I tell you what, I saw I was overdue to write this Arizona Cardinals bye-week update and I felt like, “I’ll just shrug it off. I know they’re bad. I know they got hurt guys. They got draft busts. They got an aged quarterback that they are waiting on to bloom like a Phoenix — at the very last moment of his life. I know that, like every other season, Michael Bidwill, is just rolling out the Original Bubba Gump Shrimp Boat named Jenny, and hoping 1974’s Hurricane Carmen takes out the other 31 teams in the NFL. Just like he does in some form every season.”

It’s classic Arizona Cardinals. How could I shine up this mid-season bye week turd? Who wants to talk about a team that is meddling in every stat except winning? What does 2-7 really mean when this team hasn’t lost any game by more than four points? I hung my head in expectation of the slug that will be talking about — nay, trying to explain — that what is a surprise to you is not a shock to me.

My feet swelled at just the idea of taking this climb. But I rose my head up and looked beyond my inner ego and limited understanding of anything but my current primal craving (high-testosterone meat, if your girl is asking) to see the brilliant Red Sun of L showering me in the glow of true Cardinal red. I was bathed in the essence of the Arizona Cardinals. No longer was I the geographic-dependent docent of the worst-because-they-not-only-suck-but-are-also-generally-uninteresting team in the league. No — now I am the docent of an organization in absolute franchise collapse and, meaningless as I know that is, it tickles me to know I get to enjoy this ride.

I mean, look at their schedule!

Blood to my penis. Pep in my step. Call it what you want — the way head coach Jonathan Gannon (career head coaching record: 14-27 ) loses puts canned heat in my typing-heels¹ tonight. For historical context: over each of their final three games (TEN, @Ind, GB) Arizona carried a 7+ point lead to the 4th quarter and lost. Novel but relevant.

But practical context: The Cardinals have been cumulatively outscored 44-6 in the fourth quarter of those games.

They are literally run down and defeated in the final quarter of every game.

And, yeah, a chunk of that was the meltdown against the Titans. Do you know any other teams that cannot defeat the Titans? Because the rest of the NFL can’t find one. Hold this against the Cardinals the way some rando holds Michael Bidwill against a masonry public park bathroom stall wall.

So let’s talk about the 2025 Arizona Cardinals through 7 weeks and beyond.

So on the surface, the Cardinals have been riddled with injuries to their starters. James Connor then Kyler Murray — both make up the offense. So there’s something to be said for being worse-than-typical in injury luck. Or, if you were someone who looked at things objectively, you’d say Monti Ossenfort can’t build a roster with any depth and his draft picks are busts. And you’d be right.

But then you’d see backup Jacoby Brissett (Guessing on spelling. Instant AI can’t confirm either way.) actually operating the offense better than Murray had been — but, of course, losing. So Murray is coming back after the bye and, as is said, winning cures everything. And an absolute invincibility potion is the only hope to fix anything about the Cardinals offense. They can’t run the ball. Murray can’t play under center (he’s actually just straight-up put-a-fork-in-guy-done-version-of-Kirk-Cousins-that-RTD-and-I-witnessed but no reason to shred him now). The Cardinals running backs are broken (x2), guys who drop the ball before the end zone, or worse. Their wide receiver corps is their tight end.

The defense has a couple studs but is overall just bad². Josh Sweat has individually lived up to his buy price. And I wrongly predicted Calais Campbell to come back to AZ for the Emmitt Smith tour. He’s actually here to rack up stats with a line that won’t make him share sacks. The Cardinals don’t blitz, don’t get pressure…and if you’ve ever worked in an organization as bad as the Arizona Cardinals, you’d know that will just be underlined and left a standing item on leadership’s weekly coordination meeting.

They’re something like 20% chance to even make a wild card. Season is over. Much like the 2025 Diamondbacks, the Cardinals are dead in the main places that they’re invested (Kyler Murray. Stop making me say it.) so there’s no point in trying to do anything but charge top dollar for a hope and a prayer. Which is good money if your daddy can get you into the cartel because Mike Bidwill isn’t the kind of man who is of value beyond his birthright.

So they suck and do lose in fun ways. So that’s kind of a treat this season. It’s also fun to listen to people who have been calling for Murray’s end for three seasons are now at a frothy boil and, more or less, armed with no election to focus on. But they’ve really cut down the post-game call-in show content and even stooped to bringing in beloved nice local sports lady, Jody Jackson, to host an episode just so the callers couldn’t blow their lids. But that’s business in 2025, right? Capture the customer then shit all over the dumb idiots for ever even frothing about the Epstein Files.

So definitely tune in when your team plays the Cardinals because you already know you win — just not quite how, yet.

This organization and the product it puts on display is an absolute injustice. #FreeLuigiAndPutHimOnNFLOwners

¹: “Fingers” or “Talk to Text”
²: “But don’t they have a defensive-minded head coach!?”