Cardinals’ D-line in bottom half of league, per PFF

Their unit comes in at No. 18 overall.

The Arizona Cardinals should have a better defensive line in 2020 than they did in 2019. After all, they were decimated by injuries last season. Darius Philon was released after his arrest for assault. Robert Nkemdiche showed up to camp overweight and was cut. Zach Allen, Jonathan Bullard and Clinton McDonald all ended up on injured reserve.

But they signed Jordan Phillips and drafted Leki Fotu and Rashard Lawrence in the fourth round.

Even still, the defensive line is a slightly below average unit, according to Pro Football Focus.

In their rankings of all 32 defensive line units, the Cardinals come in 18th.

PFF looks at the interior defenders and the edge rushers, so they get extra consideration because Chandler Jones is included.

Chandler Jones is the star player on the Cardinals’ defensive front. Jones is always just outside of the very best edge rushers in the league in terms of total pressures or PFF grade, but he has managed to consistently generate more sacks than his pressure total should generate — something that is typically not a skill. Last season, Jones posted a pass-rush grade of 90.0, good enough to rank in the top five among edge rushers, and he pressured the quarterback 75 times.

He is by far the team’s best pass-rusher and should be among the league leaders in pressures again in 2020. The lack of help for Jones could be a significant problem, as nobody currently on the roster had more than 26 total pressures a season ago. Jordan Phillips had 10 sacks and might be confused for a legitimate pass-rush presence, but those sacks represented 10 of the 26 total pressures he managed all season long. The tape shows a series of unimpressive plays on those sacks. Phillips hasn’t topped 30 total pressures in a season and will likely be a run defender only this season.

Corey Peters offers the same type of impact, albeit a more proven version, and fourth-round pick Leki Fotu makes a trio of run-focused interior defenders. Second-year player Zach Allen may be the player most likely to take a step forward and make an impact, but his rookie season lasted an underwhelming four games before injury landed him on injured reserve. Allen needs to show major improvement for the Cardinals to be anything more than reliant on the skills of Jones again in 2020.

PFF is not as high on Phillips as the Cardinals. They did not pay him $10 million a year to be just a run defender. They also believe Fotu has some pass-rushing upside as well. Allen does need to make some sort of an impact for the defensive line to improve because Peters shouldn’t play more than about 40% of the snaps at his age, although he is still solid. It’s just that other guys need to step up and be better.

Although he did not grade out all that highly according to PFF, Jonathan Bullard was surprisingly effective in 2019 before his injury. Despite playing in only nine games, he had a career-high in sacks, tackles for loss and QB hits.

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Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Stitcher Radio.

Ep. 269

Ep. 268

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Ep. 267

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4 position battles for starting jobs to watch for the Cardinals

The starting lineup is mostly set, but right tackle, defensive end, inside linebacker and safety all will have competition to start.

The Arizona Cardinals mostly have a starting lineup on offense and defense set, but not every spot is completely secured. Here are the starting jobs that will be a battle as minicamp takes place (sometime) and training camp begins later this summer.

RT: Marcus Gilbert vs. Justin Murray vs. Josh Jones

Gilbert is the favorite to start, as he was the starter last year until he tore his ACL, he has the most experience and is arguably the best lineman they have.

However, his injury history screams at you that he can’t be trusted to be the guy, as he has only played 12 games in the last three seasons.

Murray gained the praise of his coach and general manager, while the team is super high on Jones, a steal in the third round of the draft. He wants to play right away.

This could be fun to watch.

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New Cardinals get jersey numbers; some returning Cardinals have changes

The Cardinals’ free agent additions will have the same numbers they did with their previous team.

The Arizona Cardinals now have jersey numbers assigned for all their players, including their newcomers. That has meant, in some cases, that players who were already on the roster had to change theirs.

Here are the jersey numbers for the new Cardinals players.

WR DeAndre Hopkins: No. 10
LB De’Vondre Campbell: No. 59
LB Devon Kennard: No. 42
DL Trevon Coley: No. 93
DL Jordan Phillips: No. 97
QB Chris Streveler: No. 15

These returning players have changed their numbers, some because of the newcomers.

WR Hakeem Butler goes from No. 17 to No. 18
S Chris Banjo goes from No. 38 to No. 31, previously worn by David Johnson
LB Dennis Gardeck goes from No. 42 to No. 45 to accommodate Kennard
DL Zach Allen goes from No. 97 to No. 94 to accommodate Phillips

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Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Sub scribe on Apple podcasts or Stitcher Radio.

Ep. 264

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Ep. 263

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4 2019 Cardinals rookies who need to fill larger roles in 2020

These players need to be counted on for more in 2020.

The Arizona Cardinals had two of their rookies play prominent roles in 2019. Quarterback Kyler Murray and cornerback Byron Murphy, the team’s two top picks in the draft, started every single game as rookies.

As we look ahead to 2020, a few of the 2019 rookies should see their roles increase.

WR Andy Isabella

While the team was not disappointed in him, he certainly was disappointing to fans, who were very excited about the prospect of someone with his frame and speed. He still has Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk ahead of him in the slot but he needs to be a much bigger part offense in his second year than he was.

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6 expected starters, key contributors on Cardinals D-line off 53-man roster

Basically an entire defensive line room has either landed on injured reserve or gotten cut.

From 2016-2018, the Arizona Cardinals were ravaged by injuries on the offensive line. That has changed this year, as only one position has really been affected by injuries.

However, the defensive line has been dealt a bad hand. Between injuries and disappointments, the Cardinals have lost six defensive linemen, all of whom were either projected starters or key contributors.

It started in training camp. Basically an entire roster of defensive linemen has been lost. As of now, the starters will be Corey Peters, Zach Kerr and Caraun Reid. Peters has been a rock. Kerr was signed off the street in October and Reid was signed last week, cut and re-signed on Tuesday.

Who are these missing pieces?

Darius Philon

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Philon was the biggest loss. He was one of their big free agent acquisitions. However, an arrest on assault charges led to his release in training camp. He was expected to be the best player on the line. It is hard to blame the Cardinals for this miss. He didn’t have a checkered past and it would have looked terrible to keep him on the roster.

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Cardinals place rookie DL Zach Allen on IR

He had not played since Week 4 with a neck injury.

The Arizona Cardinals have been without rookie defensive lineman Zach Allen for the last six weeks of the season. The team announced Wednesday he was placed on injured reserve, which will end his season.

To replace him on the roster, they elevated undrafted rookie defensive lineman Miles Brown.

It was a move the Cardinals were trying to avoid. According to Kliff Kingsbury, it is something the organization had discussed.

“The big thing with Zach is the reps are so valuable as a rookie,” he said on Monday. “With our bye week coming up, we’ve kind of targeted that for a while that hopefully that could be a point to get him back for the last five and get those valuable reps.”

Now Allen won’t be able to even practice.

He has not played since appearing in three snaps in Week 4 when he suffered a stinger. At some point, he had a setback and has not practiced in weeks.

What is unknown is why the decision was made to do it now. The first injury report of Week 11 was not out at the time of publishing, so it is not known if the team was going to short on players on the defensive line. Clinton McDonald was placed on IR last week and Rodney Gunter had his leg looked at during the game on Sunday, although he finished the game.

Allen began the season as a starter after getting drafted in the third round of the draft this year. He appeared in four games and finishes the season with eight tackles, one for loss and three QB hits.

Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Stitcher Radio.

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