“Hi Darren. Obviously a disappointing season. Felt like a team that was better than last year on paper ended up losing the identity it had built over the last few seasons. I’d love to hold your feet to the fire and get you to rank these following options from most impactful to least impactful when considering the causes.
A) Klayton Adams leaving
B) Injuries to key players
C) The players that left (e.g. Kyzir White)
D) Not getting enough from our draft class
E) Teams figuring out our tactics”
Yeah, just like I’m never going to make a straight record prediction I’m not sure ranking these does me any good. But I can talk about them. I’ll start with the last one first, because I don’t think teams “figured out” anything as much as the run game, which was really good even though teams knew the Cardinals liked to run the ball, is not good enough. Hasn’t been all season, and it’s fallen further as the Cardinals have have faced big deficits over the last month or so.
I don’t see White’s departure as a significant factor. Injuries yes. But as Jacoby Brissett said with that, “this is the NFL.” We’ll never really know for sure about Adams’ impact, but at the same time, his chance to get an offensive coordinator wasn’t going to be prevented, and please miss me with the talk the Cardinals should’ve made a change in-house. No one was thinking that at the time. As for the draft class, I’ve liked what I have seen from Nolen and Johnson specifically, but they have been hurt. You’d like to see more impact from Burch and Simon, but it is early too, and in Simon’s case, losing Mack Wilson matters.