Yesterday, the Arizona Cardinals hired a head coach whose team played for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. And that can benefit them in 2023.
The Arizona Cardinals can learn a lot from this past season’s Super Bowl contenders, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. And fortunately for them, their new head coach, Jonathan Gannon, spent a few seasons with Philadelphia. So he may have a few tricks up his sleeve pertaining to building a winning culture.
There are many lessons the Cardinals can learn from the Eagles that Gannon can bring to the desert. Below, I listed one of those lessons, plus two more for the front office.
1 – Tailor an offense around your quarterback’s strengths
Like Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts is a dual-threat quarterback. Gannon saw firsthand what Nick Sirianni and former offensive coordinator Shane Steichen accomplished with Hurts, and it’s something he can bring to Glendale.
The new coach can hire an offensive coordinator who will design the offense around the quarterback. Of course, it will be prudent to gauge all of this on Murray’s ACL, but if the former number one overall pick is good to go, expect the Cards to tailor their offense around him.
2 – Build through the NFL Draft, supplement with free agency, trades
When you look at both rosters, each have a lot of starters and key contributors that came via the draft. Not all of them, like Orlando Brown (Chiefs) and A.J. Brown (Eagles). But one glance shows you that if the Cardinals want to be a successful franchise, they need to bring in a solid draft haul.
Unfortunately, general manager Monti Ossenfort’s predecessor, Steve Keim, routinely squandered picks and traded others away for established talent. At times, he even acquired aging talent. This must not be the case with the new regime. Gannon and Ossenfort must identify how each prospective draft pick serves a team need, and draft accordingly.
3 – Arizona Cardinals must stay patient and trust the process
If there is one positive takeaway from the Kliff Kingsbury-Steve Keim Era (2019 to 2022), it’s that the Arizona Cardinals stayed patient. But they need to be patient with Gannon, just as the Chiefs were patient with Andy Reid.
In his first three seasons, Reid was just 1-2 in the playoffs, despite a 31-17 regular season record. While Gannon most likely won’t lead the Cardinals out of the doldrums from Year One as Reid managed with the Chiefs (remember, Reid had 14 seasons of head coaching experience), he didn’t win his first division title in KC until 2016, his fourth season on the job.
If Gannon doesn’t bring the Redbirds immediate division titles and playoff appearances, management shouldn’t sweat. Building this team will be quite the process, and sound results most likely won’t come until 2024 at the earliest.
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