Keys to the Cards winning the NFC West in 2010

[Krangodnzr]

With all the personnel turnover we've had this offseason and improvements made by our division opponents, what factors could lead to the Cardinals winning the NFC West this season?

My thoughts: Improved offensive efficiency and more defensive consistency.

Sure our passing was better than average when comparing our offense against the rest of the league, yet we struggled to complete pass plays longer than 20 yards. The Cardinals were ranked in the bottom 5 in the NFL in completing passes longer than 20 yards. Recently the team has admitted that Warner was having shoulder problems that limited his abilities to complete longer passes.

It had been suggested during the year that this precipitous drop in big plays was the result of more focused coverage on Fitzgerald. Baloney! Fitzgerald has received this kind of coverage his entire career and has been able to win the battles against double and triple team coverage. To me, it looked like the timing was off and that passes were arriving late allowing defenders to prepare for the jump ball, thus limiting Fitzgerald's effectiveness. Now we know that it probably was not a timing related, and may in fact was related to Warner's shoulder

While Matt Leinart has never been known for a big time arm, he showed decent ability to complete longer passes during his time as a starter. Certainly better than what we saw from Warner last season. While Matt Leinart is not nearly as accurate as Warner in the short to intermediate passing game, he may dramatically improve our deep passing game. This would further open up the running game, and may be why the Cardinals seem so intent on adding running game pieces like Rex Hadnot, Alan Faneca, and drafting a blocking tight end who may stick in Jim Dray.

So my Number 1 area to improve upon is this statistic, improving our number of big passing plays. Even if the overall passing yardage, touchdowns, and completion percentage drop with the transition from Warner to Leinart, we may see our rushing performance and the resulting time of possession increase.

Our number #2 improvement that I'm quite positive that we will make, is improved defensive consistency. While I don't see this squad as a top defense, I think we'll see a more consistent defense from week to week. Losing Dansby is our biggest gripe of the offseason, but I think a lot of fans are downplaying the acquistion of Joey Porter, the acquistion of Stevie Baggs, and the return to health of Cody Brown and to a lesser extent Will Davis.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the real collapse we saw against the Packers and the Saints was foretold earlier in the season when we struggled to produce sacks late in games. This was primarily a function of our old OLBs, Berry and Okeafor's inability to get ANY pass rush off the edge. With our new OLB corps of players with younger, fresher legs, I expect to see improved consistency and a better ability to finish out games.

Bertrand Berry had one of the strangest seasons I've seen statistically since I've watched football. Six sacks....ten total tackles! So of non-quarterbacks, Bert Berry had only FOUR tackles. Even for a guy that is strictly a situational pass rusher, this number is incredibly low. If Cody Brown comes in and only has 40 tackles on the season which isn't a huge number, it will be a massive improvement, even if he has a paltry five sacks on the year. This is an area where youth on this football should be a huge addition and I think this is why the Cardinals are so comfortable with what we have on the roster. Dockett and Campbell take up so many blocks, which leave open our OLBs to get more sacks. If even a decent pass rusher plays behind them, and 8 sack season should be attainable.

I'll continue on later; being in Iraq gives me lots of time to think about these types of things, which is why you guys have seen me start to post again.

 

[Pariah]

:claphat:

 

[CardLogic]

While Matt Leinart has never been known for a big time arm, he showed decent ability to complete longer passes during his time as a starter. Certainly better than what we saw from Warner last season. While Matt Leinart is not nearly as accurate as Warner in the short to intermediate passing game, he may dramatically improve our deep passing game. This would further open up the running game, and may be why the Cardinals seem so intent on adding running game pieces like Rex Hadnot, Alan Faneca, and drafting a blocking tight end who may stick in Jim Dray.

So my Number 1 area to improve upon is this statistic, improving our number of big passing plays. Even if the overall passing yardage, touchdowns, and completion percentage drop with the transition from Warner to Leinart, we may see our rushing performance and the resulting time of possession increase.


...being in Iraq gives me lots of time to think about these types of things, which is why you guys have seen me start to post again.

First of all, keep your flak jacket on and your head down... And come back safely.

Regarding Leinart - I think he will do just fine; better than expectations from most pundits.

However, there is one aspect of his game which I hope he improves upon. So far, in the NFL, Leinart has been too quick to settle for the outlet pass to his RB. I am hoping with more regular time in the pocket this season that he will become more comfortable with hanging in there long enough to get the longer completions down the field to Fitz and Co.

 

[Mitch]

You make us all proud, Krang! God bless you and your unit. Hope to see you home soon!

 

[49erTroll]

I read this twice...it was that good.

I think your spot on... I also think for you guys to win the west you must focus on getting to the Q.B.

In a division full of mediocre lines and weak Q.B.s you must devote a majority of your defensive plays to the blitz. Sending Adrian and using his speed to blitz up the middle while mixing up the front 7 with a variety of stunts will produce big numbers. You have the talent up front, there just has to be more production (as you mentioned) from your OLB. Porter is big upgrade.

I hope and pray lienart sucks becuse so much of your teams success outside of our divison is riding on him.

As far as inside the division I think ya'll can beat the rams and hawks even with a mediocre Lienart.

But we are a different story.

 

[Pariah]

I think your spot on...

"You're"

:BIM: (and the Russ Smith Method)

 

[Pariah]

:BIM: (and the Russ Smith Method)

BTW, if anyone on ASFN ever wants a good band name, "BIM and the Russ Smith Method" would be awesome.

 

[Tyler]

BTW, if anyone on ASFN ever wants a good band name, "BIM and the Russ Smith Method" would be awesome.

I think that would be AWESOME. I believe it would have to be a "spoken word" type thing so you can use proper grammar

 

[kerouac9]

Ach. Don't tag your handle in your threads.

I actually would reverse your two keys.

I think that improving as a defense is the #1 priority. I was looking at stats for our linebackers the past couple years compared to other 3-4 ILBs around the NFL (and other MLBs around the league overall). It's frightening that Dan Morgan gets 140 tackles per season.

My first thought was the our ILBs are just terrible. Why would our ILBs have so few tackles? Then I looked at our other leading tacklers. Karlos Dansby was our leading tackler last season, but our #2, #3, and #4 tacklers were all DBs (McFadden, Wilson, and Rolle). It didn't look like RBs were getting through to the defensive secondary play after play last year.

The only team who faced more pass attempts in the regular season last year was Tennessee. Did we suck in pass defense? Actually, no. We were 9th in the NFL in defensive YPA, 10th in opponent passer rating. It's just that our defense was so terrible at punishing opposing quarterbacks for dropping back. FootballOutsiders puts our adjusted sack rate in the Top 10 of the NFL last season; I'm not sure what the problem is, but we have to find a way to get off the field on 3rd downs.

But 3rd downs aren't the problem, either. The Cards were 6th in the NFL in defensive 3rd down percentage. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH OUR DEFENSE LAST YEAR?!?!

I think that Leinart is going to be fine. He's going to keep us in games--that's been his M.O. his entire career. Leinart will also do better at getting the ball down the field. Against Tennessee, #7 had 7.1 YPA, which was better than Warner's average in all but 7 games last season. The trick is going to be capitalizing on scoring opportunities. Leinart is not going to blow people out.

Matty's been the victim of just so many heartbreaking losses. Those were games that went his way in college; I don't know how many more of those he can take.

 

[49erTroll]

BTW, if anyone on ASFN ever wants a good band name, "BIM and the Russ Smith Method" would be awesome.

Your hilarious bro, I would so see them in concert

 

[Krangodnzr]

Ach. Don't tag your handle in your threads.

I actually would reverse your two keys.

I think that improving as a defense is the #1 priority. I was looking at stats for our linebackers the past couple years compared to other 3-4 ILBs around the NFL (and other MLBs around the league overall). It's frightening that Dan Morgan gets 140 tackles per season.

My first thought was the our ILBs are just terrible. Why would our ILBs have so few tackles? Then I looked at our other leading tacklers. Karlos Dansby was our leading tackler last season, but our #2, #3, and #4 tacklers were all DBs (McFadden, Wilson, and Rolle). It didn't look like RBs were getting through to the defensive secondary play after play last year.

The only team who faced more pass attempts in the regular season last year was Tennessee. Did we suck in pass defense? Actually, no. We were 9th in the NFL in defensive YPA, 10th in opponent passer rating. It's just that our defense was so terrible at punishing opposing quarterbacks for dropping back. FootballOutsiders puts our adjusted sack rate in the Top 10 of the NFL last season; I'm not sure what the problem is, but we have to find a way to get off the field on 3rd downs.

But 3rd downs aren't the problem, either. The Cards were 6th in the NFL in defensive 3rd down percentage. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH OUR DEFENSE LAST YEAR?!?!

I think that Leinart is going to be fine. He's going to keep us in games--that's been his M.O. his entire career. Leinart will also do better at getting the ball down the field. Against Tennessee, #7 had 7.1 YPA, which was better than Warner's average in all but 7 games last season. The trick is going to be capitalizing on scoring opportunities. Leinart is not going to blow people out.

Matty's been the victim of just so many heartbreaking losses. Those were games that went his way in college; I don't know how many more of those he can take.

So we basically according to the statistics, got dinked and dunked all year. That would explain why the YPA weren't high and why DBs were making so many tackles.

It's crazy that we produced the 4th most sacks, it honestly didn't seem that way. Maybe our guys are better finishers compared with the rest of the league. Berry and Okeafor were atrocious for most of the year and I honestly think it's not going to be too hard for our younger guys to replace them. Okeafor was actually decent dropping back in coverage though if you look at his stats.

Interesting stats though K9. For the most part, our defense was pretty good last year, we just had a few games that were real stinkers IMO. For half the season, we were the best run defense in the league, but then we met Carolina and that quickly changed.

 

[40yearfan]

So we basically according to the statistics, got dinked and dunked all year. That would explain why the YPA weren't high and why DBs were making so many tackles.

It's crazy that we produced the 4th most sacks, it honestly didn't seem that way. Maybe our guys are better finishers compared with the rest of the league. Berry and Okeafor were atrocious for most of the year and I honestly think it's not going to be too hard for our younger guys to replace them. Okeafor was actually decent dropping back in coverage though if you look at his stats.

Interesting stats though K9. For the most part, our defense was pretty good last year, we just had a few games that were real stinkers IMO. For half the season, we were the best run defense in the league, but then we met Carolina and that quickly changed.

They discovered and exploited a weakness in our system and the rest of the teams after that followed their example.

 

[Catfish]

Ktb-----first let me thank you for your service to our country, and please know that my family and I will be keeping you in our prayers.

I think your analysis is very well thought out, and very solid. I say that, not because it agrees with my thoughts so much as I do, because it just makes a lot of sense. I believe that this is exactly why we can expect to see and emphasis on the run game moreso than the recent past.

Whiz knows that we likely will not score at the same clip that we did last year. Therefore it was imperative that he instill an attitude on our offense that has been lacking heretofore. Runnng the ball is a mind-set, and we have lacked that until now.

I believe bringing in Faneca, Hadnot, and drafting Dray, will all contribute to the attitude and mind-set of our offense, so we add another dimension to enhance our ball control ability.

Conversley, with all the attempts to improve on our defense, we should actually give up fewer points than last year. I really believe, like you, that we have the ingredients needed for a decent pass rush now, and that was sorely lacking last year.

If you couple that with the drafting of the big nose tackle, even if Watson is not back strong yet, maybe by the time we come off our bye week, we can begin to start Dan Williams in the middle. That should certainly help our defense up the middle where we were VERY weak after Hayes went down with back problems later in the year. I still don't know what we will have at ILB, but at least we have a better than even chance at vastly improving our inside D-line play. If we can get ANY tackling help from the Right OLB position, we should be able to make a lot more third down stops than we were doing late last year. If we get lucky, and catch a break or two in the ILB position, we should be significantly stronger on Defense this year, and may not be losing those last minute leads like before.

I am impressed with your workup and thoughts. Keep up the good work and please stay safe.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Like my changes to the tags, K9?



I love you man, glad you are back!

 

[Catfish]

K-9, Ive been thinking all year long about our third down productivity on defense. I like that you asked that question about what is wrong with it. In my mind, I seem to recall that we were pretty solid on third down attempts early in halves, but gave up scores before halves and at the end of games far too often. That probably was due to lack of depth to keep fresh bodies in the game, but it also sure seemed like there would be a point in each half, after which we just flat could not get a pass rush on the QB or hurry him in any way.

Hopefully we will have helped our defensive depth by making the effort to provide depth and competition throughout almost all of our defense. We are still thin at CB and ILB.

I do think that one other thing might happen to help our third down situation this year, and that is by having brought in Kerry Rhoades to replace Rolle, we have a true center fielder now that was lacking last year. Davis should be able to go back to using Wilson in his blitz schemes like he did in 08 on third downs, instead of having to hold him in coverage like he did last year because of Rolle's poor coverage ability. Even the 49er Troll picked up on that, so it must have been even more prevalent than we thought last year. At least I'm hoping so. I think that getting off the field late in halves would be a huge improvement for our defense, and that it really did hurt us last year.

 

[Duckjake]

One thing you have to look at in using stats from the last couple of years is that the Cards would get out to big leads in many games.

Look at these halftime scores from 2009:

Jaguars 24-3
Texans 21-0
Seattle (1) 17-3
Bears 31-7
Rams (1) 21-3
Vikings 21-10
Lions 17-0
Rams (2) 17-0
Packers (2) 24-10

You'll also notice that is 9 games where the Cards scored 17 or more points in the first half. Cards opponents managed to do that only 5 times but the Cards lost 4 of those 5 games.

This tells me that the Cards, who only came from behind by 10 or more at half to win once all season, either got out of the gate quickly and coasted to a win or never really showed up at all and lost. That has to have had an effect on the stats making it difficult to figure out just from the numbers what went on with the D last year.

 

[conraddobler]

One thing you have to look at in using stats from the last couple of years is that the Cards would get out to big leads in many games.

Look at these halftime scores from 2009:

Jaguars 24-3
Texans 21-0
Seattle (1) 17-3
Bears 31-7
Rams (1) 21-3
Vikings 21-10
Lions 17-0
Rams (2) 17-0
Packers (2) 24-10

You'll also notice that is 9 games where the Cards scored 17 or more points in the first half. Cards opponents managed to do that only 5 times but the Cards lost 4 of those 5 games.

This tells me that the Cards, who only came from behind by 10 or more at half to win once all season, either got out of the gate quickly and coasted to a win or never really showed up at all and lost. That has to have had an effect on the stats making it difficult to figure out just from the numbers what went on with the D last year.

I think this is an excellent point.

This IMO is due primarily to having Warner as your QB, without him I think the entire psychology of the team changes.

Last year afterwards we find out Warner couldn't throw deep, and that explains our lack of ability to come back huge IMO.

IMO having Warner on the team just causes us to change psychologically and play differently, it's hard to explain in words but I expect our team to be much more of a team this year simply because of necessity.

I expect us to do better than people think because of this, because we will be a very different team and for a while at least that's going to give people trouble, until they see enough film to start building strategies for stopping us.

 

[john h]

Ach. Don't tag your handle in your threads.

I actually would reverse your two keys.

I think that improving as a defense is the #1 priority. I was looking at stats for our linebackers the past couple years compared to other 3-4 ILBs around the NFL (and other MLBs around the league overall). It's frightening that Dan Morgan gets 140 tackles per season.

My first thought was the our ILBs are just terrible. Why would our ILBs have so few tackles? Then I looked at our other leading tacklers. Karlos Dansby was our leading tackler last season, but our #2, #3, and #4 tacklers were all DBs (McFadden, Wilson, and Rolle). It didn't look like RBs were getting through to the defensive secondary play after play last year.

The only team who faced more pass attempts in the regular season last year was Tennessee. Did we suck in pass defense? Actually, no. We were 9th in the NFL in defensive YPA, 10th in opponent passer rating. It's just that our defense was so terrible at punishing opposing quarterbacks for dropping back. FootballOutsiders puts our adjusted sack rate in the Top 10 of the NFL last season; I'm not sure what the problem is, but we have to find a way to get off the field on 3rd downs.

But 3rd downs aren't the problem, either. The Cards were 6th in the NFL in defensive 3rd down percentage. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH OUR DEFENSE LAST YEAR?!?!

I think that Leinart is going to be fine. He's going to keep us in games--that's been his M.O. his entire career. Leinart will also do better at getting the ball down the field. Against Tennessee, #7 had 7.1 YPA, which was better than Warner's average in all but 7 games last season. The trick is going to be capitalizing on scoring opportunities. Leinart is not going to blow people out.

Matty's been the victim of just so many heartbreaking losses. Those were games that went his way in college; I don't know how many more of those he can take.

In the final analysis we will win or lose based on the success or lack of from Matt Leinart. He has had all the training, worked with an all pro QB, had game experience and has the size to be a good QB. Inc college he was a Heisman winner. Everything indicates he is a NFL QB. All he has to do is prove it on the field of battle. There is going to a lot of "I told you so" after about 5 games. It could be I told you he would be great or I told you he was a loser. People are anxiously awaiting you Matt to do your thing.

 

[kerouac9]

Like my changes to the tags, K9?



I love you man, glad you are back!

Still, it's 100x better than tagging yourself.

 

[vinnymac]

I think this is an excellent point.

This IMO is due primarily to having Warner as your QB, without him I think the entire psychology of the team changes.

Last year afterwards we find out Warner couldn't throw deep, and that explains our lack of ability to come back huge IMO.

IMO having Warner on the team just causes us to change psychologically and play differently, it's hard to explain in words but I expect our team to be much more of a team this year simply because of necessity.

I expect us to do better than people think because of this, because we will be a very different team and for a while at least that's going to give people trouble, until they see enough film to start building strategies for stopping us.

The past couple of season the cardinals have been playing as a team. You do not win in the nfl if you are not playing like a team. The Philosphy of the team will change. It going to be a pound the ball & ball controll. That means Wells & Hightower need to learn how to hang on to the ball. What I have failed to see posted on this thread is how the Cardinals turned the ball over in scoring position & the defense giving up big plays. The Cardinals were ranked in the bottom in turnovers. You don't win games by turning the ball over. The 49ers game is a perfect example. They turn the ball over 7 times. That was sickning to watch. The Cardinals need to improve on not turning the ball over & they will win more games & recapture the Nfc West title.

 

[Catfish]

The past couple of season the cardinals have been playing as a team. You do not win in the nfl if you are not playing like a team. The Philosphy of the team will change. It going to be a pound the ball & ball controll. That means Wells & Hightower need to learn how to hang on to the ball. What I have failed to see posted on this thread is how the Cardinals turned the ball over in scoring position & the defense giving up big plays. The Cardinals were ranked in the bottom in turnovers. You don't win games by turning the ball over. The 49ers game is a perfect example. They turn the ball over 7 times. That was sickning to watch. The Cardinals need to improve on not turning the ball over & they will win more games & recapture the Nfc West title.

Great point Vinny-----how could we ALL forget about how many times we laid the ball on the ground, and not just from our RB's. I recall that Q, Urban, lost the ball on multiple occasions last year, and even Fitz joined in this habit at least once last year. I hope that we are able to improve on that this year, but this still doesn't explain the late scores and third down conversions given up late in halves and at the end of games.

Nothing seemed to be so devastating to our efforts, as the inability to make third down stops just before halves and at the end of games. Nothing is so disheartening as (like in the Tennessee game), to see our offense make a long late drive to score and take the lead, only to see the Defense fail to hold it for the last minute or so of the game.

 

[Duckjake]

The 49ers game is a perfect example. They turn the ball over 7 times.

how could we ALL forget about how many times we laid the ball on the ground, and not just from our RB's. I recall that Q, Urban, lost the ball on multiple occasions last year, and even Fitz joined in this habit at least once last year.

This is one reason the Cards were able to get out to such a big lead against the Packers in the playoffs. The Green Bay defenders were hacking and pulling at the football instead of tackling allowing our ball carriers a bunch of extra yards. They did get one away from Fitz but that didn't offset the huge amounts of yardage GB gave up after our guy should have been tackled.

 

[Duckjake]

The past couple of season the cardinals have been playing as a team. You do not win in the nfl if you are not playing like a team. The Philosphy of the team will change. It going to be a pound the ball & ball controll. That means Wells & Hightower need to learn how to hang on to the ball. What I have failed to see posted on this thread is how the Cardinals turned the ball over in scoring position & the defense giving up big plays. The Cardinals were ranked in the bottom in turnovers. You don't win games by turning the ball over. The 49ers game is a perfect example. They turn the ball over 7 times. That was sickning to watch. The Cardinals need to improve on not turning the ball over & they will win more games & recapture the Nfc West title.

I think the philosophy of the team will change but not in the way you posted even though the Cards will likely have a far greater balance between pass and run than with Warner.

I think that the Cards problems were that they did coast when things were going good and then once they got in a hole turned it back up again. That's why they brought in guys like Faneca and Porter and made other roster changes. To instill a killer instinct.

To change the culture of the team to one that races out in front and doesn't let off the accelerator. No more getting up 21-0 and needing a 4th quarter goal line stand to win. No more getting to 7-3 with a big win over a name opponent and taking the next week off.

Which is exactly what the Cards had to do to stay on top in the NFC West.

 

[NeverSayDieFan]

Hey! Krang...

Excellent post! The Warner hurt info surprised me. It explains alot. Thing to me is offensively we showed a lil' more balance but we were still predominently going to attack thru the air and everyone knew it. Gotta' believe that the smart DC's in the league were starting to figure us out. So, I think change will be good! i expect a big year out of Beanie & friends.

Like others on here I will ask GOD to keep you safe! Take Care! Mark

 

[BullheadCardFan]

That's why they brought in guys like Faneca and Porter and made other roster changes. To instill a killer instinct.

Great point and something we have not had here. We need to learn to finish off teams and keep our foot on their throats.

No more prevent defense! We need to win or lose with what got us the lead in the first place.