaigns end early, Marvin Harrison Jr. battled injuries, and the Cardinals finished with a bottom-10 unit on both sides of the ball. To make matters worse, head coach Jonathan Gannon had a highly-publicized spat with running back Emari Demercado, making physical contact with the 26-year-old and drawing a $100,000 fine.
It was hardly surprising when, on Monday, the Cardinals parted ways with Gannon after a third consecutive losing season.
Whoever inherits Gannon’s job will have a difficult decision to make on Murray’s future and will need to emphasize Harrison’s development (as well as that of whichever prospect they select with this summer’s third overall pick). It might well be a long road back towards contention, so Arizona’s next head coach will have to exhibit patience with a young squad.
Who will that coach be? Let’s break down the odds on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Cardinals next head coach odds
There isn’t a particular consensus in the market on who the Cardinals’ next head coach will be, perhaps in part because of the difficultly of the position, between any decision on Murray’s future and the strong NFC West. Every other job except for Arizona’s has a candidate with +350 or better odds, while the favorites for the Cardinals’ opening right now are Vance Joseph (+500) and Brian Flores (+500), as well as a litany of other candidates with 10-to-1 or better odds.
For what it’s worth, Arizona has reportedly requested interviews with Joseph, Klint Kubiak (+600), Matt Nagy (+1100), Robert Saleh (+2000), Raheem Morris, and Thomas Brown.
The Cardinals were Gannon’s first head coaching gig after he spent just two seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator, and the odds imply that Arizona general manager Monti Ossenfort will be looking for an experienced hire. The co-favorites each have previous head coaching experience, with Joseph serving as the Denver Broncos’ boss for two seasons and helping coordinate one of the league’s best defenses across the last three seasons and Flores coaching the Miami Dolphins for three seasons. Three of the other coaches the Cardinals have requested interviews with also have head coaching experience: Nagy was a former Coach of the Year with the Chicago Bears, Saleh headed the New York Jets for four seasons, and Morris has five seasons of coaching experience between stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons.
Still, there’s a reason those coaches are no longer the top boss with their respective teams, and several of the league’s best coaches now were assistants prior to being elevated. If Arizona chooses to go a completely different direction, Kubiak is among the most coveted options league-wide, coming off of a season in which he helped lead the Seattle Seahawks to the league’s eighth-best offense and the first seed in the NFC. Both quarterback Sam Darnold and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had among their career-best seasons under his watch, and it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which Kubiak seeks to re-create the playbook he used to develop Darnold and Smith-Njigba with Harrison and a rookie quarterback.
The names at +700 offer a mix of experience, from Mike McCarthy — a 19-season head coach who helped Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Dak Prescott rack up four top-two MVP finishes and one Super Bowl title — to Chris Shula, a 39-year-old from an illustrious family line of coaches with only two seasons of coordinator experience. At +800 are a variety of names, including the current offensive coordinator Drew Petzing and long-time Baltimore Ravens boss John Harbaugh, who was fired on Tuesday after 18 seasons with the team and is a contender for many of the open positions. Kevin Stefanski is the most experienced of the names at +1000; he’s a two-time Coach of the Year who was fired by the Cleveland Browns on Monday.
The true long-shot candidates are those with +2000 or longer odds, and it’s noteworthy that Arizona has reportedly requested an interview with Saleh. He went just 20-36 across his four seasons as the Jets’ head coach, but he helped lead the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance in 2019 as a defensive coordinator and helped New York finish with a top-five scoring defense in 2022. Another notable name among the long-shots is Kliff Kingsbury, who formerly served as the Cardinals’ head coach from 2019 to 2022. Philip Rivers, also at +5000, is the most recently-retired player on the candidate list, returning after four seasons as a high school head coach to quarterback the Indianapolis Colts for three games this season.
