The Arizona Cardinals need a head coach after firing Jonathan Gannon. During their last coaching search, the rest of the NFL job openings were snapped up before Arizona could land on its hire of Gannon.
Ultimately, this process comes down to selling yourself to a pool of candidates who have a decent bit of leverage. If other teams have more appealing situations, you might miss.
Or you take a risk on pursuing a candidate nobody else is, something that ended up happening with the Gannon hire — because of timing at least.
How enticing is Arizona’s job opening? Quarterback Kyler Murray appears to be on the way out. The roster-building under remaining general manager Monti Ossenfort has been happening for three years with mixed results. What do the other gigs have that Arizona does not?
To do this in an organized way, we’re giving each team’s quarterback situation, franchise stability and roster talent a rating from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best-case scenario. And then we’re ranking the job in terms of desirability based on the totals.
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Ranking the NFL’s head-coaching openings by QB situation, stability and roster talent
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (AP Photo/John Locher)
1. New York Giants (fired Brian Daboll)
Total: 16
QB situation (7 out of 10): Jaxson Dart’s emergence was a breath of fresh air for a franchise struggling to build confidence among its fan base, and he produced with 2,272 yards, 63.7% accuracy and 15 touchdowns to five picks — plus nine rushing scores.
His bro-nection with Arizona State product Cam Skattebo gives the team easy-to-root-for leaders, so long as both remain healthy. Concussion issues cropped up for Dart a handful of times. A new head coach must connect with them.
We are pretty sure Dart is a guy to build around.
Franchise stability (3): General manager Joe Schoen is 22-45-1 with a single playoff appearance since he joined the team. This is probably his last chance to get it right.
Beyond that, the Giants have had a single winning season since 2016. Schoen, at present, is most well-known for giving a reason to let very good running back Saquon Barkley walk, while being filmed for Hard Knocks. Not great awareness.
Roster talent (6): The skill talent is there, with Skattebo and Malik Nabers giving Dart some position player talent to work with on offense. Defensively, a front that includes Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter is the strength of the roster.
New York’s offensive line needs a reboot, and what’s behind the defensive line needs it, too.
The Giants have the No. 5 pick.
Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, right, hugs head coach Raheem Morris (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
T-2. Atlanta Falcons (fired Raheem Morris)
Total: 15
QB situation (3): Have we ruled out Michael Penix Jr. as a franchise quarterback? Probably? I guess? That’s generous, even if you get over his many seasons dating back to college that ended with a serious knee injury. And he’ll miss the start of next season with a knee injury. Kirk Cousins is probably gone. Atlanta doesn’t have a first-round pick, so the options don’t look excellent at the moment.
Franchise stability (6): If we’re going by purely reputation, the Falcons have the best among the teams with head-coaching openings. They’ve just failed to get out of the mediocre zone since the 2017 season and Matt Ryan era. More decent news: A first-year general manager will be replacing Terry Fontenot, so this coach will be tied to whomever that guy is.
Roster talent (6): Eight wins is still eight wins, a sign this team wasn’t lacking in talent to a huge degree. Running back Bijan Robinson is whom the offense will revolve around. But among the questions is tight end Kyle Pitts, who finally appeared to figure it out and led the team with 928 receiving yards. He’s a free agent if they don’t franchise-tag him.
Leading tackler and linebacker Kaden Elliss, plus backup running back Tyler Allgeier, are free agents as well.
This team won four games to end the year, some against very good playoff squads.
New General Manager Mike Borgonzi of the Tennessee Titans (Photo by Johnnie Izquierdo/Getty Images)
T-2. Tennessee Titans (fired Brian Callahan)
Total: 15
QB situation (7): Rookie first overall pick Cam Ward took a beating playing for a team that had no clear No. 1 receiver. He and the Raiders’ Geno Smith tied for the NFL lead with 55 sacks taken, but at least the touchdown-to-pick ratio (15 to seven) wasn’t terrible. Ward’s arm talent gave Titans fans something to look forward to at least, but consecutive three-win seasons speak to the roster talent issues in Tennessee.
Franchise stability (4): It looks a little worse now that former head coach Mike Vrabel, who left in 2023, is doing so well so quickly with the New England Patriots. Maybe that is just about optics and timing, where he saw the end of the Ryan Tannehill era, and quarterback prospects Will Levis and Malik Willis didn’t pan out.
Some more weird optics: Owner Amy Adams Strunk clarified this week that GM Mike Borgonzi will run the 53-man roster and coaching staff, while president of football operations Chad Brinker will do the other stuff. Better late than never to clarify job descriptions, I suppose.
Roster talent (4): There’s no No. 1 receiver but plenty of No. 2 or No. 3 options. The Titans have running back Tony Pollard under contract and a defense bolstered by tackle Jeffery Simmons. Holding the No. 4 pick, Tennessee could use a difference-making wideout, a defensive back or linebacker.
The Titans have the cash to spend big in free agency as well. Shoring up the offensive line will need to be done with that cash.
4. Cleveland Browns (fired Kevin Stefanski)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Total: 14
QB situation (4): Deshaun Watson began practicing on the field toward the end of the year and makes $80.7 million coming off a foot injury. He has played 19 whole games since 2022, and we are unsure if he is worth a quarter of that price tag, even if we skip over the sexual assault allegations that we absolutely cannot skip over.
Rookies Dillon Gabriel (937 yards, seven touchdowns, two picks, 80.8 passer rating) and Shedeur Sanders (1,400 yards, seven touchdowns, 10 picks, 68.1 passer rating) might have burned two 2024 draft picks to answer the backup quarterback question. Sanders did look like he had a leap toward the end of the year, and the Browns at least have options in-house.
Franchise stability (3): Did you read the section above? The only good news here is that the Browns live in a division of mediocrity, with the Steelers and Ravens underachieving until the end and the Cincinnati Bengals getting six wins despite the past offseason financial efforts to keep their quarterback-receiver talent intact.
Roster talent (6): Myles Garrett is still awesome! There are some talented pieces elsewhere, with rookie linebacker Carson Schwesinger piling up 156 tackles in a season.
Offensively, running back Quinshon Judkins had a strong rookie year — it also came with a domestic assault allegation that led to no charges — as did tight end Harold Fannin Jr. But nearly the entire starting offensive line is entering free agency, and the receiver group need major upgrading.
Defensive tackle Mason Graham, last year’s No. 5 pick, had some meh basic numbers but still projects to be a talented interior force.
Cleveland owns the No. 6 pick and a late-first via the Jaguars.
5. Arizona Cardinals (fired Jonathan Gannon)
Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort and owner Michael Bidwill (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Total: 13
QB situation (4): Give this a bump if you feel somewhere in your heart that Kyler Murray could return and a new coach could optimize him. That seems out of touch with reality, where a bridge has probably been burnt and at this point in his career, he is what he is.
Owning the No. 3 pick gives the Cardinals a shot to draft a quarterback if one of the Raiders or Jets gets the ick and, best-case, only one quarterback is off the board. That seems unlikely. Reality appears that Arizona would be taking the third quarterback off the board in a draft where even the top two options are shrug-worthy.
Jacoby Brissett is under contract and could be a bridge quarterback, whether or not Arizona drafts the future option.
Franchise stability (4): Ossenfort’s press conference explaining the firing of Gannon became a test to see if he could defend his drafting and roster-building duties that were, of course, undercut by the injury bug. He enters his fourth year with a roster that hasn’t seen drastic talent improvement in three years on the job.
Roster talent (5): In Ossenfort’s defense, the injury-hit youngsters could get healthy and back on track. That is where there’s a good chance the roster talent isn’t as bad as the other teams on this list. There are plenty of in-house options who will have an opportunity to take starting jobs at positions like cornerback, linebacker and along the defensive line.
Trey Benson at running back, wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. has shown enough flashes if you put his draft position aside and Michael Wilson shocked the league with a huge Year 3 leap. Josh Sweat made the big spending worth it at edge.
Draft to bulk up the offensive line, attack the WR market in free agency to be sure about the depth in that group and you can sell us on a competitive team returning.
But a coach taking this gig must understand he’s potentially living without a franchise quarterback for a year.
6. Las Vegas Raiders (fired Pete Carroll)
General manager John Spytek of the Las Vegas Raiders (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Total: 11
QB situation (5*): Big asterisk here. The QB situation could swing a couple different ways. Starting quarterback Geno Smith is under contract, and the numbers weren’t dreadful. But Las Vegas has the No. 1 pick, and you’d think that is used on a quarterback so long as the evaluators led by (certainly not minority owner Tom Brady) general manager John Spytek like the options of college QBs Fernando Mendoza and Dante Moore.
If not, that is an unfortunate spot to be in.
Franchise stability (3): Aside from Jon Gruden’s 22-31 run from 2018-21, owner Mark Davis and the Raiders have not had a head coach last longer than three seasons since — scrolling, scrolling, scrolling — Jon Gruden in 1998-2001.
Roster talent (3): Is Maxx Crosby on this team next year? It would appear that the team ticked him off by shutting him down against his will to secure the No. 1 pick in the draft. Hopefully, that answers our question about whether they like a quarterback in this draft class.
There is some fun talent like tight end Brock Bowers (680 receiving yards, seven touchdowns) and rookie running back Ashton Jeanty (975 rushing yards, 10 total touchdowns). But the foundations in the trenches aren’t there.
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