Can The Cardinals Fly High Over The NFL West?

After an 8-9 finish to 2024, are we buying the Cards to improve at even money?

Take one good look at Arizona's skill positions and you'd think the redbirds couldn't be stopped on offense. Au contraire, my friends. Sure, the ground game featuring dual threats Kyler Murray and James Conner gave defenses fits, helping to post above average efficiency metrics across the board (5.9 yards per play, 30.0 yards per drive, 49.6% success rate, 2.1 first downs per drive). 

However ARI still fell flat, mostly due to failures in their deep passing attack — an ever-increasingly important factor in today's game.

CARDINALS PASSING OFFENSE, 2024

• 60.0% Pass Rate: 22nd
• 10.2 Yards Per Completion: 22nd
• 6.8 Air Yards Per Attempt: 27th
• 43 +20-Yard Completions: 24th

Since the front office didn't add anything of consequence to the offense this offseason, any step forward relies on progression from the battery of Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr. You can easily sell me on the latter — Harrison's a physical freak and the NFL's incredibly hard. 

My real concern lies with the lack of improvement from Murray, who has little to show in terms of growth with six seasons on the ledger at this point. Excluding 2021, which now looks more like an outlier than the expectation, Murray doesn't have a single season eclipsing any of these benchmarks... 

• +4,000 Passing Yards
• +27 Passing TD
• +94.3 Passer Rating 
• +7.1 Yards Per Attempt 
• +2.2 TD/INT Ratio 

On the flipside, Arizona's defense didn't do them any favors either. Even though they ran a 3-4 defensive look at the fourth-highest rate (22.8%) in the NFL, ARI graded out as one of the poorest run-stopping units last season. Anchored by the second-worst tackle success rate (46.9%), the Cardinals finished bottom-5 in defensive success rate against the run (57.0%), yards after contact per rush (3.28), and explosive rush rate (10.2%).

The front office did address the issue by spending their 16th overall selection on DT Walter Nolen out of Ole Miss — but relying on rookies to change your fate's a risky proposition to say the least.