Against the Cardinals, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud averaged 9.0 yards per attempt, his most in nearly two years. Immediately after the game, head coach Jonathan Gannon pointed to the Cardinals’ struggles with their zone distribution.
The next day, he explained what that meant.
“When we’re supposed to hit a hook, and we chase a shallow, and they throw the ball to the hook, that’s zone distribution,” Gannon said. “Gotta do that better.”
Gannon didn’t say it, but he was clearly referring to a third-and-6 rep from linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither.
On the play, the Cardinals were in cover-2, with Davis-Gaither playing the hook zone along the right hashmarks. But as a receiver ran a shallow crossing route underneath, Davis-Gaither attached himself to that route, even though Baron Browning already had it covered. That left tight end Dalton Schultz wide open in Davis-Gaither’s initial zone for a 16-yard gain.
Afterward, Davis-Gaither looked to the sky and shook his head, realizing his own mistake. But it wasn’t his only issue in coverage against the Texans.
On one play later in that drive, the Cardinals ran a coverage that they used multiple times in this game. The defense was in a cover-3 zone, except with Will Johnson in man-to-man against Nico Collins, as a mechanism to negate the Texans’ star receiver.
With Collins running a deep route, Davis-Gaither needed to recognize the vacated space underneath — unless it was a busted coverage from Johnson, which seems unlikely, given that the Cardinals repeatedly used this coverage against Collins. Instead, Davis-Gaither was late to react and allowed a first down.
Davis-Gaither was not the only Cardinals’ player to struggle in coverage against the Texans, but this has been a trend all season. Per Pro Football Focus, his 40.5 coverage grade ranks 42nd among 47 linebackers with at least 300 coverage snaps.
Under Gannon and general manager Monti Ossenfort, the Cardinals have never invested more than $5 million per year in an inside linebacker or drafted one in the top three rounds.
This offseason, the Cardinals might have to break their own mold and spend up on the position. That would also allow them to move Mack Wilson back to the role in which he excelled last year. Meanwhile, cutting Davis-Gaither would save $4.7 million and incur just a $1.5 million dead cap hit.
