Jonathan Gannon is embarking on his first NFL head-coaching opportunity with the Arizona Cardinals, but it comes before a crushing Super Bowl LVII loss with the Philadelphia Eagles as its defensive coordinator.
The Eagles led the Kansas City Chiefs 24-14 at halftime in Super Bowl LVII. In the second half, though, Philadelphia reached the end zone just once and Gannon’s defense gave up 24 points, ultimately losing 38-35. Kansas City’s final two scores came on a pair of wide-open touchdown passes, the first one to Kadarius Toney and the second to Skyy Moore.
Gannon told NBC Sports that he let the team down as a play-caller on those plays.
“Our players were prepped. I did not do a good enough job myself to put them in a position to make the play,” Gannon said. “I didn’t do a good enough job to get out of the call what I wanted out of the call. I didn’t give them the tools that they needed to win the down.
“On the second one, I thought [Mahomes] was gonna play that as a dropback and that [coverage] was a zero [blitz]. Jesus Christ wouldn’t have covered that in a zero.”
The Eagles were middle-of-the-pack against the run in the regular season, surrendering 121.6 rushing yards per game, tied for 16th in the NFL. With that in mind, the Chiefs ran for 158 yards (5.9 yards per carry) against the Eagles, the most pivotal one being Mahomes’ 26-yard scramble to put Kansas City in range for the go-ahead field goal.
Outside of their deficiencies against the run, Philadelphia’s defense was sharp in the regular season, surrendering just 179.8 passing yards (first) and 20.2 points (eighth) per game. The Eagles went 14-3, good for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia allowed just seven points apiece to the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Playoffs — albeit San Francisco had quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson suffer injuries in the NFC Championship Game and were forced to play Purdy hurt.
Moving forward, Gannon will attempt to right the ship for the Cardinals, who are coming off a 4-13 season. As for the Eagles, they lost both their offensive (Shane Steichen to the Indianapolis Colts) and defensive (Gannon to Arizona) coordinators to head-coaching positions. Philadelphia promoted linebackers coach Nick Rallis to defensive coordinator.
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