Relationships are the essence of life and certainly in the sports world. It’s surely the case that the Arizona Cardinals’ joint practices in Indianapolis are more comfortable for head coach Jonathan Gannon because of the presence of Colts head coach Shane Steichen.
Gannon and Steichen were the coordinators with the Philadelphia Eagles for two seasons (2021-22) and both became head coaches with their current teams in 2023.
Gannon revealed Wednesday that upon arrival the day before, he had dinner with Steichen Tuesday night.
Gannon said, “As soon as we all packed in that restaurant, he put up a Power Point. ‘This is where we’re going, this is what we’re doing.’ He’s very detailed. I’m like, ‘Whoa, let me get a notebook.’ He just goes about his business and goes to work. I had to learn more detail to keep up.”
Getting to know Steichen the way he did made this week a no-brainer.
“He’s as good as they come,” Gannon said prior to Wednesday’s practice. “I know one of the downfalls of it. You see a lot of the fighting at joint practices. I’m very confident that we’re gonna get good work in and not have those distractions because I know how he runs his team. I know how we practice, how they practice. It just meshed up. Really good football team, so it’s good for us to come get some good work in.”
Noting how Steichen is a great communicator and great teacher, Gannon added, “I learned a lot of ball in two years from Shane. Just how he thinks about the game. The relationship he has with the players, how he thinks about the staff. We worked for a really good boss with Coach (Nick) Sirianni, and we were kinda in the foxhole together.
“Just learned a lot about him. But you could tell, he’s got the ‘it’ factor.”
When asked the Cardinals approach to the practices and saying, “Do what you’re coached to do. Play with great enthusiasm, effort vs. a really good defense that plays very different than we do,” Gannon then morphed into an explanation of what makes the Colts a good team to practice against.
He said, “That was one of the reasons this was a perfect team to come joint against because they play different on offense and they play different on defense than us and we’re gonna play teams that play like this.
“So it would be good to put our staples and our stuff against different people and different schematics too, so excited about that. (Offensive coordinator) Gus Bradley does a really good job with how they teach and how they coach; how everything ties together with the front that they play. So I’m looking forward to it.”
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.