In 2018, the Arizona Cardinals put up one of the most pathetic sustained offensive performances in NFL history. They finished last in the league in offensive DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average), Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metric. They finished last in the NFL in the first half of games, in the second half of games. They had the worst offensive DVOA in the NFL both on the road and at home. No team was worse when behind in a game, and on those blissful and exceedingly rare occasions when they had a lead, they were last in offensive DVOA then, as well. They finished last when their quarterback was operating out of the shotgun formation, and next-to-last when their quarterback was working under center.
Their quarterback, rookie first-round pick Josh Rosen, put up the single worst season in the history of FO’s other primary efficiency metric, DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement). While DVOA is a play-to-play measurement of efficiency (or not), DYAR is cumulative. Football Outsiders has published data for every snap in every season going back to 1986, and no quarterback has ever had a worse DYAR through a season than Rosen’s 1,145. This essentially means that, adjusted for situation and opponent, Rosen was a liability through the season to the tune of 1.145 yards under the league average. Not 1.145 yards behind Patrick Mahomes, but 1,145 yards under the league average.
So, it was not a surprise when head coach Steve Wilks was fired after the season. Offensive coordiantor Mike McCoy had already been fired halfway through the season, and interim offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich went to Tampa to work once again with Bruce Arians, his coaching mentor. In their place came Kliff Kingsbury, the Air-Raid wunderkind who had a hand in the collegiate development of everybody from Mahomes to Baker Mayfield to Johnny Manziel (ahem, the college version) to Case Keenum, and on and on.
There was some suspicion that Kingsbury could take his concepts to the NFL and win, though. Kingsbury’s version of the Air Raid was typical in that it was a high-passing, high-volume offense. With a ton of “10” personnel (one running back, no tight ends, four receivers), and over six seasons with Kingsbury as their head coach from 2013 through 2018, the Texas Tech Red Raiders threw over 3,600 passes. Only Mike Leach’s Washington State Cougars threw more often. Kingsbury presided over offenses that ran over 6,000 total plays — only Baylor and Clemson ran more.
Coaches who come from college insistent on running their old stuff and refusing to adapt to the NFL’s realities have always been in for a rude awakening. And through the first four weeks of the 2019 season, Kingsbury, and his able lieutenant Kyler Murray, the Texas A&M and Oklahoma alum selected first overall in the 2019 draft, seemed to be on that same pace. Per Sharp Football Stats, the Cardinals ran “10” personnel on 59% of their plays. This was by far the highest rate in the league over that time; the Seahawks ranked second with 11% of their plays out of “10” personnel, and eight teams didn’t run a single play out of that personnel.
Murray wasn’t really helped by the packages, either — Arizona threw the ball on 76% of their plays, and Murray completed 69 of 108 passes for a 6.4 yards per attempt average, one touchdown, two interceptions, 13 sacks, and a quarterback rating of 77.4.
This was not sustainable. Not with a receiver group Murray was still getting familiar with, a sub-par offensive line, and a running game that had yet to become what it would become. Plays like this may work in those 54-45 Big 12 After Dark pointfests, but the NFL has generally had better answers.
“I think the biggest takeaway is there’s no kind of throwaway plays in the NFL,” Kingsbury said back in early October. “In college, you may have 85, 90 snaps. There’s a handful that are kind of throwaways and you look back at them and [say], ‘Hey, that’s all right that there were five plays that maybe we didn’t have the best call on and it didn’t work out.’
However, an interesting thing happened on the way to Kingsbury’s NFL irrelevance. Actually, several things. FO’s Aaron Schatz recently pointed out that since Week 4, the Cardinals rank third in Offensive DVOA, behind only Dallas and Baltimore.
Blink once, blink twice? Yes, I know. That is not a typo.
Since Week 4, the Arizona Cardinals rank No. 3 in the NFL in offensive DVOA. Arizona! They were so horrendous a year ago! Since Week 4, behind only Dallas and Baltimore.
— Aaron Schatz đ (@FO_ASchatz) November 25, 2019
What changed? Personnel diversity, that’s what.