NFL Analyst Identifies Arizona Cardinals Biggest Strength, Biggest Weakness Heading Into 2024 Season
we’re in that NFL Hiatus period but we always like to catch up with our friends over at Pro Football Focus and how about their lead NFL analyst Sam Monson of course part of the PFF NFL pod and Sam how we doing man how are you enjoying your kind of downtime before the madness begins at the end of July I was doing great until the AC unit in my house died and then things took a turn for the worse so it was 85° inside the house the other day that that it was deeply unpleased um now we’ve got we got work in AC but I’m out Seven Grand so oh man it’s been a great week or so look if 85 is I mean that here in Phoenix we’d love to have 85 anywhere it was we’re we’re facing like 110 uh but yeah man I’m glad you figured that out I’m sad that uh you lost a good chunk of change there but glad you got some cold air coming at you you know I was looking at your uh Twitter account and I saw your latest breakdown top 10 defensive lines and I’m not going to say you know that the Arizona Cardinals have any business being close to the top 10 but in your evaluation across the league of the top 32 I gotta imagine the Cardinals may have made the biggest leap from 2023 to 2024 yeah I mean so it’s interesting when you start doing these all 32 team lists of of various um positions or position groups or whatever we’re not where we used to be where you go back several years years and you could find teams that had units that just were awful you know and it’s like this is a practice squad group of players and they have no business being in the same league as some of these other teams you get to the bottom of the league in some of these position groups and you’re like this is not a terrible group of players like this is it’s not you know it’s down at the bottom of the league relative to some of the others but it’s not uh an embarrassment it’s actually a reasonable group it’s just that the standard has gotten higher across the board so yeah I I think Arizona has made some significant strides um and headed in the right direction a lot is resting on the shoulders obviously of Darius Robinson and and seeing what he can do right out of the gate and I really like him as a player I think he’s an intriguing guy in that he’s almost sort of almost playing outside of his era like if you I I honestly feel like he would be a top 10 draft pick if we if this was 2002 you know right and we were in this era of old school four defenses you know two gapping systems like he’s he’s a sort of Richard Seymour type of player um and those guys like that system just doesn’t exist anymore everybody playing one gaps everybody is playing sub packages 65% of the time um so consequently a guy like Robinson like slides to the bottom of the first round instead of goes somewhere around the top but I think he is a really good player even if it’s just going to take a little bit to figure out exactly how to deploy him and how to get the best yeah it’s a great point and yeah I mean he probably would have won and just based on the eye test you see this big bulking defensive lineman and teams would have fallen in love with him before you know even hit the the scouting combine and the Arizona Cardinals I think benefited from a versatile player he did play interior defensive lineman he played on the edge and I think that’s something that Jonathan Ganon and Nick RS like to utilize do you feel like with the additions of of Justin Jones from Chicago and sure on probably a bigger deal than anybody expected Bal Nicholls coming over from Vegas and then Dante still is the sixth rounder emerging you you talk about some bad defensive lines that we’ve seen you know probably over the past decades the Cardinals certainly had one of those last year with practice squad level players did they raise the floor enough though to compete especially in this tough NFC west where you’re going to see some offensive lines that really can impose their will on you they raised the floor um but those kind of additions feel like those guys are great to have as part of the rotation but if they’re the guys getting the bulk of the workload if they’re the guys earning the starting roles that’s where it still feels like a weakness you know and I think Arizona did a really good job of like improving the overall depth of the unit improving what the rotation is going to look like but Darius Robinson is the first guy to come in and say okay he’s going to make a serious difference to the starting caliber of this defensive line yeah t about weaknesses we’re in List season rankings uh season you guys do a great job over a Pro Football Focus you already had as we just talked about your defensive line series uh looking across you know the fourl ESPN they dropped theirs and most recently did you know all 32 teams best strength weaknesses you mentioned weakness like do you feel like the defensive line still is where the Cardinals need to improve I look at that pass rush they kind of went with the status quo some unknowns zav Collins coming back BJ kind of an unproven second rounder but certainly a ton of talent there where do you view for the Cardinals roster as their biggest weakness well I think it’s still obviously on the defensive side of the ball um I think it is the front seven it is probably the lack of pass rush I think they’ve got some players there that they maybe anticipate taking a step forward developing getting better this year but that’s always a question mark and that can go the other way instead of just the the linear development and get better every single year and and I think teams you know it’s difficult not to fall into this trap because you bring in young players you know it’s going to take a bit of time and as long as you see some positivity and some signs of development you can talk yourself into next year will’ll be better and the year after that be better and you know it’s always going to go upwards but it doesn’t necessarily work that way so they have placed um some faith I think in those players like oari like zav Collins developing and getting better with more more experience in those positions but if that doesn’t happen you know the best pass rusher on the team might be Dennis Gard again and that was a a sort of surprise uh feature of last year’s team where Gard had primarily been you know a special teams guy before and suddenly get six sacks in the first uh bunch of the games of the season and he’s like the best pass rusher on the team and great breakout year for him but if he’s your best pass rusher you probably have a pass rush problem yeah I mean I I always thought it was kind of interesting to see Dennis gardak as your Premier pass rusher by default right a rebuilding team and then be your special team’s Ace I I don’t think that we’ve seen that in modern day football uh where you’ve got such a guy a premium position also playing an intrical role on on special teams so with this the biggest weakness uh identify where do you view the Cardinals biggest strength going in the training camp I think Marvin Harrison Jr might transform like the sort of the skill position Collective into a strength immediately like bringing him in number one he’s fantastic right out of the gate so you’re adding an incredible player but I also think there’s a sort of force multiplier ability by bringing in a guy at the top of the depth chart to let everybody else take a step down and suddenly Michael Wilson I think is going to look fantastic as a number two guy in in year two and Greg dorch is a slot guy you know now that each one of these guys is sort of one step further down the ladder in terms of the defensive Focus you got Trey McBride there who had a breakout year last season looked like a phenomenal um tight end and we we’ve seen what he can do as part of a high volume workload in college where he was basically the offense um and then the backfield as well you know they I think they’ve got some real talent there with with James Conor and I didn’t Trey B Benson as well all of a sudden the the collective uh skill position group that kylo Murray has to work with I think is going to look fantastic this year yeah I completely agree almost an embarrassment of riches a a young group that that’s certainly On The Rise uh one of the X factors that you know a couple Publications have identified is is the offensive line and that’s sometimes the case with most offenses can they get the protection and we look at Paris Johnson Jr and his rookie season he plays every snap I think there’s a lot of things to be encouraged analytically when you just look at uh the T like Paris Johnson Jr makes the move from right tackle left tackle he starts his path as their franchise you know Blindside protector and then they bring over Jonah Williams when you just look at the spe specifically The Tackle position for the Cardinals is is that enough for you to say hey they’re going to be able to do a good job to do some similar things in the Run game like they did last year and keep their franchise quarterback unscathed as much as they need to yeah it’s another one I think where there’s a fairly broad range of outcomes for that group um even just Jonah Williams you know he’s coming off a couple of years where he hasn’t played at his best at all but the start of his career he was a solid left tackle um wasn’t anything beyond that never got to a you know a high level or an elite left tackle but he was solid and there’s real value to that in today’s NFL I think too often we sort of focus on offensive linemen and if a guy is just okay it’s seen as a weakness it’s seen as a problem as somebody we’ve got to replace right away but there’s if you have five guys that are all okay you’re fine your offensive line is more than good enough to do um what you needed to you would love to have the five best guys in the NFL and have a collection of all Pros in the offensive line obviously that makes everything better but you’ve got to pay to do that you’ve got to invest big money in free agents you’ve got to invest at the top of the draft every single time to get those those star players really what you what you want is the moderate investment the the below average honestly investment in the offensive line that produces five okay average starters with no weakness and you know certainly Jonah Williams I think has the potential to be that guy at right tackle Paris Johnson can obviously be a lot better than that at the on the other side um and then the interior again it’s it’s a similar story if you can get those three guys just playing at an average level that’s all this offensive line needs particularly with kylo Murray who number one will be a kind of active designed run threat but number two can obviously fix some problems with his athleticism and scrambling and you know mitigate some of the mistakes for an a an average group because average players will get beat sometimes right and they will give up some pressure but Murray I think is a good quarterback to have to kind of fix some of those uh bad plays when they happen yeah you guys do such a fantastic job over a Pro Football Focus in taking you know the film and and scouting it and and great it there are there any specific trends that you look for Sam uh to follow that point to you know wherever it may be on the field whatever position a player may be playing that that would point to them taking the next step making a jump from one year to the next it’s tough because you know human beings like to recognize patterns right and we like to kind of identify okay here’s a trend this is what we’re seeing um and in particular in football I think we all try and jump on that and as soon as there’s a a pattern emerging you’re like okay this is what it’s going to look like projected forward but so many times the game is just more volatile than that and it’s why yeah you know the analytics and football is never going to work the same way it does in baseball where it’s so uh locked in and so repeatable and regimented that we can kind of Trace these Trends and developments easily the variance in football is so much that the the four game span at the end of a season where a guy plays completely differently than he did the first half of the year it might mean that the light switch went on and this guy is now a completely different player and he’s going to be a star going forward or he might have just had four good games and there’s really no way of knowing which one it was until we see the larger sample size and so many times we’ve seen that from various players at various positions but quarterback you know we’ve seen it all the time where at the end of the year you’re going to get three four five games at of good play out of a quarterback who’s young and you’re like okay that’s it it it’s happened right he’s developing now it’s Now’s the Time he’s turned the corner and next year we’re g to get that all season long and sometimes it happens but sometimes it doesn’t and you know Sam Darnell say has done that three or four times in his career it always disappears it always evaporates as soon as you’ve identified it yeah always great work from our guy Sam Monson uh I have to speak on behalf of Cardinals fans that uh we don’t know Edward who was in your YouTube comments I think it was about a month ago you would put this on display on your Twitter account uh clamoring for more than just two minutes for the Cardinals that’s not us we’re not uh calling anybody on PFF has sets an effing junkie or anything like that I just like to speak on behalf of you know the Cardinals fan base yeah well look sometimes you know you got to do all 32 teams Sometimes some of them are going to get fewer minutes than others you know there’s right it’s pretty unless absent putting one of those kind of Chess clocks on it and literally 5 minutes done cut it off we’re on to the next team right yeah you are not a minor league ass clown garbage reporter to us we we appreciate you guys way more than that and Edward uh you know man maybe take a a couple days maybe a couple months off the internet uh and cool down but we you never know what people are dealing with maybe his AC went out as well that’s true man they can drive anybody crazy but uh we always appreciate the work over at PFF make sure you’re watching the NFL the PFF NFL podcast you can find on YouTube subscribe to it where you find podcasts of course follow Sam on Twitter at PFF Sam he’s pff’s lead NFL analyst thank you so much my man always great to catch up anytime
Pro Football Focus lead NFL analyst Sam Monson examines the Arizona Cardinals biggest strength and weakness going into the 2024 season. How the Cards improved their largest hole from last season.
#nfl #cardinals #azcardinals
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