With the playoffs this weekend, the Arizona Cardinals could have a new head coach as soon as next week.
Of course, they could be waiting until February 5th, the day after the Super Bowl to announce their new head coach if Pat Shurmur or Mike Munchak help get their teams to the big game.
That’s where we are at this point in the Arizona Cardinals head coaching search.
Let’s get an update of what we know.
There are only, allegedly, three candidates left, we’ll review them here.
Pat Shurmur - The Vikings offensive coordinator is considered the front runner, which is what I was told on Monday evening after the Chicago Bears introduced Matt Nagy. Now, there may be a hold up in that Shurmur could be eyeing the Detroit Lions or New York Giants jobs. If Matt Patricia is lined up for one, could Shurmur be leveraging the Cardinals, ala Andy Reid, to get to where he wants to be? The other update with Shurmur. There are two things going around at this point.
- He’ll keep James Bettcher.
- He’s bringing in Vic Fangio
For the Cardinals, I’m not sure you can go wrong with either. Fangio’s defenses the last seven seasons have never finished lower than 15th in yards per game and have only finished twice, 2015 & 2016 with the Chicago Bears, outside the top ten in scoring defense.
Steve Wilks - Wilks either turned down or the Colts have decided to go in another direction, but he’s no longer interviewing with the team. He would bring a new element to an already strong defense, but he allegedly has a tie in with John DeFilippo as his offensive coordinator. A team of Wilks and DeFilippo would be a fantastic pairing, but for how long?
That's my one and only concern with this move.
Mike Munchak - The old vet, is the final one. He could answer a lot of questions if we knew his offensive and defensive coordinator candidates. Alas, all we know is he’s in the final three. Munchak would instantly upgrade the Cardinals offensive line, but nothing else is assured. He doesn’t have a great history picking coordinators and was let go from Tennessee because he was too loyal to his coaches and wouldn’t make moves.
I am still of the belief Shurmur is their man, followed by Wilks the Munchak in a “break glass in case of emergency” but should be interesting to see how it unfolds.