ESPN NFL Insider: ‘There’s going to be changes in Arizona’
Dec 28, 2012, 9:35 PM | Updated: 9:35 pm
As the Arizona Cardinals prepare for their season finale against the rival San Francisco 49ers, the future of head coach Ken Whisenhunt continues to take center stage.
Rumors are swirling that Whisenhunt could be one of a good number of head coaches fired on “Black Monday.”
ESPN NFL Insider Chris Mortensen joined The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Friday and said he believes Whisenhunt isn’t the only member of Cardinals’ brass who could be shown the door.
“There’s going to be changes in Arizona,” Mortensen said. “By the way, there’s going to be a lot of general manager changes.”
Mortensen said Cardinals GM Rod Graves is on thin ice with the team and he could indeed be one of the general managers on the way out.
Graves and Whisenhunt have taken a lot of heat for the Cardinals’ failure at obtaining and helping to cultivate a franchise quarterback. Mortensen believes that it may be in the best interest of both Whisenhunt and the Cardinals to go their separate ways.
“Because of the quarterback situation and just how they have botched it and I know [Whisenhunt] well, I have great respect for him and I believe he will be a head coach again if he’s fired,” Mortensen explained. “But the quarterback thing is really on both of them and you know that the owners, the Bidwill family, are very frustrated.”
While the quarterback debacle may indeed seal Whisenhunt’s fate, there are other factors that indicate it could be time for a change.
The 50-year-old coach came to Arizona with the hope of using his esteemed offensive background to revamp the Cardinals’ system. But in the last three years of his six season tenure, the offense has failed to meet expectations.
It’s quite possible Whisenhunt could do well coaching another team, as many of his supporters suggest, but it may just be too little, too late in Arizona.
