Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon Apologizes for Eagles Tampering Case: It Was a 'Mistake'

The Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals agreed to draft compensation after the NFL found that the Cardinals organization violated tampering rules in its hiring of new head coach Jonathan Gannon.

On Tuesday, Gannon addressed the situation while speaking with reporters:

"It's a mistake that we made. The league kind of rectified it and we've moved on. But basically, after the NFC Championship Game, [Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort] 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."

NFL tampering rules prohibited the Cardinals from reaching out to Gannon during that time period. The Cardinals self-reported the infraction to the league office.

"I made a mistake," Ossenfort told reporters during the draft regarding his early contact with Gannon. "I own that. It's a situation we were able to resolve. I have apologized to [owner] Michael Bidwill. I've apologized to our staff. The deal we worked out, it is what it is, and we are moving on from it."

The Cardinals ultimately agreed to send the Eagles the No. 66 overall pick in last week's draft in exchange for the 94th pick and a 2024 fifth-round selection. The Eagles used that pick to take Illinois safety Sydney Brown. The Cardinals used the No. 94 pick to draft Stanford wideout Michael Wilson.

All this other stuff, it doesn't help us win games, so we've got to move on from it and figure out the best way to win games," Eagles executive vice president and general manager Howie Roseman said on Tuesday's 94WIP Morning Show. "That was handled at the ownership level and at the league level, and for me, I can only control what we can, which is adding as many good players and as many good people as we can on this team."

Gannon, 40, spent two seasons as Philadelphia's defensive coordinator on Nick Sirianni's staff. His defenses finished top-10 in yards allowed in both seasons under his watch and eighth in points allowed, fifth in takeaways and first in sacks this past season.

He'll replace former head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who went 28-37-1 in four seasons and made just one trip to the postseason.