Nary a Hope or a Prayer: A 2021 Arizona Cardinals Team Preview

Listen, we do this every year. Every. Single. Got. Damn. Year. Dogg. And what are the three common threads we see?

1. Team Owner — and likely a rapist like his good friend, Justice Brett Kavanaugh —  Simple Mike Bidwill continues to be an “involved owner”;
2. General Manager Steve “BAC to ∞ and drive!” Keim continues to allow Bidwill to be an “involved owner”;
3. This team fields an uncompetitive product (except when Defending Super Bowl Champion Coach Bruce Arians is at the helm)..

As Arizona enters Year Three of the Kingsbury/Murray experiment, the only metric by which the Cardinals have been successful is “they may not win much but they’re fun to watch!” And, in this world of science and data and NextGenStats, it only makes sense that Arizonans like their teams to be more reflective of their latest culture war or Election Audit than simply being good at their job.

Anyways, no one wants to hear me bitch about a team that I actively root against at this point while all the #sportspundits have the squad landing in the cellar in the 2021 NFC West with a nine-win ceiling for most predictions. Hell, even area Q-Anoners — who, what a coincidence, share the same “news” site as the Cardinals Media Flagship —  don’t expect much from this squad. Not to put too fine a point on it but the Seattle Seahawks had Russell Wilson playing in his second Super Bowl in year three. The Cardinals are just hoping to make the playoffs.

So I’ll give you the highlights and you all can get back to bashing Sill Bimmons in the comment section here. Deal?

To throw it back a little, last year’s team sat in December at 8 and 6, needing just one more win to secure a playoff birth. They then went and lost their Weeks 16 & 17 games to backup quarterbacks, missing the postseason. Basically, they’re bringing as much momentum into 2021 as the Mike Pence ’24 Exploratory Committee.

Then the Cardinals had a busy offseason — always a good thing, right Bucs who are bringing back like everyone from their SB winning squad? — shipping off Patrick Peterson to Coronasota and bringing in established winners like DL JJ Watt, WR AJ Green, and former Lion K Matt Prater. They also let 2020 team rushing leader Kenyan Drake walk because, if the past two season are any indication, why bother taking up that roster spot when you can just have Kyler Murray handle the ground game? Bottom line is this franchise needs addition-by-subtraction but, as has been repeated ad nauseam, so long as Mike Bidwill’s goal is to avoid having to ever shop outside the organization for a GM, anything is just fine for that birthright billionaire.

In fantasy news, Kyler Murray is a legit starter, heading up an offense that was 6th in yards last season. I guess RB James Connor is suppose to be the goal line back but this offense doesn’t get to the line and pound it in so I’d count on any plays inside the 10 to be another option with Murray darting through the nearest hole or simply racing some 260 pounder to the pylon. You know, like he’s done the last two seasons all the time.

In the receivers room, Fitz is still technically not on the roster, a free agent who has not yet announced his retirement (at least at the time of writing this). I think he’s just waiting for a late-season call for a Super Bowl contender (so, not the Cardinals) to come invite him to join them on their quest to get a ring — probably Tampa Bay. If he did play for Arizona, I don’t see how he’d ever be getting more than a couple targets a game with Green and DeAndre Hopkins on the edges but I’m also pretty much wrong about every non Wins-Losses prediction in these posts so go ahead and take him first overall in your FF leagues. Take it from me, a FF manager looking for a three-peat in 2021.

So the Cardinals aren’t really an interesting 2021 team. They won’t be bad. They’ll score points. They’ll win a little under half the games on their schedule. But there’s no off-field anything with this team. Kingsbury ain’t in the hot seat. Keim ain’t in the hot seat. Murray is locked up through ’22. Fan expectations are already low. So, sorry to not get your hopes up but the Cardinals just don’t have anything to offer this year. They’re the ‘Opposing Team’ once a week to anyone else in the NFL. And to all that, you know what I say? The same thing I tell them every single season: