The Arizona Cardinals kick off their season Sunday morning with a game in New Orleans against the Saints. The Cardinals finished last season with a record of 8-9, in third place in the NFC West, missing the playoffs.
This season, if you’re into these kinds of numbers, oddsmakers predict the Cards to win 8 1/2 games. But their strength of schedule would also suggest an easier time this year than last.
To preview the upcoming season, The Show spoke to Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: What are the keys for them this year? Obviously they were just shy of .500 last year. I’m imagining they would like to do better than that this year. What are the couple biggest things they need to do to improve on last season?
JOSH WEINFUSS: I can imagine that your intuition’s right. I think they do want to improve on their 8-9 record last year. To do that, they need to improve offensively. This offense has a lot of weapons, a lot of high-powered players, a lot of talent, but they just need to kind of put everything together. And the core of that is the relationship between the quarterback Kyler Murray and the wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.
Marvin Harrison was one of their first round picks a year ago. He was fourth overall, and came in with a lot of high expectations. And he had a good year. He had over 800 receiving yards. But if you were to ask people around the country, did he meet those expectations, they would say no. And he even said this week that last year’s expectations were just sky high for him. But there were quite a few times last year where Marvin Harrison would run one way, the pass would go the other, and there was a lot of miscommunication.
So in order for this offense to take the next step this year, those two are really at the core of that, and their relationship is at the core of that. So if they can get on the same page and kind of make things happen between the two of them, this offense can really take off.
BRODIE: I would imagine that’s even more so because of the running game, which last year did pretty well for the Cardinals. And a lot of those folks are coming back again this year, right?
WEINFUSS: Yeah, they’re bringing back basically the entire offensive line in some way, shape, or form. There’s four starters who are expected to start on Sunday who were week-one starters last year, and the one guy who is not starting this year but started last year is a backup. And the guy who’s starting this year was a backup last year. So if everyone’s still following along, all those guys are still back, lots of familiar faces.
The running back room is basically the same. James Conner, who’s coming off back-to-back 1000 yard seasons, he’s back. His backup is also returning, Trey Benson. So there’s a lot of familiarity, a lot of guys who know this offense inside and out. It’s their third year with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. And this offensive line has been very steady and good and consistent, and I think that the Cardinals, they hope that that continues in year three with everybody.
BRODIE: Well, how important is this season for some of those players, but also for the coaching staff who I would imagine ownership is ready for them to sort of turn that corner?
WEINFUSS: Yeah, it’s huge. I get this question actually more often than I expected to in year three, and the way I look at it is that there was a three-year rebuild when the Cardinals hired coach Jonathan Gannon and GM Monti Ossenfort back in 2023. So this is the third year of that, and the expectations are that they take some significant jumps this year and get to the playoffs.
They were in first place in the division last year in mid-November. They won four in a row, and that fourth game was right before their bye week. They headed into that bye and came out of it with no energy, right? The team felt kind of fell off a cliff, so to speak, and they lost, they fell into second-to-last place in the division.
So the expectations are that they know they can get to that level again. This roster is significantly better, but when it comes to the coaching staff in the front office, if they don’t reach those levels, I don’t know how much it’s going to fall on the coaching staff as much as the GM and the front office because this offseason, they totally revamped and overhauled their defense, and they barely touched their offense.
So if the offense struggles, that’s not the coaching staff’s fault. That’s the front office’s fault because they didn’t make those necessary changes. So it’s a big year, but bigger for some than others.
BRODIE: Sure. So you mentioned how the Cardinals did in the division that obviously will impact whether or not they can make the playoffs. How do the Cardinals at this moment stack up with the Rams and the Seahawks and the 49ers?
WEINFUSS: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think from a roster standpoint, they are, if not at the top, we’re very close to the top. They have a lot of talent. They have a lot of stars, a lot of firepower.
And this division truly is up for grabs right now. Obviously, we don’t know what anyone looks like because no one in the division has played yet. But, based on offseason moves like this team has a chance to make some waves in the NFC West, and they definitely have a chance to win it.
Those first six games, like you mentioned in the intro, the schedule’s very favorable, especially those first six games. They start at New Orleans and they come home and play the Panthers, and they have a very tough week in weeks three and four. It’s a four-day work week because they play the Niners in San Francisco on Sunday (Sept. 21) and then they come home and play the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday (Sept. 25).
So two divisional games within like a four- or five-day stretch, and then they have two kind of easier games after that. But if they can come out of the first six games with at least four wins, if not five or six, the season could be off to a great start for them.
BRODIE: Josh, what is the vibe been in the locker room? Do the players believe that they are going to be better this year than last?
WEINFUSS: Yeah, I mean, but here’s the thing: Everyone does, right? Everyone around the league believes at this point. There’s only two teams that have a win or a loss. Everyone else is 0-0, and they all think they’re winning the Super Bowl.
But I’ll say this, the vibe around this team is different than it’s been the last two years because of some of those off-season moves on the defense. They believe that this team is stacked on defense and that the defense can really make some waves early on.
And then the offense, they truly feel like they are going to take those next steps. There’s a lot of expectations that Marvin Harrison Jr. is going to make some jumps from year one to year two, and I think that has everyone feeling pretty good right now.
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