Nick

Rallis

The Cardinals’ defensive coordinator each of the past three seasons, 32-year-old Rallis was the youngest DC in the league when he was first hired three years ago. He’s had a rollercoaster ride in Arizona thus far, finishing bottom four in scoring defense two of the past three years. Discouraging, though former head coach Jonathan Gannon was largely responsible for his own defense. Rallis evidently impressed enough people inside the building to hang around under new head coach Mike LaFleur. It’s a gamble for a Cardinals team that arguably needed wholesale change, but also an olive branch to players who will at least now have one familiar face sticking around.

An up-and-comer on coach Nick Sirianni’s star-studded staff, Rallis has decided to follow Jonathan Gannon to the desert. At only 29 years old, Rallis will be the youngest coordinator, defensive or otherwise, in the entire league. A 2017 undrafted free agent out of Minnesota, Rallis immediately entered the coaching ranks. After one year at Wake Forest, he’s been in the NFL since 2018, and Philadelphia since 2021. It’s a gamble, but teams have been rewarded for going bold and young in the Sean McVay era.