Cardinals General Manager Monti Ossenfort discussed his violation of the league’s tampering rules during a press conference last Thursday, but head coach Jonathan Gannon didn’t share his side of the story because he did not address the media during the draft.
Gannon took his turn at the microphone on Tuesday. The Cardinals sent 66th pick in the draft to the Eagles for the 94th pick and a 2024 fifth-round choice after reporting Ossenfort contacted Gannon while he was still the defensive coordinator of the Eagles and unable to interview for the head coaching vacancy in Arizona.
“It’s a mistake that we made. The league kind of rectified it and we’ve moved on,” Gannon said, via Bo Brack of PHNX Sports. “Basically, after the NFC Championship game, Monti reached out and kinda said ‘Congratulations.’ He’s been to some Super Bowls and gave me a little advice about how to handle that and said ‘Look, we’re in the middle of a coaching search and don’t know how the timing of this is all going to shake out, but, basically, would you be interested in interviewing if the timing gets pushed back to after Super Bowl?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I would be.’ I didn’t hear about it until after the game that we played when [Eagles General Manager] Howie [Roseman] came up and talked to me about ‘Hey, Arizona wants to interview you.’ It was a mistake that we made and I apologize for that. Looking forward to moving on now.”
Gannon wound up interviewing with the Cardinals and being hired in Arizona shortly after the Eagles lost to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
