2014 Record: 11-5, lost in Wild Card round

Current +/- wins per Bovada: 8.5

Overall: The 2014 Arizona Cardinals were one of the NFL’s feel-good stories. Arizona blazed out to a 9-1 start thanks to a stifling, aggressive defense and smart offensive attack. Head Coach Bruce Arians proved to be the right guy for the right roster as assembled by GM Steve Keim. The Cardinals were great at home, losing just once in front of arguably the most enthusiastic fan base the franchise has ever had in Arizona, even in the Super Bowl year.

They faltered late, however. When Carson Palmer went down for good in Week 9, the offense collapsed. Arizona lost four of its final six and got humiliated in the playoffs by a Panthers team with a losing record. What started so strong ended with such a whimper.

This coming season will be interesting. Palmer is back, but the architect of the defense, Todd Bowles, is now the Jets Head Coach. Some veteran acquisitions strongly indicate this is a team built to win right now, though the roster has a strange preponderance of players either at the beginning or end of their careers instead of their primes. Optimism is high in Glendale, and the potential is there for Arians and his charges to reward the positive vibes. But there is also a chance the downer ending to 2014 bleeds onto the new season as well.

Five Questions

1. Will they ever be able to run the ball?

The stats tell a sordid story…

They’ve had a different leading rusher every year since 2010, never the same guy twice. Last year’s leader was Andre Ellington, a speedy, shifty 2013 6^th round draft pick. He’s great in space, but unfortunately doesn’t get there very often on carries. He doesn’t break many tackles or grind out yards after contact, and that’s not likely to change with his style. He’s a fantastic receiver out of the backfield and that holds real value, but as a running back he’s a below-average starter to this point.

Ellington and his cohorts don’t get a lot of help from the perennially shuffling offensive line. They’ve tried the proven veteran, hoping to milk one more year out of guys like Eric Winston. They’ve tried the youth movement, trusting Bobbie Massie and Levi Brown and learning the hard way they badly overdrafted too many young linemen. They’ve fought injuries to guys like Johnathan Cooper and even this year’s prime signee, Mike Iupati.

The struggle continues. Aside from the unfortunate Iupati injury, Massie is suspended for two games. He’s not great but he’s the established starting right tackle. They rolled the dice with D.J. Humphries in the first round this year, but he was woeful in the preseason and will start the year on the bench and in Coach Arians’ doghouse, as noted by Fox Sports:

The coach said Humphries had been given the nickname "Knee Deep" because that's how far he has had to be kicked in the rear end to get through to him.

With the anticipated suspension for up to three games for starting right tackle Bobby Massie, Bradley Sowell moved into the right tackle spot ahead of Humphries.

Asked why, Arians said, "Bradley's a pro, he shows up, shows up every day. D.J.'s a rookie, he shows up once a week."

That is not encouraging. At least last year’s prime free agent signing, left tackle Jared Veldheer, worked out quite well. But a battle for the center gig between A.Q. Shipley and Lyle Sendlein means the team will have zero run surge up the gut once again.

In hopes of getting a spark, the team signed Chris Johnson off the veteran scrap heap. He’s fallen precipitously from his boastful CJ2K heyday, but he does still have the jets when he gets an edge. It can’t hurt to try. I liked David Johnson, the third round pick out of Northern Iowa. He’s a sturdier presence who offers some hope between the tackles and is also a great receiver. The backs probably deserve more credit than I’m giving them here, but until the line and the commitment to the run both significantly improve, it’s hard to have any faith. When this team needs to grind clock late in games, they just cannot do it. 

2. How much will Todd Bowles be missed?

One of the most respected, creative minds in the NFL coaching world, Todd Bowles fashioned a fearsome and effective defense in the desert. His blitz-heavy, attacking front created opportunities and put serious pressure on the opposing offenses.

Bowles took over the Arizona defense in 2013. His impact was undeniable, as the Cardinals improved from a stout unit that gave up points into one that both snuffed out yards and points. They got better in the red zone. They became more opportunistic with takeaways, more timely. Moreover, Bowles’ unit became one which nobody wanted to face.

The personnel is still solid. There were some losses, notably up front (more on that later). The 5-man secondary can be a very good unit, especially if young safeties Deone Bucannon, Tony Jefferson and Tyrann Mathieu continue to progress and gel. Patrick Peterson gets too much national love, but he’s a very good cover corner. Calais Campbell is a force of nature at one end. Adding Sean Weatherspoon to the linebacker mix should assist the run defense, which was great at times but vulnerable to lapses.

It’s up to new Defensive Coordinator James Bettcher to keep the torch blazing. He’s a rookie coordinator, moving up from outside linebackers coach. This is a variable, to say the least. Bettcher is well-respected around the league, but there will be growing pains as he learns to craft game plans and make adjustments to the entire defense in-game for the first time. Bowles had a preternatural feel for just when to dial up which pressure, for when to call the zero coverage or suddenly go vanilla and confuse the QB with a straight zone.

Definitely James Bettcher. #3oclocktweet https://t.co/xFsIztDQkA

— Jody Oehler (@radiojody) July 31, 2015

The unit does not have as much proven talent as recent times. Losing Antonio Cromartie at corner opposite Peterson hurts. The depth at linebacker has taken a hit, too, though there is promise with the unproven recent picks. The personality took a hit with the departure of Darnell Dockett even though he missed last year.

The attitude is important. This defense had a swagger, and it emanated from the top. The tactics could remain quite similar, but will the attention to detail be the same? Will the players have the confidence in Bettcher after a bad loss? More importantly, will Arians? It’s a high-risk/high-reward defense. Going more conservative might allow fewer big plays but it could also cost the edge the team gained from being so splashy.

I do expect the Cardinals defense to remain in the upper tier. They need to. Even a regression from 5^th to 10^th in scoring defense could be enough to keep them from a return to the playoffs. That’s a lot of pressure on a rookie coordinator with more unknown commodities lining up for him than the vaunted predecessor.

3. What does Carson Palmer have left?

Palmer was quite good in his six games last season. Arizona did not lose a game he started, and that is no coincidence. He missed three weeks early with a shoulder injury, and then saw his second ACL tear in the Week 10 win over St. Louis.

At the time of his injury, Palmer was performing at a Pro Bowl level. He was in firm control of the offense, a perfect extension of Coach Arians on the field. The deep arm still looked great, the ball sizzling out of Palmer’s sharp release. He maneuvered comfortably in the pocket, still the mater of the play-action fake.

The injury clouds the future. Palmer is going on 36 and now has suffered the highly infrequent second tear of the same ACL. Never the spryest afoot, Palmer now must prove his knee is sound enough to handle the rigors behind an interesting O-line. Last year was the first time since 2005 where he ranked in the top 12 in INT percentage, and it was the lowest sack percentage since that year, his second in the NFL, as well.

To say Palmer left a lot to be desired in the preseason is an understatement. Check this line from a game versus Oakland…

Vs #Raiders D, Carson Palmer was 8/22 for 103 yds (4.7 ypc avg), 0 TDs, 2 INTs, 3sacks for -17 yds and a whopping 14.0 QB rating. Ouch.

— Asher Mathews (@AsherMathews) August 31, 2015

Palmer looked rusty in the preseason. He was sacked five times and completed just 45% of his throws, getting picked off twice in 33 throws. It’s important to not extrapolate too much from the preseason, but Palmer really did look old and shaky. I’m confident he will look better once the games actually matter. Confident, but not sold. It would help if they had a solid running game to ease the pressure, but that obviously is not the case.

He has to be not just good, but great. The Cardinals have no real Plan B on offense other than to ride on Palmer’s aging back and reconstructed knee. Drew Stanton is far too erratic and undisciplined to be relied upon as the backup once again, but there he is. Trading for Matt Barkley makes little sense, as he lacks the downfield arm requisite in Arians’ offense and has never been the same since his own injury issues. These Cardinals will not win more than 1/3 of the games where Palmer doesn’t take at least 95% of the snaps. And even a small regression with Palmer could be devastating. Go back to his 2010-13 performances in Cincinnati and Oakland, where his completion percentage was about 3 points lower and his INT rate almost triple what it was in 2014’s small sample size. Be very wary of more problems than anticipated from the starting quarterback, though Palmer is more than capable of guiding this team right back to the playoffs.

At least Palmer has weapons at his disposal. Larry Fitzgerald is better in reputation than on the field these days, but he’s still a very effective, sticky-handed receiver. He hasn’t topped 1,000 yards in a season since 2012 and the open-field speed is out of his 32-year-old legs, but nobody is better on contested throws. John Brown was electrifying as a rookie, a legit deep threat. His low catch rate belies his impact as a downfield playmaker. Michael Floyd hasn’t lived up to first-round expectations but remains a quality third option, though he’ll begin the season with a few broken fingers that clouds both his availability and reliability in catching the ball. Lightweight rookie JJ Nelson hopes to follow in Brown’s footsteps of making a big splash from a small body. They upgraded at tight end with former Bengal Jermaine Gresham joining a mix that already had Daniel Fells and last year’s 2^nd-round pick, Troy Niklas. This group helps bolster Palmer’s chances of a big comeback season. 

4. Who rushes the passer?

This sort of goes in hand with Bowles’ departure, but the tentacles run deeper. Arizona doesn’t have much dynamic talent in terms of naturally rushing the passer. Calais Campbell is a great 3-4 DE and can generate serious heat, but he’s the only progenitor along the front.

Take Alex Okafor, the third-year OLB who led the Cardinals in sacks with 8 last year. Despite those eight bags, he graded negatively as a pass rusher by Pro Football Focus. That means he was wildly inefficient in his rushing, and that is validated in watching him perform against Detroit, Atlanta and San Francisco. He gets pressures primarily from following Campbell’s lead, or as a secondary force cleaning up. Because he’s not good against the run--he wasn’t great there at Texas either--it’s hard to bank on him being so productive once again.

Campbell gets two new running mates up front with Dan Williams and Tommie Kelly both gone. Frostee Rucker picked up five sacks as a part-time starter, his career high. He had just one in 2013. The biggest addition is Cory Redding, a 35-year-old veteran who is an eminently reliable all-around player but never good for more than his 3.5 sack per season average. LaMarr Woodley? He has 9 sacks in the last three seasons, including none in a brutal one-year stop in Oakland last season. He’s a worthwhile reclamation project for Bettcher and the coaching staff, but multiple leg injuries have scuttled his effectiveness since 2011. Prominent signee and new starting ILB Sean Weatherspoon missed all of last season and had zero sacks the year before. Fellow ILB Kevin Minter has one sack in his two seasons.

The team is hopeful youngsters Kareem Martin and Markus Golden step up, and the potential is there. Golden, the team’s second-round pick out of Missouri, shined in extensive preseason action and showed great positional versatility in college. Martin didn’t see much action in his rookie season as a third-round defensive end, but he showed promise both in preseason and during his up-and-down North Carolina tenure. Keep expectations low but optimism high with Golden and Martin.

The Cardinals finished 26^th in sack percentage last year, and fell off dramatically at the end of the season. Almost all of the success was scheme-related, and the master of that scheme is now gone. This is a potentially serious crimp in the Cardinals’ wings. 

5. Does anyone step up on special teams?

It doesn’t get much attention, but Arizona quietly had some struggles on special teams in 2014. From spotty returns to middling punting, the Cardinals’ third unit often made life more difficult for the other two phases.

Arizona ranked near the bottom (24^th) in drives started in opposing territory, while only 6 other teams had a higher percentage of drives starting inside their own 20. Ted Ginn Jr. sported a strong punt return average at 10.7, but almost a third of his season’s yardage came on one return, a 76-yard TD sprint in Week 2. He ranked dead last among qualifiers in kick returns at just 18.0, almost 7 yards shy of the league average.

Ginn is gone, but his replacements have zero NFL experience. Mighty mite J.J. Nelson surely brings electrifying potential, and Brittan Golden has bounced around practice squads. Nelson was similar to Ginn while at UAB; his returns were either spectacular (4 KR TDs in 2014) or brutal.

Punter Dave Zastudil is also gone, replaced by Drew Butler, who filled in for the veteran from Ohio University after Zastudil got hurt last year. Butler was ineffective in that role, as only one other punter finished with a lower net average. He also had two blocked, though some of that blame goes on long snapper Mike Leach, also one of the weakest at his position. The coverage units return relatively intact, but they weren’t effective last year. Coordinator Amos Jones has his work cut out for him.

Forecast: One of the reasons to still have lots of confidence in this team is the schedule. It will be surprising if they start any worse than 3-1 with a highly favorable opening slate of New Orleans, at Chicago, then San Francisco and St. Louis at home. They should be favored in all those games.

Then comes the proving ground. Four road games in a five-game span.

- at Detroit
- at Pittsburgh
- Baltimore
- at Cleveland
- at Seattle

That’s four of the best defenses in the league, and the one bad defense there (Pittsburgh) trots out arguably the league’s best offense.

The three finishing games are no picnic either, at Philadelphia and then home for Green Bay and Seattle, last year’s NFC finalists. It’s a brutal schedule for a team with a questionable offense.

If the Cardinals are to get back, Palmer and the offense will have to be better. The defense cannot regress much, if at all. The special teams will have to be more special. There is enough frontline talent here to achieve another trip to the postseason, but I don’t think it’s in the cards.

I went game-by-game through the schedule with a few various scenarios. The best outcome I got was 10-6, and that involved leading the league in turnover margin and having Ellington rush for 4 yards a carry with a healthy Palmer all year. The nightmare scenario--Palmer ineffective or hurt, continued OL and RB woes, regression on takeaways and third down defense, poor kicking game--produced a 4-12 collapse.

The more I look at this team, the less I like it. I love and greatly respect Arians as the coach, and I do think Palmer will be decent. But I think a lot of the defensive magic left the building, and the schedule features several teams built well to take advantage of what Arizona doesn’t do well. It all adds up to a disappointing 6-10 finish.