Kenny Bell

On Friday, the Cardinals announced the finalization of their full coaching staff under new head coach Mike LaFleur. While several new names joined the staff, a good number of coaches were retained from Jonathan Gannon‘s prior staff, perhaps due to the late timing of LaFleur’s hiring. We’ve covered many of the coaching updates in previous posts already, but we’ll touch on the announcement’s new information here.

We actually saw a number of hires break in the days leading up to the team’s announcement. For instance, Ian Rapoport reported on Wednesday that former Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski would finally be making the jump to the NFL. A longtime collegiate staffer, Kwiatkowski began his coaching career at his alma mater, Boise State. Following a playing career as a defensive lineman, Kwiatkoski held multiple position coaching roles with the Broncos from 1988-96. He then spent time at Snow CC and Eastern Washington before getting his first DC offer at Montana State. He returned to Boise State as defensive line coach and, eventually, defensive coordinator before working DC jobs at Washington and Texas. His NFL debut will see him coaching defensive line for the Cardinals.

On Thursday, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reported that Arizona had finalized the hiring of former Chiefs outside linebackers coach Rod Wilson. Wilson originally debuted in the NFL ranks of coaching as an assistant special teams coach with the Chiefs. After returning to the collegiate level to coach linebackers at South Carolina and Coastal Carolina for two years, Wilson made his way back to Kansas City as a defensive assistant, getting promoted to his most recent position two years ago. In Arizona, Wilson will be asked to shift back inside as the team’s inside linebackers coach. With that news, Zenitz also relayed that last year’s linebackers coach, Cristian Garcia, had been retained but moved to a different position group. Garcia will now serve the team as defensive backs coach.

Zenitz also reported two more minor staff updates before the team’s announcement, breaking that Brett Ekkens and Brent Jackson had been hired. Jackson, formerly a defensive quality control coach with the Colts, will hold the same position in Arizona. When Zenitz broke Ekkens’ hire, the role on staff for the former Tiffin University head coach had not been determined, but the team’s announcement discloses that he will serve opposite Jackson as an offensive quality control coach.

On the offensive side of the ball, the announcement concluded the building of the staff by announcing that Connor Senger has been retained in his role as pass game specialist. Senger had gained some interest from around the league this offseason for potential offensive coordinator openings but, ultimately, didn’t land any offers. With the announcement, it seems Senger will be running it back with the Cardinals, with whom he’ll try to continue to show his coordinator potential. The announcement also revealed the retention of offensive line coach Justin Frye. In addition to assistant OL coach Chris Cook, whose retention was already reported, Senger and Frye represent the only returning offensivee staffers from 2025.

On defense, the only new information was the retention of Matt Feeney as outside linebackers coach and the promotion of Alec Osborne from defensive quality control coach to assistant defensive line coach. They join Garcia (in his new position) as the only three returning staffers from 2025 on the defensive side of the ball alongside defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. The announcement also disclosed that assistant special teams coach Sam Sewell and director of football strategy Kenny Bell had been retained in the same roles. Lastly, formerly hired as a coaching assistant in 2022, Jay Razzano has been named assistant to the head coach.

With all coaching roles filled, the focus will turn to each coach evaluating the players in their position rooms as determinations will now move to the roster and what players the Cardinals will be moving forward with and building around. The fans in Arizona will hope to get more out of LaFleur and Co. than they’ve gotten out of their last three head coaches over the past eight seasons.