If you haven’t heard, the Green Bay Packers have hired former Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon to be Jeff Hafley’s replacement as the team’s next defensive coordinator. Here, I want to take the time to look at Gannon’s entire coaching journey and find some long-term connections that he’s had with other coaches before we get into deeper topics about Gannon’s defense later on this week.
Coaching, inherently, is a very social field. Relationships mean a lot. There are also very few NFL coaches
roaming this planet, so there’s cross-pollination everywhere. Those crossovers can generally tell you a lot about who a coach is.
Gannon’s original plan was to be a football player, not a football coach. As a safety at Louisville, Gannon suffered a hip injury that “compared to Bo Jackson’s career-changing injury,” according to ESPN, near the end of his second season with the program. The season after, 2003, new Cardinals head coach Bobby Petrino brought Gannon along as a student assistant, a role he held for three years. In 2006, Gannon became a graduate assistant, and then in 2007, Petrino made the jump to the NFL and took over the Atlanta Falcons.
Gannon followed Petrino to Atlanta, cutting his teeth for the first time at the professional level as a defensive quality control coach. Petrino didn’t coach the full year, resigning after a 3-10 record to take the Arkansas job. Petrino didn’t tell any of his assistants that he was splitting to return to the college level, which…really makes 2007 Falcons defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer mad to this day.
In 2010, Zimmer had two quotes that still come up whenever anyone talks about Petrino. The first is: “He’s a gutless bastard. Quote that. I don’t give a shit.” The second is: “He is a coward. Put that in quotes. He ruined a bunch of people’s lives, a bunch of people’s families, kids, because he didn’t have enough nuts to stay there and finish the job. That’s the truth.”
Needless to say, the Falcons turned over their staff in 2008. In 2009, Gannon joined the St. Louis Rams, led by general manager Bill Devaney, as a scout. Devaney had previously been the Falcons’ assistant general manager during Gannon’s time with the team.
After three years as a scout, Gannon gave pro coaching another try, even if he had to start at the bottom of the ladder again. He was brought to the Tennessee Titans as their defensive quality control coach, where he crossed paths with Jerry Gray, who at the time was the Titans’ defensive coordinator. Gray was Mike Pettine’s defensive backs coach in 2020 and Joe Barry’s pass game coordinator in 2021 and 2022 with the Packers.
In 2014, Gannon took his first step up the coaching ladder, becoming the assistant defensive backs coach for the Minnesota Vikings. His head coach? Mike Zimmer. His defensive backs coach? Jerry Gray. The coaching tree is finally starting to take shape at this point.
Over four seasons, the Vikings went 39-25 and allowed a passer rating of 84.7, the seventh-best mark in the league over that period of time, and an Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt (ANY/A) of 5.5, fifth-best in the NFL.
By 2018, Gannon had earned enough of a reputation to make the next step up the ladder: Becoming a full-fledged defensive backs coach, not someone’s assistant. He spent three years with the Indianapolis Colts, under defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, in that role. Over those three seasons, the Colts were 28-20 and had a passer rating of 94.0 (18th) and an ANY/A of 6.2 (14th).
(Side note: Based on a report from the Dallas Cowboys’ beat this hire-fire cycle, Dallas didn’t seem to love the similarities between Eberflus, who they just fired, and Gannon, who they were interviewing to replace Eberflus, during their process.)
One mantra that Gannon has seemed to have taken from Eberflus is the so-called “HITS Principle.” Both Gannon and Eberflus have referenced how their defenses are based on:
- Hustle
- Intensity
- Takeaways
- Smart
Apparently, the guy who actually got the ball rolling on the acronym is Rod Marinelli, father-in-law to Joe Barry.
After an 11-5 season in 2020, Gannon was hired to be the defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles. Here is where we get to talk a little about staff construction, since it was the first time that he got to be in control of a defense.
Gannon only had three true “on-field” assistant coaches in Philadelphia: a defensive line coach (Tracy Rocker), a linebackers coach (Nick Rallis) and a defensive backs coach (Dennard Wilson). Each of them was an outside hire, not inherited by Gannon.
Wilson was most recently the defensive coordinator for the 2025 Titans before taking the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator job under John Harbaugh this offseason. Rocker has been Wilson’s defensive line coach for the last two years. Rallis was brought from Philadelphia to Arizona to call plays for Gannon.
Over two years in Philadelphia, Gannon’s defense finished 12th in passer rating (88.7), 4th in ANY/A (5.2) and 11th in points allowed (729). The Eagles went 23-11, tied for the fourth-best record in the league, and advanced to Super Bowl LVII, where Philadelphia lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 38-35.
From there, Gannon landed his head coaching opportunity with the Cardinals in 2023. Instead of running a 4-3 defense, as he did in Philadelphia, though, he ran a 3-4 defense in Arizona.
All of Gannon’s offensive and defensive coaches in Arizona were new hires, not inherited by him. The one exception on the staff was assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers. As previously mentioned, Rallis was his defensive coordinator hire. Under Rallis, the Cardinals had five “on-field” assistant coaches: a defensive line coach (3-4 DE and 3-4 NT), an outside linebackers coach (3-4 OLB), a linebackers coach (3-4 ILB), a defensive backs coach (S and slotback) and a cornerbacks coach.
The Packers are coming off running a 4-3 defense under Hafley, but they have a pretty similar staff setup. If assistants are retained, which, again, would be a first for Gannon as either a coordinator or head coach, then DeMarcus Covington (defensive line coach/run game coordinator) would fit in either as a defensive line coach or outside linebackers coach, Sean Duggan would remain linebackers coach and Derrick Ansley (passing game coordinator) and Ryan Downard (defensive backs) could be kept in the secondary. That’s still short one on-field coach, but Vince Oghobaase is the only defensive coach on the roster who has the “assistant” title, which could drop with a promotion. It’s possible that Oghobaase — who, like Duggan, was brought in by Hafley from Boston College — could take whichever of defensive line or outside linebackers that Covington doesn’t fill. This is assuming that Gannon will run a 3-4 defense. If he plans on running a 4-3, all titles could be held as is.
Gannon’s first staff in Arizona also showed us where he believes his roots draw from. Considering that five of his “on-field” coaches came from the Zimmer tree, he probably thinks of himself more as a Zimmer than a Gray or an Eberflus. Those coaches with Zimmer ties were offensive coordinator Drew Petzing (now the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator), tight end coach Ben Steele, Rallis, outside linebackers coach Rob Rodriguez and linebackers coach Sam Siefkes (most recently Virginia Tech’s 2025 defensive coordinator). If you’re wondering, yes, Steele is the former Green Bay Packer from the Mike Sherman era.
In Gannon’s time in Arizona, the team finished 15-36 (tied for the third-worst record in the league), allowed 1,322 points (third-worst), allowed a passer rating of 98.4 (third-worst) and had an ANY/A of 6.7 (third-worst).
Some context is needed for what happened in Philadelphia and Arizona, from a personnel standpoint. We’ll write an article on that later this week. There’s also a discussion to be had about what type of defense, from a front and coverage standpoint, that Gannon will be running in Green Bay. We’ll also write an article on that, too.
