It says a lot about the Arizona Cardinals that the greatest moment in their team’s history is Cuba Gooding Jr catching the game-winning pass at the end of Jerry Maguire.
The Cardinals have quietly been one of the most inept franchises in NFL history – since moving to Arizona in 1988 they have had just five winning seasons in 27 years.
Their ineptitude has been docile and easy to ignore, faded into desert obscurity without the big stage failures of Buffalo or Minnesota, or a national superstar to capture headlines like Barry Sanders in Detroit.
In 2008 the Cardinals began to flip the script on history. Their fairytale march to the Super Bowl was the best story of the season. They lost that game to Pittsburgh, but they gave a better account of themselves than anyone expected, and had their first truly iconic NFL moment in the form of Larry Fitzgerald’s streaking 64-yard touchdown reception to give Arizona the lead in the dying minutes.
The Cardinals consolidated their Super Bowl season with another run to the postseason in 2009, winning one of the wackiest playoff games of all time 51-45 over Green Bay before getting outgunned by the champs-in-waiting New Orleans the following week. The Cards hadn’t claimed the major prize, but they’d won something greater – legitimacy.
They had won four playoff games in two years, which was three more than they’d won in the previous 60. The Cardinals were no longer just the team that employed Rod Tidwell.
Unfortunately, the Cards didn’t take long to revert back to their nature – they tore down their legitimacy as quickly as they built it up. Kurt Warner’s departure before the 2010 season also signalled Arizona’s departure from NFL relevance. Ken Whisenhunt, lauded at the time as a top-tier head coach, turned out to be not that good at his job.
The defence, long propped up by an explosive offence, fell to pieces. The quarterback position resembled some hybrid of a Russian tragedy and an Off-Broadway musical farce, sentenced to burn in the flames of Derek Anderson, John Skelton, Kevin Kolb, Drew Stanton, Ryan Lindley and something called a Richard Bartel.
The Cards went 18-30 over the next three seasons, failing to make the playoffs and firing Whisenhunt after the 2012 season ended with 11 losses in the final 12 games. In their defence, the Cardinals did give us this video clip in that time though, which rivals any of New England’s championships:
In 2013, Arizona began their revival. Eighteen months after Oakland traded a first and second pick for Carson Palmer, the Cardinals landed him for a sixth rounder. They hired Bruce Arians as head coach, fresh off his Coach of the Year award in Indianapolis the year prior.
Shockingly, the Cardinals doubled their win total from 2012 to finish 10-6, narrowly missing the playoffs. Last year they took one step further, finishing 11-5, but the season ended with a whimper. Palmer’s torn ACL took the gloss off a 9-1 start and forced the Cards to start Ryan Lindley in a playoff game – a proposition that still sounds as improbable as it is terrifying – which they inevitably lost.
There was a lot of smoke and mirrors about Arizona last year. They went 4-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less – historically a key primer for regression – and had the point differential of a team that won 8.3 games, not 11. A shambolic offensive line on paper, a gimpy 35-year-old Palmer returning from a serious injury, and statistical regression had the Cardinals poised for a disappointing 2015.
But it turns out the only smoke coming from Arizona this season has been from the flames of their incandescent start.
The Cardinals are 8-2 and by DVOA the second best team in the NFL behind the unbeaten Patriots. They have the league’s third best offence and sixth best defence. The past two weeks have seen them drop 39 and 34 points on Seattle and Cincinnati, two top-10 defences, in primetime.
There is nothing illusory about the Cardinals – they are bludgeoning teams, outscoring their opposition by 120 points through 10 weeks (only the Patriots have been better). With just six weeks before the playoffs, the Cardinals have as good a shot as anybody to make the Super Bowl, and they might even be the favourites to come out of the NFC.
The last (and only) Cardinals team to make the Super Bowl was one dimensional – it was completely reliant on the passing game, winning via the brilliance of Kurt Warner and the star receiving duo of Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. The present-day Cards have more dimensions to them than any team in the NFL.
With Julian Edelman sidelined and the offensive line in tatters in New England, Arizona have the most explosive offence in the league. Carson Palmer is the MVP candidate nobody is giving enough credit, leading the league in touchdown passes and yards per attempt. Palmer has a stellar 27-9 touchdown-interception ratio, and is second only to Tom Brady in passer rating. Turning 36 in December, Palmer is having the best season of his career.
The receiving corps are deep in electricity, with height and pace to burn. Renaissance man Fitzgerald is having his best season since 2011, returning to the ranks of the game’s elite number-one receivers. He’s ably supported by John Brown, Michael Floyd, David Johnson and JJ Nelson, the last of whom exploded onto the scene against the Bengals as yet another dynamic option in the Cardinals’ passing game.
The rushing attack, for so many years a black hole in the desert, has been startlingly effective, with Chris Johnson somehow ranking third in the league in rushing yards. Andre Ellington is a dynamo when healthy, and his outrageous physical gifts were on full display in his game-sealing touchdown run in Seattle last week.
The defence hasn’t missed a beat with the departure of Todd Bowles, remaining almost in lock-step with last season’s DVOA finish of seventh in the league. Led by stud Patrick Peterson, the secondary has been brilliant, with only Carolina having more interceptions than Arizona.
The Cardinals aren’t perfect. The offensive line has been surprisingly steady all season, but the personnel still isn’t inspiring, and Seattle showed how susceptible Arizona can be to a destructive pass rush.
Just as it was last season, Arizona’s own pass rush is tame, tied for 25th in the league for sacks. The mad genius Bruce Arians will never be afraid to blitz to manufacture pressure, but an over-reliance on sending the house can be perilous in January against the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton and Russell Wilson.
No team operates in a paradise without weakness though, and Arizona’s flaws aren’t as glaring as other teams in the NFC. The Panthers and Packers will be limited by their receiving options all season, and both run out below average special teams units. The Seahawks are still a mess and needed a fumble return touchdown to get within a touchdown of the Cardinals in Seattle. We don’t need to talk about the NFC East.
A little over half a decade ago Arizona was poised for success. They didn’t have the infrastructure then for it to be sustainable though, undermined by a bad coach, a lousy defence and a one-dimensional offence.
This time it’s different. The Cardinals are elite on both sides of the ball and their coach might be the best in the league outside of Massachusetts. Carson Palmer isn’t the future of this team, but everything else is, and Palmer is showing that he’s more than capable of leading the present.
After a century of drought, a storm is finally brewing in the desert.
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