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The Arizona Cardinals requested head coaching interviews with at least 14 candidates — more than nearly any other organization. But among those 14, the group of legitimate options is dwindling fast.

Two Cardinals’ candidates have already been hired elsewhere: Robert Saleh to the Titans and Jeff Hafley to the Dolphins. Three others have not yet been reported to conduct interviews with the Cardinals.

That leaves nine coaches who have both been interviewed by the Cardinals and who remain available.

Then there are the coaches who interviewed with the Cardinals but have since progressed in other teams’ searches — but not with the Cardinals. That group includes Anthony Weaver, Matt Nagy, Jesse Minter and Raheem Morris (as a defensive coordinator). All indications are that those coaches are unlikely to be finalists in Arizona —barring shifting circumstances elsewhere.

As such, the Cardinals have five coaches who currently appear to be frontrunners for the job. Here are those five candidates:

• Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph
• Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak
• Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur
• Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula
• Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady

The first four names on that list all coach teams who are still alive in the playoffs, meaning that they cannot be brought back for an in-person interview until Jan. 26, after the conclusion of conference championship games.

Brady, meanwhile, only interviewed with the Cardinals on Jan. 20 — one day after the Bills fired head coach Sean McDermott in a surprise move. His candidacy has only just begun.

If those coaches are indeed the Cardinals’ preferred choices, it helps to explain why they have not yet conducted a second interview with any candidate.

But for now, the story of this hiring cycle has been the Cardinals’ status as a team on the outside looking in.

They weren’t close on John Harbaugh, with whom they only conducted a preliminary phone call. They were never publicly connected to Kevin Stefanski. Likewise, with Mike McDaniel, who prefers a great offensive coordinator job to a subpar head coach opening. McDermott has not yet been requested by the Cardinals and is said not to be interested in a rebuild.

Then there’s Saleh, who was set for a second interview with the Cardinals on Jan. 20 — only to snub them to accept the Titans job instead. It was a move that summed up the first two weeks of the Cardinals’ offseason.