Arizona Cardinals: Epic Fail?

by Doug Farrar on Dec 26, 2008 5:21 PM PST Comment 20 comments

The final Inside the Numbers this season will be up soon at Danny O'Neil's Seattle Times blog. It's worth mentioning again that Danny's one of the good guys. Anyhoo, here's an excerpt that begins to explain the Arizona Cardinals' Month of Suck:

The Worst of First

The NFC West has produced some dicey division champs in the last five seasons -- really, only the 2005 Seahawks resembled a top-flight team among division winners since 2004. In 2004 and 2006, the Seahawks won the West with negative total DVOA. But of all those teams, none has gone into the end of the season with such a worrisome curve as the 2008 Arizona Cardinals.

One month ago, we were talking about Kurt Warner as a legitimate MVP candidate, running back Tim Hightower was chasing a rookie record for touchdowns, and the only thing that could stop the Cards' trip to a deep playoff run was a somewhat undisciplined defense. Then, it all started unraveling. Like many dome-advantaged teams, the Cardinals showed their weaknesses in the late-season war of attrition, when toughness and persistence become far more important than explosiveness and stat-collecting. When it came time to play smashmouth, Arizona had a glass jaw.

According to FO Big Kahuna Aaron Schatz in this week's DVOA Rankings article, the Cardinals allowed the second-best single-game DVOA in the history of our stats, which currently go back to 1995, in last week's 47-7 loss to the New England Patriots. Arizona gained 64 "real-time" passing yards, which is what I would call their 142 total aerial yards minus the garbage-time 78-yard touchdown from Matt Leinart to Larry Fitzgerald. Warner completed six passes in 18 attempts for a grand total of 30 yards, and a single-game DYAR of -53. With his two fumbles, Leinart had a DYAR of -88. New England's Matt Cassell, Leinart's former backup at USC, ripped that Arizona defense for 345 yards and three touchdowns. It's not clear what was more indefensible -- Arizona's overall performance, or New England's receivers against the Cards' secondary. They couldn't run with any consistency, and the hothouse passing offense was a fool's bet in the Foxboro snow.

Three quarterbacks put up worse single-game DYAR last week -- Cleveland's Ken Dorsey, San Francisco's Shaun Hill … and Brett Favre of the New York Jets,. Favre's DYAR of -91 was brought to the Seattle Seahawks, in large part, by the efforts of Defensive Player of the Week Josh Wilson, who picked off two passes in what we can only hope is a breakout game, given how bad Seattle's pass defense has been this year.

The moral of this story? For several reasons, this game is eminently winnable for the Seahawks, who could send their coach out a victor both home and away.

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It's odd

but my mind has been fixated on Josh Wilson. I figure he’ll be picked on or picking six.

by John Morgan on Dec 26, 2008 6:02 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

They're at home, and they'll have Boldin back.

Great test for Seattle’s corners. If they can go into 2009 with even 1 1/2 cornerbacks, it would make a big difference.

by Doug Farrar on Dec 26, 2008 6:11 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Gonna be at the game this weekend. I believe we will go in there and kick the Cards around. I have been saying all season long to my Cards fan friends that they are a paper team. They do have great wideouts that I believe have made Warner seem like he’s got more gas than he really does. With such a horrible loss last weekend I think the Redbirds are going to come out flat. The Hawks will do everything they can to remind the rest of the teams in this division why they have been the champs 4 straight years before this crappy season. My only consolation is that the Cards WILL lose in the 1st round of the playoffs!

by AZ Hawk on Dec 26, 2008 8:24 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

it's a win/win IMO

Either we win on the road, drop the Cardinals to 8-8 and prove that they’re only in by default, or lose and possibly hit 4th or 5th in the draft.

I don’t know if, come April, I’ll be cursing or praising the results of this game.

by Will Kier on Dec 26, 2008 9:28 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I could care less about proving they're only in by default.

After last week’s debacle in NE, I think everyone knows they’re pretenders. That said, I would still enjoy ending the season with three straight wins.

by SeaTownBlueDevil on Dec 27, 2008 7:18 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Boldin likely won't play.

And shouldn’t, even if he’s healthy. I also wouldn’t bet on the Cardinals’ chances of being a thorn in our side to continually contend for the division in coming seasons. Let’s look at the premise behind that team:

They have a QB fast approaching 40, running a spread offense, a laughably bad running game that still sucks despite having opponents always defending the pass, and a piss-poor defense with about 3 players that deserve to be starters. My neighbor has been monitoring them because he has that NFL ticket, and he informs me they would be one of the worst teams in the league if they didn’t have a historical WR trio.

Considering Boldin is as good as gone along with Warner soon, we should be more worried about Singletary’s 49ers.

by Fearless Frog on Dec 26, 2008 9:41 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Red Bryant is not listed on the injury report, so

it looks like we’ll see him in the upcoming game. Hopefully he can end his season on a positive note.

by redwolf75 on Dec 26, 2008 10:00 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I'm pretty excited

to get Howard Green out of there. Bryant has looked promising.

by tohereknowswhen on Dec 27, 2008 9:20 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Actually, Green seems to have improved of late

but Bryant has looked great when he played. I hope he gets more time if Bernard leaves in FA.

by Fearless Frog on Dec 27, 2008 10:45 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I doubt Ruskell resigns Bernard, considering his recent

domestic abuse case.

I have a feeling we’ll see Bryant a lot next year.

by redwolf75 on Dec 27, 2008 4:54 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I actually want Bernard to leave.

Not because of that silly domestic abuse thing, but because it would be unwise to lock him to another deal. He’s in a contract year and has done next to nothing, and he’s almost 30 now.

by Fearless Frog on Dec 27, 2008 9:35 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I think the Cards' sudden decline has mostly to do with our failure

They played hard early in the season when they were the up-and-comers and the Seahawks were still a threat.

As soon as it was clear that the Hawks were pretty much out of the picture entirely, the Cards did what a lot of young, new-to-success teams do: they let their guard down. And started losing a few games they should win.

I’m still convinced that the Cards are a pretty good team who can hold their own with a lot of NFC powers… given the motivation. Wisenhunt has really choked here by failing to maintain their momentum. This weekend is a really, really big game for them. If they show anything less than a return to form, their first round playoff opponent will be looking at a pretty easy upset.

by djafrot on Dec 26, 2008 11:36 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Mike Tanier had one of the better lines of the year about Warner

Kurt Warner
Geezer Index: Flatline. Don’t let the wacky comeback bid on Sunday snow you. Check the date on your Warner calendar. The “couple of good games” are over. We’re in the part of the year where he keeps fumbling in the red zone and getting jittery in the pocket. He’ll be injured in three weeks.

Sure he went on to get his name in the MVP discussion around the 3 quarter mark of the season but I always believed this was true.

by Nate Dogg on Dec 27, 2008 10:00 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Part of the Warner-for-MVP discussion is the fact that most of the real individual impact players this season are defensive players. If people can’t see past that bias, they look at Brees and cross him off because the Saints aren’t in the playoffs. Like he has anything to do with that rotten defense. Before Peyton Manning set the Colts right, Warner was the only other QB in the race, and people think QB first. If I had an MVP vote this year, it’d go to about five different defensive players (starting with Polamalu and Haynesworth) before I’d even think offfense.

by Doug Farrar on Dec 27, 2008 5:03 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

As good as Polamalu is, I'd put James Harrison before him.

by SeaTownBlueDevil on Dec 27, 2008 7:20 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Since Merger: 25QBs, 12RBs, 1DL, 1LB, 1K as MVP

It’s also why Kerry Collins and Matt Ryan had/have traction in MVP discussion amongst analysts. Quarterbacks before everyone else. Then running backs. If you don’t have a good candidate yet, go back and look at quarterbacks again until you talk yourself into Brett Favre or something. Since LT won in 1986, no MVP has been a non-QB, non-RB. That only K to win was in 1982, which was a messed-up season anyway and that fits with the lunancy.

I heard although don’t know for sure that the MVP can technically be awarded to a unit rather than just an individual (is this true?) It would never happen, ever, but I’d consider the Giants O-Line if this were possible. And yeah, defenders like Haynesworth and Jenkins.

by Gihyou on Dec 27, 2008 8:08 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe first suggested the Giants’ O-line as MVP a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t be opposed to it, though I’d like to retroactively award the 2005 NFL MVP award to the left side of Seattle’s line in that case.

by Doug Farrar on Dec 27, 2008 8:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Could This Game be a Preview for 2009?

I just can’t see Arizona being this good next year. Warner will either be decrepit or replaced by Matt Leinart (who hasn’t proven at all to be a consistent threat). Tim Hightower looks to be a good goal-line back, but not some who can be relied on for 20-10 touches a game. Anquan Boldin may never fully recover from his horrific injury — mentally — and still might want to be traded to another team. Their defense…..continues to be the Cardinals defense, and I don’t think they’re going to be seriously upgraded in 9 months.

The Seahawks have had as many injuries in the past 12 months as any other team I’ve ever seen, a phenomena I doubt will repeat itself next year. Be that as it may, we are still trying get wins, even when there is nothing to win now. We’ve had plenty of closes loses this year, which were in single digits (in no particular order: SF, ARI, PHI, WAS, @MIA, & NE). Most of those games could have went our way.

Hey, 4-11 is pathetic and inexcusable, but it is rock-bottom for this talent-laden team; Shaun Alexander was a cancer on the running game that was surgically removed last offseason, and Brian Russell is a cancer on the secondary that will meet the same fate soon. Seattle is on its way up and Arizona is on its way down, and I’ll be shocked — just as shocked as I was a few months ago, as 2008 unfolded as it did — if these trends don’t continue next season.

by J.L. White on Dec 27, 2008 4:06 PM PST reply actions 0 recs