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Didactic
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/...ams-biggest-problems-cardinals-texans-raiders
Arizona Cardinals (0-3): The Punchless Offense
Arizona Cardinals (0-3): The Punchless Offense
A botched third-and-2 play in the Cardinals’ 16-14 loss to the Bears on Sunday is a microcosm of everything that’s wrong with their offense thus far. With the ball at the Chicago 42-yard line and two minutes to go, the Cardinals needed to pick up just 2 yards to move the chains and keep the drive alive. Rookie quarterback Josh Rosen handed off to backup running back Chase Edmonds—inexplicably on the field for a healthy David Johnson—who lost 3 yards.
Let’s start first with the fact it was Rosen, and not the game’s starter, Sam Bradford, lining up under center. Instead of benching Bradford after an ineffective first two weeks (3.98 yards per attempt, 55.6 rating, zero touchdowns, two interceptions) and giving Rosen a full slate of first-team reps in preparation for the Bears defense, the Cardinals stuck with Bradford until the 4:31 mark of the fourth quarter before calling on Rosen to come in cold and engineer a game-winning drive against one of the most devastating defensive fronts in football.
The Cardinals’ decision over the offseason to sign Bradford to a one-year, $20 million deal was questionable enough, but the choice to give Rosen the reins at that point in the game borders on negligence. But the rookie passer hung tough, completing passes of 9, 4, 10, and 8 yards on the drive to set Arizona up with that fateful third-and-2 as the two-minute warning hit. That’s when offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and the Cardinals coaching staff let Rosen down again, pulling Johnson from the game while dialing up a slow-developing counter run play to the left, which was blown up in the backfield.
Rosen was picked off on the next play, the punch line of a comedy of errors that highlighted Arizona’s two most troubling issues over the first three weeks of the season: poor execution and a puzzling strategy with the team’s best players. The latter, to me, is more egregious, and I’m not just talking about the delayed decision to turn to Rosen: Edmonds replaced Johnson in the most pivotal moment of the game, apparently, because the All-Pro missed a blitz pickup on the previous second-down play. Which had happened before the two-minute warning. You’d think they could’ve sorted it out during the break in the action.
Johnson’s been missing in action far too often this year. He has failed to gain much traction on the ground (34 rushes, 116 yards, one touchdown), and has barely been used as a pass catcher (10 catches, 63 yards, one touchdown), both symptoms of the team’s apparent preference for systems over personnel. When McCoy was hired, instead of adopting most of the offense the team ran last year under Bruce Arians, he brought with him new verbiage and a whole new scheme. That system has largely failed to deploy the all-world running back in a way that maximizes his uniquely versatile skill set: The vast majority of his runs have been concentrated right up the gut, making Arizona far too predictable while ignoring Johnson’s power and elusiveness in space. Worse yet, after playing the role of hybrid runner and receiver on the Cardinals’ 2016 squad, Johnson has mostly toiled in the backfield to line up for boring, traditional swing-pass and dump-off routes. Ironically, the one vertical route I’ve seen Johnson run this year turned into a touchdown.
It doesn’t help either that the line has struggled to block (Bradford was under pressure on 42 percent of snaps before being benched, third worst per Pro Football Focus), the receiver group is thin behind Larry Fitzgerald, and tight end Ricky Seals-Jones has yet to get very involved. Arizona’s scored just 20 points in three games (dead last), has gained a league-low 571 yards, and has run just 142 offensive plays. That puts them on pace to run just 757 plays this season, which would come well short of last year’s low (927 by the Bengals) and would be the lowest since the league moved to 16 games. The lack of offense has, in turn, put a lot of pressure on the defense, which has been on the field for 211 plays, tied for third most in the league.
Rosen could create a spark, but McCoy must recalibrate the offense to accentuate the rookie’s skill set best. The former UCLA star has a good arm and experience in pro-style schemes, but McCoy would do well to mitigate the issues the team has in pass protection by designing schemes that get the ball out of Rosen’s hands quickly while leaning more heavily on deception.
Upping the amount of play-action would be a nice start; Bradford ran play-action fakes on just 11.4 percent of his dropbacks over the first three weeks, 30th out of 31 qualifying passers per Pro Football Focus, and upping the frequency of those plays could help exploit overly aggressive defenses primed to bring pressure. Rosen was best in college when he played on schedule, so drawing up schemes that get Fitzgerald open early in his routes, perhaps using bunch and trips formations that help give him a free release, could give the rookie signal-caller a security blanket to rely on over the middle. Christian Kirk—a favorite target for Rosen in preseason action—offers run-after-the-catch potential in the screen game and should provide another quick-throw option on the outside. Most importantly, the Cardinals need to deploy Johnson like the movable mismatch creator that he was in 2016. There’s still hope for this offense, but not unless we see major shifts in scheme.
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Let’s start first with the fact it was Rosen, and not the game’s starter, Sam Bradford, lining up under center. Instead of benching Bradford after an ineffective first two weeks (3.98 yards per attempt, 55.6 rating, zero touchdowns, two interceptions) and giving Rosen a full slate of first-team reps in preparation for the Bears defense, the Cardinals stuck with Bradford until the 4:31 mark of the fourth quarter before calling on Rosen to come in cold and engineer a game-winning drive against one of the most devastating defensive fronts in football.
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The Cardinals’ decision over the offseason to sign Bradford to a one-year, $20 million deal was questionable enough, but the choice to give Rosen the reins at that point in the game borders on negligence. But the rookie passer hung tough, completing passes of 9, 4, 10, and 8 yards on the drive to set Arizona up with that fateful third-and-2 as the two-minute warning hit. That’s when offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and the Cardinals coaching staff let Rosen down again, pulling Johnson from the game while dialing up a slow-developing counter run play to the left, which was blown up in the backfield.
Rosen was picked off on the next play, the punch line of a comedy of errors that highlighted Arizona’s two most troubling issues over the first three weeks of the season: poor execution and a puzzling strategy with the team’s best players. The latter, to me, is more egregious, and I’m not just talking about the delayed decision to turn to Rosen: Edmonds replaced Johnson in the most pivotal moment of the game, apparently, because the All-Pro missed a blitz pickup on the previous second-down play. Which had happened before the two-minute warning. You’d think they could’ve sorted it out during the break in the action.
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Johnson’s been missing in action far too often this year. He has failed to gain much traction on the ground (34 rushes, 116 yards, one touchdown), and has barely been used as a pass catcher (10 catches, 63 yards, one touchdown), both symptoms of the team’s apparent preference for systems over personnel. When McCoy was hired, instead of adopting most of the offense the team ran last year under Bruce Arians, he brought with him new verbiage and a whole new scheme. That system has largely failed to deploy the all-world running back in a way that maximizes his uniquely versatile skill set: The vast majority of his runs have been concentrated right up the gut, making Arizona far too predictable while ignoring Johnson’s power and elusiveness in space. Worse yet, after playing the role of hybrid runner and receiver on the Cardinals’ 2016 squad, Johnson has mostly toiled in the backfield to line up for boring, traditional swing-pass and dump-off routes. Ironically, the one vertical route I’ve seen Johnson run this year turned into a touchdown.
It doesn’t help either that the line has struggled to block (Bradford was under pressure on 42 percent of snaps before being benched, third worst per Pro Football Focus), the receiver group is thin behind Larry Fitzgerald, and tight end Ricky Seals-Jones has yet to get very involved. Arizona’s scored just 20 points in three games (dead last), has gained a league-low 571 yards, and has run just 142 offensive plays. That puts them on pace to run just 757 plays this season, which would come well short of last year’s low (927 by the Bengals) and would be the lowest since the league moved to 16 games. The lack of offense has, in turn, put a lot of pressure on the defense, which has been on the field for 211 plays, tied for third most in the league.
Rosen could create a spark, but McCoy must recalibrate the offense to accentuate the rookie’s skill set best. The former UCLA star has a good arm and experience in pro-style schemes, but McCoy would do well to mitigate the issues the team has in pass protection by designing schemes that get the ball out of Rosen’s hands quickly while leaning more heavily on deception.
Upping the amount of play-action would be a nice start; Bradford ran play-action fakes on just 11.4 percent of his dropbacks over the first three weeks, 30th out of 31 qualifying passers per Pro Football Focus, and upping the frequency of those plays could help exploit overly aggressive defenses primed to bring pressure. Rosen was best in college when he played on schedule, so drawing up schemes that get Fitzgerald open early in his routes, perhaps using bunch and trips formations that help give him a free release, could give the rookie signal-caller a security blanket to rely on over the middle. Christian Kirk—a favorite target for Rosen in preseason action—offers run-after-the-catch potential in the screen game and should provide another quick-throw option on the outside. Most importantly, the Cardinals need to deploy Johnson like the movable mismatch creator that he was in 2016. There’s still hope for this offense, but not unless we see major shifts in scheme.
