The Arizona Cardinals entered the season with plenty of optimism after making several offseason additions in hopes of ending their postseason drought. Instead, the year unraveled quickly. Not only is the team’s quarterback situation now uncertain, but head coach Jonathan Gannon was fired after Week 18.
Arizona finished the season as one of the league’s worst teams, posting a 3–14 record, and calls for Gannon’s dismissal grew louder with each passing week. With him now fired, it’s worth taking a closer look at how much the Cardinals paid their head coach.
Jonathan Gannon’s Contract Details
Gannon’s NFL coaching career began with the Falcons as a defensive quality control coach in 2007, and he has since steadily climbed the ranks. He helped the Philadelphia Eagles reach the Super Bowl as their defensive coordinator, which ultimately led to him landing the head coaching gig with the Cardinals.
Gannon was signed in 2023 on a five-year contract, but the exact details of the agreement remain publicly unavailable, as is the case for most head coaches in the NFL. He was reportedly earning between $1 million and $3 million as defensive coordinator of the Eagles, and a promotion to head coach would surely have resulted in a significant raise.
First-time NFL head coaches typically make around $5 million per year, and Gannon was believed to earn a similar amount. With two years remaining on his contract, the Cardinals will owe him roughly $10 million.
Exact contract figures for Gannon are not publicly available. However, according to Front Office Sports, the Cardinals HC is not among the 20 highest-paid head coaches in the league. It means his salary could be less than $3.5 million or close to the earlier-mentioned $5 million range.
When Gannon took the Cardinals’ head coaching job in 2023, practically everybody knew it wouldn’t be an overnight process to get them back to the playoffs. Coming off a 4-13 season the year before, they replicated the same record in Year 1 of Gannon’s tenure. Things improved in 2024, though, as they ended the year with a record of 8-9.
Heading into 2025, the expectations were higher for the Cardinals. Offseason additions like Walter Nolen, Will Johnson, Josh Sweat, Calais Campbell, and Dalvin Tomlinson were brought in to help boost the defense. Arizona has played a lot of teams close, but its 3-14 record is far short of what its goals were coming into the year.
Outside of a team’s record, a good indicator of a bad head coaching job is that team’s success on the side of the ball their coach specializes in. The Cardinals have the fourth-worst PFSN Defense Impact score in the NFL, which is a major indictment against Gannon.
