Exposé: Eagles media was super mean to Jonathan Gannon

Jonathan Gannon, formerly the defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles — and presently the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals — is taking some heat after comments made about the Philly media contingent. Gannon said in a recent interview that during a 2022 press conference someone told him, "Coach, we want you fired."

A video clip of Gannon's interview can be found below: 

The above video, transcribed:

“I’m very comfortable talking to the media. Philly is a very hard media market. We were 9-0 and I did my presser and they said, ‘Coach, we want you fired.’ And I said, ‘We’re the number one defense in the NFL right now, in every statistical category, why do you want me fired?’ ‘You don’t blitz enough.’ I said, ‘Well we lead the league in sacks by thirty-plus sacks, so if you want to come call the defense, then you can have at it.' But it's cool. They have a job to do, and I understand that...”

Gannon's words seem unbelievable to some for a number of reasons. 

1. No media folks — or at least nobody locally on the Eagles beat — calls coaches "Coach." They're not our coaches, so it would be weird to call them that, much in the same way it would be weird to call a dad "Dad" if they're not your dad. 
2. Many have pointed out that the Eagles were never 9-0. After nine games, they were 8-1. 
3. Also after their first nine games, the Eagles had 29 sacks, which means that if they had at least 30 more sacks than any other team in the league at the time, the next closest team had no more than -1 sacks. 
4. And then there's the fact that no transcript exists of any such Gannon press conference confrontation like the one he is describing having ever taken place. 
5. If an exchange like the one Gannon is describing had existed, it would have probably made news, given the audible gasps while Gannon was reliving his painful experience with Philly media in the video above.

• MORE ON THE EAGLES
• NFL rumors: Does Austin Ekeler make sense for the Eagles?
  
• Report: Eagles to hire Matt Patricia as defensive assistant
  
• Eagles player review: WR Olamide Zaccheaus edition
  

As a result of the unbelievability of his words, Gannon is being accused of just making up dialogue that never happened. Those accusations need to stop, and it is time for the Eagles' media to come clean.

To begin, that exchange did happen. Why does it not exist in transcript form? Well, after Gannon offered to let someone in the media call the defense as he described in the video above, Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philly raised his hand and volunteered for the job. When Gannon said that his offer to let someone call the defense was just sarcasm and not actually a real offer, Zangaro picked Gannon up, walked him outside, and threw him into a dumpster.

Zangaro then stormed back into the Eagles auditorium and made a menacing "throat cut" motion to the Eagles' press conference transcriber, as if to say, "This better not make it in there." And sure enough, it did not.

But that was hardly the worst example of the Eagles' media treating Gannon poorly. 

• July 28, 2022: Sick of seeing Haason Reddick repeatedly drop into coverage during a training camp practice, Eliot Shorr-Parks of WIP stormed into Gannon's office later that day and flushed his head in the toilet, warning him that he better not see Reddick doing anything other than rushing the quarterback.

The message was received loud and clear, as that was the end of Reddick's coverage days in the Eagles' defense.

• 12/9/2021: A similar incident occurred back in 2021, when Jeff McLane was upset by Josh Sweat's role as the 4i in the Eagles' defense. McLane ate a bunch of Skittles so that his spit would thicken, and proceeded to pin Gannon down, letting his spit drip down near Gannon's face, and then sucking it back up at the last second.

Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice

Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports

Add Jimmy's RSS feed to your feed reader