CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Northeast Ohio added another NFL head coach to its growing ranks of successful football coaches and executives.
Wednesday afternoon the Arizona Cardinals announced they’ve hired Jonathan Gannon as their next head coach.
Gannon, who spent the last two seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator, starred at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland as a multisport athlete – football, basketball and track.
Gannon was a receiver and defensive back for legendary football coach Chuck Kyle, who retired following the 2022 season. He won a basketball state championship for the Wildcats and took home a district title as a hurdler as well.
Gannon, who previously spent time with the Falcons, Titans, Vikings and Colts as a defensive assistant, joins Las Vegas’ Josh McDaniels, Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel and the Chargers’ Brandon Staley as fellow northeast Ohioans to ascend to a head coaching job in the NFL.
Although Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni isn’t a northeast Ohio native having grown up in western New York, he is a graduate of Mount Union College.
Gannon and Sirianni are coming off the Eagles’ 38-35 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
McDaniels is a Canton McKinley alum, and he went to college at John Carroll University. Two years after graduating, he joined the Patriots as a personnel assistant prior to working his way up the ranks to offensive coordinator. The Raiders are McDaniels’ second head coaching job. He was hired by the Denver Broncos in 2009.
Vrabel, who stared at Ohio State before going on to become a three-time Super Bow champion with the Patriots as a player, spent his high school years at Walsh Jesuit. Since 2018, Vrabel has turned the Titans into a perennial playoff contender.
Staley hails from Perry High School and he spent a few years at John Carroll University as a coaching assistant before getting a shot at the NFL when the Bears hired him as an outside linebackers coach. The Chargers hired him as head coach following one season as the Rams defensive coordinator.
There are only 32 of these jobs in the NFL and now five of them are held by men with strong northeast Ohio ties.