Know Your Enemy: Arizona Cardinals

Constable Echelon celebrates the upcoming NFL season by previewing the hometown Seattle Seahawks’ opponents in the NFC West.

Movie Trailer Announcer’s voice:
“Football. Cardinals Football. Arizona. Cardinals. Football.”
(sound of bomb exploding followed by THX digital sound thing)

Nope, doesn’t work. I was trying to make that sound intimidating.

The recent NFC West has operated under two rules. (1) The team touted by pundits as up and comers will not win the division. (2) The Arizona Cardinals will not win the division. Arizona has opened up the field the past couple of seasons by taking up both of the predetermined loser spots themselves. For the upcoming 2007 season the Cards have shed that pesky “Team to Watch!” moniker and are back to simply looking forward to not contending. Let’s have a look at the offense, defense, and intangibles of the gladiators from University of Phoenix Stadium.

(University of Phoenix: Helping America’s Teachers Inflate Their Salaries By Acquiring Dubious Online Master’s Degrees Since Recently.)

Offense: As anyone who participated in a fantasy draft recently will tell you, there is a shocking dearth of quality NFL quarterbacks nowadays. The NFC West is attempting to buck that trend by fielding competent signal callers division-wide. Arizona’s entry is playboy lefty and unsafe sex enthusiast Matt Leinart.

I attribute Matt Leinart’s 11 TDs to 12 INTs ratio and pedestrian 74 passer rating to rookie growing pains and Arizona’s trademark horseshit offensive line. I instead choose to focus on his upper tier NFL arm strength, the years of top class qb instruction from Norm Chow, and the unbelievable arsenal of receiving weapons at his disposal. Add to that the fact that Arizona addressed their offensive line problems in selecting Tackle Levi Brown at #5, and you could say I’m optimistic that Hollywood will have a far better second season than first. Frankly it’s a little depressing to me that Arizona has ceased to address their offensive line problems by signing the Pete Kendalls of the world.

But that’s beside the point. The real story with this Arizona offense lies with their insane receiving duo of Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. Fitzgerald is the prototypical new age #1 receiver with his combination of freakish speed and athleticism, and the stickiest hands this side of Winnie’s latest trip to the hunny jar.

Anquan Boldin to me is more intriguing because there is no prototype for what he does. It’s really really fun to watch Anquan Boldin catch short passes and look for defensive backs to run over.

Boldin slipped to the second round in 2003 due to concerns about his lack of elite speed. Given the chance to respond to these concerns on the field, Anquan Boldin caught 101 balls his rookie year for 1377 yards and 8 TDs. FROM JEFF FUCKING BLAKE!

In four years in the league Anquan Boldin has caught 342 balls for 4605 yards and 20 TDs from this cyclone of bile: Jeff Blake, Josh McCown, John Navarre, and the ghost of Kurt Warner. In Matt Leinart there is a chance that Boldin and Fitzgerald will finally have the servicable quarterback to allow them to reach their downright frightening potentials.

…Naturally Arizona hired Ken Whisenhunt to install a power running offense.

Defense:

Martin Lawrence famously questioned repeatedly in his documentary National Security, “What the problem is?”

Applied to Arizona the answer is “Defense”. Defense what the problem is.

The Cardinals finished 30th in the league in pass defense, and a comparatively 85 Bearsesque 16th in rush defense. That allowed them to crack the top 30 with a bullet at 29 in total defense, which matched their position concerning points allowed.

Arizona addressed their abysmal pass defense by paying particular attention to the secondary in April’s draft. (Zero is a particular amount of attention, right?) I don’t even know what to say here. Allow me to quickly peruse the depth to see if I can find anything to make fun of…

Jesus H. Christ that’s a collection of clowns. Alert Barnum and Bailey. At RE you can find not one but two Seattle washouts: Chike Okeafor, and Joe “Mr. Michelle” Tafoya. I actually like Antrel Rolle at the one corner, and they got lucky that Alan Branch slipped to them in the second round. People seem high on the Dansby guy. Other than that? Egads.

Aside: I played in a fantasy league that used individual defensive players and awarded one point per solo tackle and some other stuff. The key to getting consistent production out of the position should you ever make the mistake of playing in a league like that is to get the free safety or middle linebacker of the worst team you can find. The reason? Running backs are always loping in the backfield needing to be pushed out of bounds downfield.
Adrian Wilson would be wonderful for this.

Intangibles:

Arizona has lost for a long time. Ken Whisenhunt is going to be an upgrade for them, but anything was going to be an upgrade over The Dennis Green Retirement Fund Tour. Multiple internet reports that I’m too lazy to cite inform that Green had totally lost control of the team last season. You might have guessed that though from, say, the product on the field. That and a blowup after the Chicago loss that John McLaren thought was forced.

On the positive side the offense might actually be good enough to create a positive atmosphere around the team. Neil Rackers was good a couple of seasons ago if that counts for anything. Antrel Rolle’s middle name is Rocellous, and that’s just fantastic. I give this group 6-8 wins with just enough promise to possibly get them back to Team to Watch! status next season.

I guess I’ll close with the Steve Kelley memorial one sentence paragraph:

Nobody ever played their best football in Arizona.