Breaking Murphy’s Law
September 5, 2007 by Harry Greene
There are many instances where Murphy’s Law seems to impact NFL teams. One of the most prominent examples is that most teams seem to experience their worst injuries at their weakest positions.
Thus, it was no surprise when the most serious preseason injuries impacted the Cards’ pass rush and offensive line. On the other hand, the Cards have mostly themselves to blame. They ended up with only 5 picks in this year’s draft and have already discarded (no pun intended) two of them. Free agency shored up the secondary, but did little to address other obvious club needs unless you are excited about a small improvement at center.
The offensive line is frighteningly thin. Tackle, in particular, looks very weak. Gandy couldn’t hold onto the tackle slot at Buffalo and seems unlikely to be more than a Band-Aid at best. If you remember Matt Joyce, you know what Gandy brings to the game. Levi Brown has some skills, but having him protect Leinart’s backside would seem a very risky way to begin a season. Should injury befall either of these two, Wells would likely fill the breach, thus disrupting two positions. The scarcity of tackles who could hit the waiver wire likely means the Cards will have only declining options as the year continues. The tight end position is so weak they had to use a roster spot on Euhus just to have someone who resembled a blocker. Finally, except for taking a page from Denny Green’s book and running Shipp in the Red Zone, I have to wonder if they really have improved in this area.
On the defensive side of the ball, much was made of the projected wider use of a 3-4. Of course, it might have been a good idea to acquire a few people whose style of play fit that format. As things stand, the Cards have little if any pass rush. Berry seems long passed his best days. Dansby’s speed off the edge will be compromised with no defensive end that is really suited to drop into coverage and permit more zone blitzes. Though free agency focused on the secondary, the resulting alignment will be likely overwhelmed by the absence of a pass rush. Beyond that preseason offered little hoped that the Cards had improved their run defense. They moved up to grab Branch who has been unable to unseat Watson. Even though Watson came to camp in better shape this season, he clearly underachieved last season. Therefore Branch’s failure to unseat him is especially glaring.
Finally on special teams, the Cards cut an established punter for what would seem at best a marginal skill improvement in punting and obvious uncertainty in holding for Rackers. Milligan, who excels at special teams and just signed a 3 year contract extension, was summarily dumped. Where’s the improvement? Is the Cardinal Brass on the same page?
From what I saw the personnel is likely no better than last season and could well be not as deep. They say a “new broom sweeps clean,” but I prefer “don’t shoot the horse until the tractor arrives.” Once again the Cards appear to have a staff that chooses not to play the system that fits the current players, but rather try to push their square peg into that round hole. It’s not that I don’t like the coaching staff’s offensive and defensive philosophies; I just don’t think they have the players to execute them. They want to run more, but they don’t have the blocking, especially at tight end. They want to play a 3-4, but have no appropriate outside linebackers. I expect the Cards will pound their heads against the wall and lose the first several games. Then they will adapt their game plans to the talent on hand, but like in previous years, it will prove too late to make the playoffs.
Finally unless this team gets a real General Manager or Director of Player Personnel, the Cards will go nowhere. I think the coaching staff is better, but games are still won at line level and the Cards are not competitive at the point of attack on either side of the ball. Graves’ tenure has resembled a man wandering aimlessly through the desert. Sadly he’s taken the fans along on his quest. Since Cardinal fans were already thirsting for a taste of victory, this is a sad journey indeed. You can make a case that the Cards are not tipping their hand and believe that is somewhat true. That said, personnel trumps scheming in most instances and personnel is the area of greatest deficiency. I believe I am looking at a 7-9 team at best and 6-10 or worse would not be a surprise. I’d love to think Murphy’s Law won’t get them, but I’m afraid it already has.
Posted in football, arizona cardinals
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Harry:
I agree with every word. Couldn’t have said it better–or as well–myself. I look forward to reading your analyses/ post-mortems as the season progresses.
WC
There is alot to be sceptical about concerning Graves and the front office from the past. However , embarking on a new year, with a new coaching direction could mean alot to this team.
Tell me NO and the jets had all their pieces in place last year. No, not even close. There are many factors truming personell decisions. Building team chemistry is not all about bringing established players in to improve you. It’s doing the things that were done with this team since this coaching group took the reigns and insisted on the players working out together and building from the ground up. It’ll pay dividends right from the start. If they get down they’ll pull each other up and do battle. That’s what I expect this season. No less.
Excellent article! Agree with everything you pointed out. Missed your article for a while… Looking forward to more stuff from you.
NO and the Jets had a lot more pieces in place than we did though. People like to use those teams as examples of how teams can make the immediate jump, but both of those team were only one year removed from 10-6 (the Jets) and 8-8 in back to back seasons (Saints), as opposed to us, who have been relatively horrendous for half a decade. There was talent on those teams, but it only seemed like they came out of nowhere because in 2005, Pennington went down and the Jets completely fell apart after a 10-6 season (which came on the heels of playoff seasons) and NO was being pimped as a possible playoff team who’s entire season was destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
all that being said, it’s no surprise that I agree with Harry. We had a top 5 pick, and enormous amount of cap room, glaring needs at CB/Pass rushing LBer with the two impact FAs out there at those positions and yet this team not only didn’t even make an attempt to sign either guy, but somehow, we’re looking at a roster that is actually less deep across the board than it was last year.
My Goodness.
Someone call Michael Bidwill and cancel the season. Cause we suck and have no chance.
So Harry you are saying that going into this offseason the Cardinals had problems at pass rush defense, secondary, run defense, OL, and TE. If you can find me a team that can address all this in one offseason, then please show them to me.
Furthermore, I see the bust stamp is already primed for Alan Branch. I cannot wait for Mr. Branch to prove how wrong.
I really like how you are trying to drive those negatives home. I see no mention of our rookie RT who came into camp late has had some very promising outings in his first taste of the NFL. No mention of the progress of Duece Lutui. According to your round peg in a square hole theory I gues Lutui and Browns’ power has no place in a power running game. No mention of Al Johnson and how his play has improve not only the center position but the command he has at calling protections and managing the Oline. Then the best is to call our Wayne Gandy, who may not be the best tackle in league, but seems to be doing better than Leonard Davis at this point.
The defense has yet to be seen. This whole changing of schemes on defense is complete made up junk. It is the same coordinator, and the same system that we have all watched for 3 years. When has this defense EVER looked like your standard 4-3 ? I have seen 5, 4 and 3 man fronts for 3 years, and I would imagine to see more of the same.
You scream for change and the organization has given us change. We have a new coaching staff and 10 new starters out of the 22 from last year. 3 new players on the offensive line, and 6 new players on defense.
There has yet to be a snap in the 2007 season and there is already fans packing it in for the year. I say go sulk in your corner, and cry about it. The rest of us will acutally see what happens before we declare this and that.
I will be there, opening kickoff, wearing my Cardinal red. Ready to go.
Russ Grimm’s coaching has already been a factor for this O-line. This is line is a huge upgrade from last year. Cardinals special teams look to me much improved. Rackers will get used to a new holder and let’s face it, Scott Player had seen better days. Player didn’t even try to tackle the returner in the Texans game. they drafted a potential star returner in Steve Breaston, another upgrade over last year.
This was a #8 ranked D in 2005 and if they are anywhere in the vicinity of that number this team will finish better than 5-11. As for the players cut, maybe they didn’t buy into the new staff’s program. Maybe they wanted to play like the “same old Cardinals”.
That attitude is gone. This team has a real coaching staff. If Whiz can keep these guys heading in the right direction 8-8 is surely possible.
I’ve come to learn that when Harry speaks, I usually listen. Most of the time he is dead on.
However, as I do every year, I would like to respectfully disagree on a couple of things.
I would like to bring to light that in spite of last year COACHING deficiencies, we were 2 plays a 3 fg’s away from being 8-8, just like many teams that are “on the rise”. Indeed we are a 5-11 team until proven otherwise but the line between bad, good and great is very thin.
That being said, I disagree about Watson and Branch. It takes time for “kids” to develop. I live in Chicago and believe me when I tell you I heard Many times how Tommie Harris looked like a bust after his rookie year. Thats not me talking. That was the word across the city. Can’t say bust about him anymore.
Another thing that is being underestimated is how much better our play calling is going to be.
Our offensive line has been made over. We will NEVER have 5 pro bowl offensive linemen. It is how a unit plays together within the offensive scheme and philosophy. Preseason or not, the line has looked better than we thought it would at this point. And guess what? This staff decided on our 5 starters BEFORE training camp started. REmember last year when our starting o-line was announced 3 days before the season started….and then changed every week after that for the next 7 weeks.
And finally, The fabulous foresome of Leinart, Edge, Fitz and the Mighty Q will undoubtedly take over a game….and they will only get better!
As far as the defense…..egads! They scare the hell out of me. I believe we will be a boom or bust defense. We will be forced to gamble and when that happens either plays are blown up, along with turnovers and sacks…..when we guess right. When we don’t guess right, I repeat….egads.
I don’t know what our record will be , but this team will be more entertaining than any team we’ve had since 97′. I just hop we can outscore our opponents more than they outscore us.
Boy, I hardly know where to start. First comparing Mike Gandy to Matt Joyce is not fair at all and tells me you don’t intend to be fair in your article. Second, I thought Leckey should be the center but after watching Al Johnson this is a significant upgrade.
I understand the feelings about Euhus but we don’t even really know how Whiz is going to use his tight ends. It wouldn’t surprise me to see he kept the three tight ends for a reason and has some surprises up his sleeve for the regular season.
I think you’re way off on Watson. I watched some of the Cards games from late last season on the NFL Network and noticed that Watson was being double teamed a lot. You might not think much of him but it was obvious to me that opposing teams were worried about him.
Can you even name one play or game where Hank Milligan really had an affect on the outcome? I think Celestin looked quicker and made more plays on special teams this pre-season than Milligan, hence Milligans gone. To wax nostolgic about his cut is just crazy.
I can’t deny the defense has not looked good this pre-season but again we know they played pretty vanilla and wanted to see how various player stacked up and they did not scheme against any of the opponents. I think it might be wise to wait and see what happens once the real bullets start flying.
Finally I think Grimm has made a big difference and we will have to wait and see how Whiz’ playcalling helps us improve on the offensive side of the ball.
I think it’s a little early to make many assumptions and way to early to panic.
The tone of this piece seemed to reflect the mindset of “If I were GM, I’d do things differently and, because of that, the Cards are going to suck.”
I think it’s a bit over-the-top to assume that every potential risk you’re concerned with will become absolute fact. Some will, some won’t. And there will probably be a few positive surprises as well.
Also - You can’t go wrong when you point to lack of depth (especially at OT) being a potential Achilles Heel. But this doesn’t mean this shortcoming will definitely come back to bite us.
For these reasons, I don’t feel it was a particularly objective article. Suggest you change your brand and type of morning coffee.
RUGBY MUFFIN!!!! You are point -set - match.
Rugbymuffin is right, you can’t address every need you have in the offseason, especially when teams are paying $10 million/yr for a CB and $7 million a year for OL that haven’t been to the probowl. I’d be more pissed had the Cards thrown away their money at someone like that. We’ll get Faneca next year in FA and maybe another OL.
The FA pool was weak and I thought they got good players for a good price. The only part of FA that sucked for the Cards was not being able to sign Reggie Kelly. I think he didn’t sign because the Cards were going to use him more for blocking than pass catching and he didn’t like that. I don’t know for sure but that’s what I think.
Buster Davis was supposed to be a good prospect but I didn’t see one thing from him in preseason. I love the fact that we got Moses. Everyone on sports sites are saying they still can’t believe the Raiders cut him. Cards did a great job picking him up right away.
As for the OL, defenses haven’t so much as touched Matt in the preseason, which tells me they are doing an excellent job of pass protecting. I saw a lot of blitzes and the line picked up every single one of them. The passing game will open up the run game. I still don’t buy Whisenhunt’s 55% nonsense. Maybe in the second half when we have a lead we’ll run, but not in the first half, not when you have Q, F and J out there.
It doesn’t matter how good the team looks on paper, it’s how good they look on grass. Michigan looked good on paper at #5, now look at them. I’ll wait until midway through the season before I analyze how good they look. It’s all speculation at this point.
And that’s football field grass, not Ricky Williams type grass…….
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