The Los Angeles Rams will take on the Arizona Cardinals this Sunday as the Cards look to start the end of the season strong. Can Kyler Murray lead the team to their first victory since October?
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The Arizona Cardinals aren’t in playoff contention anymore, although they are not technically eliminated from the playoff race. Despite this, the overall mood of the locker room feels optimistic. The surrounding view of the team is far different than it was at this time last year. While a victory Sunday can’t propel them into the postseason, they can play spoiler to a dreaded division rival.
Recent history hasn’t been kind to fans in the desert when facing the Rams. Los Angeles has dominated the Arizona Cardinals the past two years, outscoring them 130-25. That number includes two shutouts. For four games, Arizona had zero answers for the Sean McVay-Wade Phillips coaching combination.
This 2019 Cardinals team looks to be a lot different than the ones the Rams have played recently. Their record shows that of a ball club featuring a rookie head coach and quarterback, but the box scores show a team that has gone toe-to-toe with some of the league’s best.
This year’s Rams have had a fall from grace after nearly defeating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. They’re 6-5 and have sputtered out of control following a strong start to the season. Jared Goff has only eleven touchdown passes compared to twelve interceptions. They’ll be coming into Glendale on a short week following a 6-45 massacre at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens.
The Cardinals very nearly beat that same Ravens team in week two of the season, falling 17-23 after a beautiful pass from Lamar Jackson to Hollywood Brown on 3rd down and 13. That game looks more and more impressive for the Cards as the season moves along, as the Ravens are looking like the AFC favorite for the Super Bowl.
The Cardinals are refreshed after their bye week. In fact, it’s possible all 53 players on the active roster will be healthy this Sunday. Can they start the end of the season strong, or will they come out rusty and unprepared?
Kliff Kingsbury raved about Sean McVay on Wednesday.
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For the first time as NFL head coaches, Sean McVay and Kliff Kingsbury will square off on Sunday. The two are close off the field, but this will be the first time they face each other on opposing sidelines.
Kingsbury nearly joined McVay’s staff last offseason after he was fired by Texas Tech, but instead opted for the Cardinals’ head coaching vacancy after accepting a job as USC’s offensive coordinator.
On Wednesday, Kingsbury said he was “close” to joining the Rams, even after the USC opening came about.
"To learn under Sean would have been huge and just didn't work out," Kingsbury said.
Of course, Kingsbury found himself in a great spot with the Cardinals as their head coach, and he credits his current job to McVay. He told Arizona media members that if not for McVay, he wouldn’t be in this position.
#K2 On if he and Rams Head Coach Sean McVay have talked during the season:
“Even when I got this job in the division, he was really helpful with me. I wouldn’t have this job if it weren’t for him.” pic.twitter.com/nBqdvGS0zs
On a conference call with Rams media, he discussed further how helpful McVay has been during his transition to the NFL.
“Sean was great. Even though we’re in the same division, anything that I needed once I got the job – questions, thoughts, giving real advice – he was great,” Kingsbury said. “That’s just the type of person that he is – those of you that have been around him. We haven’t talked much during the season – both of us have jobs in the same division – but, he knows that I’m always cheering for him 14 out of 16 games and I’m sure he’s doing the same.”
Kingsbury and the Cardinals can play spoiler on Sunday afternoon against the Rams. A win would drop Los Angeles to 6-6 on the year, effectively ending any playoff hopes McVay’s squad had.
Ex-Air Raid college coach Kliff Kingsbury came into the NFL with one plan. Then, it all changed — and the Cardinals are far better for it.
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.
(Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports)
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.
These nine teams aren’t going to get to the playoffs, but they could make things difficult for those expecting postseason opportunities.
When once asked about spoilers — sub-par teams capable of ruining postseason plans for stronger teams by way of upset wins at the most opportune times — legendary baseball manager Sparky Anderson said in his own unique way, “No spoilers don’t collect no checks.”
That may be true when it comes to postseason money, but in every NFL season, there are those supposedly sub-par opponents lurking in the weeds, waiting to upset potential playoff teams at the most inconvenient possible time.
These nine teams with losing records should be taken seriously as spoilers in the last six weeks of the 2009 season — none of them look like playoff teams, but they have enough on the ball to make things interesting down the stretch. They are ranked in reverse order based on current performance, their records against winning teams to date, and the number of winning teams remaining on their schedules.
9. Detroit Lions
(Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Current record: 3-6-1
2019 record vs. winning teams: 0-5
Number of upcoming winning opponents: 2
The 3-6-1 Lions started their season tying the Cardinals, then beat the Chargers and Eagles. Things looked good for Matt Patricia’s team after a close loss to the Chiefs, and then came the Week 5 Monday night loss to thew Packers, in which Clete Blakeman’s officiating crew was rightly and repeatedly called into question. Since then, Detroit has won just one game — a a 31-6 victory over the Giants — and has gone down over and over in heartbreaking fashion. Only one of those losses came with a margin over 10 points — Detroit’s 42-30 Week 7 loss to the Vikings — and though the defense has been wildly inconsistent, the offense has held up decently with backup quarterback Jeff Driskel replacing Matthew Stafford as Stafford recovers from a back injury.
Detroit has another game with Minnesota and a revenge match with the Packers left in their season, and if Patricia can figure out his defense, this Lions team could still be better than their record indicates.
Touchdown Wire ranks the 32 NFL teams in terms of stability and potential at the game’s most important position over the next 3-4 seasons.
Tom Brady might be the best quarterback ever, but he’s not the best in the NFL right now. He certainly won’t be the best in 2022.
He’s human, after all, and at age 42, regression is inevitable even for someone with six Super Bowl rings. That puts the New England Patriots in an uncertain situation at quarterback two or three years down the road. The New Orleans Saints, with 40-year-old Drew Brees under center, find themselves in a similar scenario.
Other teams, such as the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers, likely will face difficult personnel decisions at the quarterback position much sooner than that. Only a handful of teams, notably the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks, appear secure in their quarterback situation for years to come.
All this got us thinking about the quarterback situations of the future — and where each of the NFL’s 32 teams ranks in terms of preparedness at the game’s most crucial position.
By quarterback situations, we mean the full overview of each team’s quarterbacks group, including backups and a potential succession plan, if necessary. For this exercise, we will define the future as three to four years down the road.
To help form these opinions, we consulted with a blue-ribbon panel of one former head coach, two former general managers and one current general manager. They were asked for their thoughts on each team’s quarterback situation. They provided insight to inform our rankings.
With that in mind, we present Touchdown Wire’s future quarterback rankings for every NFL team, from worst to first:
32. Miami Dolphins
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Earlier this season, many observers accused the Dolphins of tanking to earn the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and presumably select a quarterback. Since then, Miami (2-8) has been eclipsed by the ineptitude of Cincinnati (0-10) and Washington (1-9), so the Dolphins might not get the first QB off the board. Currently, the Dolphins have Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen on their roster. Rosen has failed in his playing time. There’s no way he’ll be back next year. The Dolphins have the option to hang onto Fitzpatrick, 36, who’s currently under contract next season at $5.5 million. It makes sense to keep Fitzpatrick around for one more year to help groom a young quarterback. That could be LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagavailoa (although his recent hip injury now complicates his draft status), Oregon’s Justin Herbert or Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts. Two members of my panel said they like Burrow better than Tagovailoa. Either way, it’s going to take some time to develop a young quarterback.
31. Chicago Bears
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For the moment, Mitchell Trubisky is Chicago’s starting quarterback. But it doesn’t appear that he will be in that role next year — although he remains under contract and the team holds a fifth-year option on the No. 2 overall pick from 2017. Given his level of play this season, it’s highly unlikely he will receive the option year, and he might not even see 2020 with the Bears — although the cap hit for cutting him would be slightly more than $9 million. The Bears are 4-6 after going 12-4 last year. There’s one main reason for the decline. That’s Trubisky. My panelists say he’s holding the offense back and could end up keeping a good team out of the playoffs. All four panelists agree Trubisky should be nothing more than a backup. Current backup Chase Daniel’s contract expires after this season. So there’s no telling who will be Chicago’s quarterback next year. Maybe the Bears will draft a quarterback. But with a talented roster already in place, the Bears should be first in line to sign New Orleans backup Teddy Bridgewater as a free agent.
30. Cincinnati Bengals
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Veteran Andy Dalton has been benched, and the Bengals are giving rookie fourth-rounder Ryan Finley a shot. There should be no turning back to Dalton, even though he remains under contract for 2020 with a $17.5 million scheduled salary. The Bengals can cut Dalton after the season without any salary cap ramifications. It’s too early to judge Finley. Cincinnati is going to end up with an early draft pick and could have a shot at Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert or Jalen Hurts. The Bengals will be starting over. But, given their current state, that’s not a bad thing. “Dalton had more than enough time and couldn’t win consistently,” one panelist said. “I have no idea what they have in Finley. But they have to draft a quarterback if they’re sitting there at No. 1 or 2.”
29. Washington Redskins
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The current situation is a mess. Veterans Colt McCoy and Case Keenum, who clearly aren’t the answer, each is in the last year of their contract. The Redskins have little choice but to play rookie Dwayne Haskins, who has five interceptions and two touchdown passes, the rest of this season. Call it an audition for Haskins. But this situation is complicated because the Redskins currently have interim coach Bill Callahan, who took over when Jay Gruden was fired. There will be a new coach next year, and he might not like Haskins. With an early draft pick likely, the new coach might want his own guy. Give up on Haskins after only one season? Arizona did it with 2018 first-round pick Josh Rosen after drafting Kyler Murray. All four of our panelists said Haskins was overrated when he was drafted.
The Arizona Cardinals will look to even the score against the 8-1 49ers as the team travels to Santa Clara this Sunday.
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Halloween night was heart-breaking for many Arizona Cardinals fans. Quarterback Kyler Murray and company very nearly pulled off an epic comeback against one of the top teams in the NFL on prime-time television. It certainly would have been great for the Cardinals, though Sunday presents a chance at redemption.
The San Francisco 49ers are down many starters due to injury, while the Cardinals are coming in relatively healthy. LT Joe Staley and DT D.J. Jones have been ruled out, with many others questionable.
The biggest storyline is tight end George Kittle, who is officially listed as doubtful (even though head coach Kyle Shanahan told Arizona media he wouldn’t play earlier in the week). Another big injury is WR Emmanuel Sanders, who is in a ton of pain due to a rib injury sustained in Monday Night Football’s loss to the Seahawks. He is officially questionable.
Some other names for the 49ers on the injury front is RB Matt Breida (doubtful) and K Robbie Gould (doubtful).
The Cardinals must capitalize on San Francisco’s injury-plagued roster. They owe them one for the loss on Thursday Night Football.
