The Cardinals are getting bogged down in a quagmire, and the timing is unfriendly.
The Cardinals were once 8-1 and were considered by many to be the strongest team in the league. In their third year together, Keller Murray and Cliff Kingsbury were at an elite level, and the defensive group was in the top five in many data indicators.
However, the Cardinals currently have only 10 wins and 4 losses, and the league's top spot after two consecutive defeats has also been handed over. Even if Daddy Ho's injury caused the Cardinals to plummet, they still made it a nail in the coffin to enter the playoffs.
Still, losing to the lions raises a range of questions. What's wrong with the defensive team? What went wrong with the offense? Is it possible for the Cardinals to miss the playoffs?
Let's start with the offense, because this team ends up relying on Murray. Before the injury to the Packers, Murray was the biggest favourite in the MVP, when his PFF pass score of 89.5 and big heart pass rate of 9.0 percent were both leading the league.
However, after returning from injury, Murray seems to have changed a person, and the Cardinals seem to return to the old version of last season.
Over the past three years, Kingsbury's offensive group has begun to slide in the second half of each season. Last season we could blame Murray's shoulder injury in the middle of the season, and this season it's still the shoulder, with Murray just coming back from injury after just three injuries.
Interestingly, substitute Corte McCoy replaced Murray in the first three games, two of which had their EPA outpacing the Cardinals' average offensive EPA.
However, there was a similar decline in the middle and late stages of last season, which led to a discussion: is it Murray or Kingsbury's problem?
An interesting phenomenon is that the three games Murray lost in the first start, the opposing defensive team is quite strong.
Lions, Packers and Rams all rank in the league's top six in terms of use of their double highs before kickoffs. In fact, both the Rams and the Packers are following brandon-starry's system, and double highs mean limiting large-size passes and forcing opponents to rush the ball, which happens to match the Cardinals' weakness. Here's a ranking of the offensive groups with the fewest number of people facing a box this season:
The league's defensive team was very jealous of the Cardinals' passes, and since the Cardinals had the fourth-highest PFF catch score of 80.5 in the league, the number of people facing his box was the fifth lightest in the league. Coupled with Murray's highest big heart pass rate in the league before injury, Starley's double high system seems to be the best way to deal with the Cardinals offense. Comparing Murray's performance between the double high and the single high before the kickoff, this view seems to be confirmed.
It's clear that Murray has been struggling with his double highs before facing kickoffs. In three losing games, he faced a large number of double highs, eventually throwing five scribbles and only one passing touchdown (losing to the Lions in a garbage time).
Another big concern for the Cardinals is that when key defensive players are absent, they won't be able to seize the opportunity to hit their opponents. The Packers are missing corner guard Jayal Alexander and rusher Zadalius Smith; the Rams are star cornerback Jaylen Ramsey; the Lions are not stars, but the defensive backcourt is full of substitutions. Considering that the Rams with Rams with Ramsey played better in the fourth week, the downturn in Week 14 is incomprehensible.
In addition to the offense, the Cardinals defense was not too good during the two-game losing streak. The Cardinals' defensive EPA ranked second in the league in the first 13 weeks, but the defensive EPA during the two-game losing streak was fourth-to-last, and the past two weeks of defensive passing performance were even the worst in the league.
Both the Rams and the Lions are teams with good offensive fronts and mainly covered by the outside area. The Cardinals were long in the lead at the start of the season, so their box number was 11th lightest in the league. However, when JJ Watt reported, the Cardinals had a hard time threatening the opposing quarterback with a rush pass.
For fake run real passes, the Cardinals defense is also not able to do anything. Losing to Bao Yangshi in three battles, they made the opponent's fake run true pass EPA reach 0.342, especially the EPA released in the past two games was a terrifying 0.492. There are also some problems with defensive big-size long passes, after all, in losing games, the passing rate of releasing more than 15 yards of large-size passes reaches 13.1%, while only 10.1% of the winning matches are won.
The rest of the schedule is even more frustrating, with hot ponies, Guodong frontrunner cowboys, and the always difficult sea hawks.
For a team that started well and started faltering in the mid-to-late season, the season was already a bit embarrassing. They still have a high probability of entering the playoffs, but if they lose the top spot in the West of the country after a few poor performances, then the wild card game will also lose home advantage.