Up-and-down Cards lay a foundation
They beat the Browns to help ruin Cleveland’s shot at the playoffs and end Freddie Kitchens’ brief tenure as coach. They went to Seattle and knocked the Seahawks out of position to clinch a first-round bye and host a playoff game. Then they went to Los Angeles and, with a hobbled rookie starting quarterback at the helm, came within a touchdown of preventing the Rams from finishing with a winning record.
The Cardinals started off slow this season, got on a mini roll, and then went on a six-game slide. But they finished strong down the stretch and showed definite signs of improvements despite going a disappointing 5-10-1.
As much as everyone wanted to see more, this was never going to be a playoff team in the first year of the Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray experiment. More than anything, it was a test run for the future and it was about laying a foundation on which to build upon.
“I hope so,” Kingsbury said Monday, a day after his team ended the season on a 31-24 sour note. “We would have liked to win more games, but you hope to see the effort and some of those characterbuilding things that I felt like we saw late in the season carry over into next season.”
It’s impossible to predict what the Cardinals will look like in 2020, but with a healthy salary-cap budget of just under $70 million with which to work and Top 10 draft positioning, the organization appears to be heading in the right direction. Especially if Kingsbury and Murray continue to develop, grow and begin to dominate as play caller and quarterback.
Changes along the way
There was a lot of good, bad an ugly by the Cardinals in 2019. For every positive, there was a negative. Some things worked, some things were a disaster. The only constant seemed to be change. Parts of that weren’t necessarily detrimental, however.
Take Kingsbury, for instance. He showed a willingness to completely alter the offense on numerous occasions. He was never stubborn or brash. His listened to his coaches. He listened to his players. He didn’t play favorites, either, and proved that by benching some players like David Johnson and KeeSean Johnson, and in a handful of cases, removing some players altogether.
He guided Murray through a hectic, but record-setting rookie season that included 3,722 passing yards and 20 touchdown throws and watched him become just the sixth quarterback – and only the second rookie – in league history to finish with 3,500 or more passing yards and 500 or more rushing yards.
Murray had eight games with multiple touchdown throws, his five games with 300 or more yards are the second-most by a rookie ever, and during a sevengame stretch, he went 211 consecutive passes without an interception. He was named as a Pro Bowl alternate and is in the race for Offensive Rookie of the Year.
“We couldn’t have asked more from him,” center A.Q. Shipley said. “From
Day 1, he was the guy and he took on a heck of a lot of responsibility, a heck of a lot of information, and from week to week, you saw him get better. He put together arguably one of the best rookie quarterback performances in the history of this league.”
There were plenty of other bright spots, too:
❚ Outside linebacker Chandler Jones and safety Budda Baker were each selected as Pro Bowl starters. Baker had his best season as a pro, finishing fourth in the league with 147 tackles. Jones made himself a case for Defensive Player of the Year with 19 sacks and eight forced fumbles.
❚ Inside linebacker Jordan Hicks finished third in the league with 149 tackles and is starting to look like one of General Manager Steve Keim’s best free-agent additions. He signed Hicks to a teamfriendly contract in part because of Hicks’ past injury concerns, but Hicks started all 16 games and couldn’t have played much better.
❚ Four of the team’s five starters on the offensive line – Shipley, left tackle D.J. Humphries, left guard Justin Pugh and right guard J.R. Sweezy -- also played all 16 games. The one who didn’t, right tackle Justin Murray, started 14 games.
❚ Running back Kenyan Drake came over in a midseason trade from the Dolphins and brought life to Arizona’s rushing game, lifting it into Top 10 status. In just eight games with the Cardinals, he had more 100-yard performances than he did in 54 games for Miami (two).
❚ Kicker Zane Gonzalez was named a Pro Bowl alternate and connected on 31 of 35 field goals. Punter Andy Lee finished second in the league with a 47.8 average.
Downsides to the season
But then there were the negatives:
❚ The Cardinals finished the season rated last overall in total defense (402 yards per game). They were second-tolast against the pass (281.9) and allowed the second-most passing touchdowns (38). They also couldn’t stop a tight end to save their lives. It was a problem that plagued the defense all year.
❚ The Cardinals drafted three rookie wide receivers, but got next-to-nothing for their investment. Andy Isabella, whom they picked ahead of D.K. Metcalf, finished with just nine receptions for 189 yards and a touchdown. KeeSean Johnson caught just 21 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown. Hakeem Butler spent the entire year on injured reserve.
“I think they found out it’s tough sledding,” Kingsbury said. “Talent’s not an issue, but I think those guys will mature a lot in the offseason and come back a lot better players.”
❚ Cornerback Patrick Peterson spent the first six weeks of the season serving a suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs. We never learned what the substance was, but it made the team suffer greatly, especially with fellow starting cornerback Robert Alford suffering a fractured leg in training camp.
Peterson wasn’t himself when he returned and didn’t start playing well again until the last month of the year.
❚ Before the season even started, the Cardinals were forced to release two players because of off-the-field issues.
Darius Philon, slated to be the team’s starting defense end, was cut a day after he was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Left tackle Desmond Harrison, brought in as an insurance police in case Humphries couldn’t stay healthy, was dumped a day after it was learned an arrest warrant had been issued for him for assault on a person by strangulation.
A third player, defensive back Josh Shaw, was suspended through at least the conclusion of the 2020 season for betting on NFL games during the season. He did so while on injured reserve.
❚ Four other veterans were unexpectedly released during the season and the team never really explained why. Receiver Michael Crabtree was cut after Week 3.
Safety D.J. Swearinger was sent packing after Week 4. Cornerback Tramaine Brock was released after Week 13.
And finally, outside linebacker Terrell Suggs was cut a week after that.