Cardinals Can't Fall into This Trap

The Arizona Cardinals have made plenty of intentionally noteworthy moves to bolster a defense that was severely lacking in talent, particularly along the defensive front. Additions like Josh Sweat, Dalvin Tomlinson and Calais Campbell were worthy investments to Arizona's weakest position group.

But the same can't be said for all position groups. The Cardinals' defense might look much different - and much improved - in 2025, but that doesn't apply to the offense.

For the most part, Arizona's offensive group is the same as it was in 2024 — a year plagued by offensive inconsistency outside of an excellent run game.

For some position groups - one notable example being the offensive line - consistency and unit retention build cohesion and maintains high performance; if, of course, high performance is already the norm.

But for others, particularly Arizona's pass-catchers, simply running back an entire group that generally failed to perform at an exceptional level of production is not beneficial. While draft-and-develop remains the philosophy of this franchise, you can't always count on development to manifest itself in results, even on a year-to-year basis.

So the Cardinals face a dilemma here. Adding too many new members could hurt the momentum Monti Ossenfort anbd Jonathan Gannon are building, but leaving the WR group unchanged could lead to another low-production season through the air.

Of course, Arizona is counting on a significant jump by Marvin Harrison Jr., and the newly-extended Trey McBride figures to be a dominant force once again, but those aren't necessarily guarantees. Even QB Kyler Murray has battled issues with consistency, and needs to put together at least most of a healthy, high-production season to take the Cardinals to the next level.

Arizona faces this challenge: they may love who they have as people, or even as players from a standpoint of potential, but they can't fall into the trap of running back the exact same unit after a year of underperformance from the passing game in 2024.

Scheme, personnel, quarterback play and the random chance that sometimes pervade football all play into these results, but it would be irresponsible for Ossenfort to approach 2025 without making a single adjustment to the pass-catching corps, or at least exploring his options in that regard.

There's nothing wrong with keeping the players you like organizationally, but it can't come at the expense of production. Options might be limited at this stage, but Ossenfort should always be looking to improve the roster.