February 6th, 2009 
Matt Loede 
Posted in 
The Cardinals made a rather surprising move on Friday, dumping defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. He had been with the team for the past five seasons as D-coordinator, including the last two under Ken Whisenhunt.
The move comes on the same day that the team officially lost offensive coordinator Todd Haley to the Chiefs, as he takes over Kansas City as their new head coach.
While the Cards defense was not that good in the regular season, they played better in the postseason. In the playoffs, the team forced 13 turnovers and registered 10 sacks. However, that apparently wasn’t good enough to keep Pendergast in charge of a unit that struggled throughout much of the regular season, giving up 331.5 yards and 26.6 points per contest.
Reports are stating that a possible replacement for for Pendergast could be current Steelers linebackers coach Keith Butler, whom Whisenhunt wanted to interview in 2007 upon taking the job but was denied permission by the Steelers.
Whisenhunt could decide to go with a more traditional 3-4 look, and Butler knows how to coach it and is obviously familiar with it.
Tags: 
