The Arizona Cardinals 2022 season is dead. Okay, given the lack of separation in the league (and Week 18 games), they’re technically not dead —

But they’re braindead so why not just pull the plug, you may ask? And I’d laugh and let you know I’ll handle the questions from here on out.

I did a little online research for this piece and the below is a straight comment section cut & paste from a Russian bot Real Fan^TM:

They retained the core of the team that started so well last year and added Hollywood Brown in what I thought was a shrewd move to buy time at WR until Hopkins returned. Keim did not overpay for Kirk and Edmonds and let them go in FA. The drama around Murray and his contract was finally over.

I expected a 9-8 type year where they would contend. I had no idea that the injury situation would be so bad, or that Murray would regress so badly. The lack of energy and leadership on the team other than Baker and Watt is sad. Kingsbury seems like a nice guy on Hard Knocks who doesn’t know what he is doing and is in way over his head.

All in all, a pretty fair take from Buttholio68Plus1 on the local Arizona sports pages, in my opinion. But what else can you say when a team just extended their GM and HC through February of 2028, gave a massive five-year extension to their QB1 with $160million guaranteed, and is taking their bye at 4-8 (good for 3rd in the division over the still-admiring-their-SB-rings-Rams)? They’re already looking ahead to ’23 — which they will also lose because the Cardinals lose every single season.

The team wrapped up their pre-bye season by losing at home to the Post-Diego Chargers, 25-24, on a Justin Herbert two-point conversion after the high-octane Cardinals offense (or so was advertised) failed to earn a single first down in their final three possessions, which would have allowed them to ice the game the win. You like those ESPN win probability charts?

Chargers weren’t even playing for the tie. They smelled blood and went for it. Almost as if someone had tipped off Joe Lombardi that no one in the NFL spends less on their defense than the Arizona Cardinals.

And that was just Week 12! Prior to that —

Week 11: Team got embarrassed by division-favorite 49ers, 38-10, on Monday Night Football in Mexico City. In Mexico but prior to the game, the team dismissed assistant coach, Sean Kugler, for “groping” some woman. This may not have been shown on Hard Knocks in Season…

…which has actually missed on the only interesting to happen which was after Week 10.

Week 10: Pulling out a solid win in LA over the Rams in a should-and-must-win division away game, Cardinals RB2 Eno Benjamin took issue post-game with a coach in the locker room that he did not see the field in the victory and was released Monday morning. No compensation received and he was picked up by the first team on the waiver wire (Houston). While HBO teased that they would show why Benjamin was released, it turns out that none of Benjamin’s camp, the Cardinals, nor the third-party “behind the scenes” production cameras caught anything that would add any information to the generic press release on the matter.

Weeks 8 & 9: Back to back losses (@MIN & vs SEA). Holy crap I can’t do this for two more months of bad football…

Look, the entirety of the situation is that Mike Bidwill is an inept owner. He cut his teeth under Bill Bidwill’s Cardinals and has a proven record of being more successful on the financial side of the business than the performance side — and has been getting only worse the longer he and GM Steve Keim play Real Life Fantasy Team Owner. As mentioned in the team preview, Keim, Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury, and Quarterback Kyler Murray all got big extensions this offseason — so Bidwill basically told everyone to just run it back in ’22 and the results have met expectations.

Bidwill is focused on hosting the ’23 Super Bowl. You know why he gave all those extensions? So he doesn’t have to deal with hot seat nonsense while he prepares for a big payday playing party planner for the teams in the league that care about winning a Super Bowl. He’s MIA and also at Charlie’s.

Kingsbury has been figured out and, by refusing to be flexible and try things like putting his QB under center and scheming from play action. I noted in the preview that Chip Kelly’s NFL shelf life was three years (his fourth with SF was a throwaway season for SF) so the Kliff thing was due to end — which means UNMARRIED (taps foot under bathroom stall) Mike Bidwill must have seen/put something inside Coach Handsome to make this big extension work.

Keim — what do you want me to say? He’s more of a bear-like figure but a lot of dudes like having one around to contrast with the disposable Kingsbury party-boy types. Plus, you know, he’s bigger than Bidwill and it could just be a snuggle thing or whatever. Different people like different things, you know. It’s all good but it shouldn’t impact the organization to the tune of eight seasons during which he has accumulated one post-season win, one division title, and an under .500 cumulative record. Also, the most success was under Bruce Arians who Keim and Bidwill forced out the door when Arians pressed for more control of personnel because, you know, Steve Keim is pretty weak in that department.

Murray? I’m of the Business Decision camp, personally. Of course the problem with having a QB who will only try when it seems like the team is already built to win is that the team that needs to be built to win is the Arizona Cardinals and they need a transcendent quarterback who can cover up all the flaws fielded by team leadership. I mean, you’ve seen what happened to Russell Wilson after years of trying to carry and offense with his legs. Murray doesn’t have that attitude. Never heard, Cardinals Country; Let’s Fly! from Murray.

So the Cardinals are irrelevant. It’s barely December and it’s looking like their only path to the post-season includes actually overturning the midterm elections because all the dumb loud people around here who can’t afford to go scream at Kyler Murray to be “taller” (read: “a white person instead of a black person”) at a game can actually afford the expensive gas to trucknutz down to whatever public location with guns and threaten county government workers. Doesn’t seem likely with the rate at which, you know, dumb people are genuinely successful as a collective mind but, in all honesty, that fluke Kurt Warner season has given these dolts the inspiration they need to believe that, with enough swearing at normal people that they’re not Christian, anything is possible. Of note — the Cardinals winning the Super Bowl has never been possible.

So they close the season against the above schedule. Anything short of an 0-5 finish and they’re gong to call it the injury bug and move on to next year. Maybe fire Vance Joseph even though the defense isn’t the group who is grossly underperforming. Murray’s cap hit is about $13million in ’22 and only goes to ~$16million in ’23 so I’m sure it’s, “hey why change it up before ’24 when Murray’s cap number becomes $52million?” Even if they finish 0-5, Bidwill is too cheap to eat those front office extensions and hand the reigns to, as the message boards all hope, Sean Payton.

Still, the state of Arizona is selling $146.3 million in public bonds this year to generate cash to renovate State Farm Stadium prior to February’s Super Bowl but, hey, the last two SB hosts have won the game so I’m sure it was a worthwhile expenditure. All I’m saying is, this team sucks and they’re terrible investment for the community. I’m going to an island in the next 3-10 years so these morons can give their monies to whatever billionaire they like (I’m a Musk man myself) but it still doesn’t change the baseline facts.

Thanks for coming to my Bye Week Update.