Birdcano ’22 – An Arizona Cardinals Football Club Season Preview

Feels to me like the Glendale-based Arizona Cardinals have been showing up in the offseason press more than usual and definitely more than they deserve (in terms of on-field relevance). It started as their 2021 season came to a close with an absolutely humiliating wildcard defeat under the thrusting hips and incapacitating forearm pin by Aaron Donald and the NFC West division champions and eventual Super Bowl winner LA Rams. The gifted cherry on top of Kliff Kingsbury’s second consecutive late-season meltdown for GM Steve Keim and Owner Mike Bidwill? Completely falling apart entering an offseason where teamwork guru and noted Black Danny DeVito impersonator, quarterback Kyler Murray, is squarely in line for some kind of monster contract extension — on top of whatever other obligations front office leadership roles require; I guess using the paint can tool on MS Paint to generate the official alternate helmet for this Franchise of Tomorrow^tm.

So the front office *leaked* that Murray basically quit on the team in the wildcard game (ignoring for a moment that we shun defenders for displaying happiness during any moment in a blowout), was difficult to coach, etc. Murray then did one of those little fits where the player scrubs his MySpace or whatever and releases some Truth (because Twitter is chinesee) with a quote about knowing yourself and being real and the haters gonna find out while I’m on my grind. On my hustle.

But of course things got patched up and he got his big contract right before preseason. He now will play a fourth year with the team and he will also have former Oklahoma teammate Hollywood Brown as WR2 and substitute WR1 for the first month and a half while DeAndre Hopkins serves six games for cheating during a season where his team limped into the wildcard and got destroyed in all phases like some girl showing off her learner’s permit at an SDSU football party.

pic.twitter.com/SpcEVwqox7

— Kyler Murray (@K1) February 14, 2022

Other news, the team acquired BAL’s Hollywood Brown for their first round pick on draft day. So this Air Raid offense will now have DeAndre Hopkins (after week 6); Hollywood Brown; AJ Green; and some young speedsters or something. James Connor will anchor the backfield and Zach Ertz will handle TE1 duties. Kingsbury always comes out hot and one would expect Hollywood Brown to benefit from Hopkins being out for PEDs but when Hopkins returns, presumably without PEDs to improve his performance, he will be just as good. I don’t. I think this offensive system has just been figured out. Murray can’t stay in condition to run it for 17+ games; the defense fails in a progressive collapse as Keim hasn’t given it adequate personnel (and Chandler Jones went to RAIDERS this offseason but at least JJ Watt is only a year older!); and, most importantly, Kingsbury is slow to make in-game changes and, basically, only knows how to race from the front.

You’ll recall that Chip Kelly’s College Nonsense System lasted three years in the NFL (plus a fourth with SF just Josh Rosening with Chip for a year so it don’t count).

Overall, it’s just the same old bullshit with these clowns down at 0 Championship Drive. This is a team you can choose to like or choose to have no faith in because, frankly, they’re irrelevant. Vegas has them at about 8.5 but the biggest homers on the boards have no concerns about the lack of quality CB depth (even though that has always been an acheillies heel for Steve Keim rosters) and expect a “collective blossoming”, a la Legion of Boom, from the youth and inexperience on defense. I’d point out that Vance Joseph’s coaching has been Kliff Kingbury’s MVP to-date but what’s the point? As of today, the Arizona Cardinals are 32nd in the league on defensive roster spending.

OOOH! 11 TH HOUR EDITING UPDATE! EXPECTED STARTING CB2 (IN A SHALLOW AF DB ROOM) ANTONIO HAMILTON SEEMS TO HAVE HURT HIMSELF IN THE KITCHEN AND WILL BE ON THE IR AND INELIGIBLE TO PLAY THE FIRST FOUR GAMES OF THE SEASON.

I could go point for point on many an item but I’m not going to bother. Just as I’m not going to get into my annual tirade about Michael Bidwill‘s incompetence and his need to simply not hire an outside GM in order to safely promote his, “At least he isn’t his father!” PR campaign. I’m not going to get into Steve Keim’s performance history being the quintessential case for canning a GM if he doesn’t put your team in the SB within the first four years.

All this to say, there’s a season ahead regardless of how much this franchise does not deserve to compete in it.

I pulled this schedule off eBay so I’m just operating on the assumption that this is the correct schedule. I’ve heard the Rams mentioned a couple times on the radio this summer so I feel like it’s probably fairly accurate. My predictions for the season are actually lower than Vegas. The ’22 Cardinals have all the feel of one of those bad teams who wins these upset games but fumbles away winnable games. Give me 7-wins and a reminder that it’s a 17-game season now.

Then everyone will say, “Hey, we had three seasons of improvement since hiring Kingsbury. We need to cut him some slack and see what happens next year. Would you like to pay for Mike Bidwill’s latest handout in full or make installment payments?”