GAME Overview ::
BY HILOW >>
- The Cardinals have a relatively clean bill of health as they enter the 2025 regular season.
- The Arizona brass remains intact, as do most of the key personnel. Not a ton of changes with this franchise for the new season.
- Spencer Rattler “won” the starting quarterback gig in New Orleans.
- The Saints cleaned house in the coaching ranks, bringing in Kellen Moore at HC, Doug Nussmeier at OC, and Brandon Staley at DC.
- This game could shock people, particularly in survivor pools. I would have this game much closer to a pick ‘em than the Cardinals favored by a touchdown on the road.
- Likeliest scenario has this game playing to a true slugfest.
HOW ARIZONA WILL TRY TO WIN ::
First off, color me skeptical that we see any meaningful change to the way the Cardinals did business in 2024. I think we see the same elevated run-game scheme and muted pass-game scheme that we grew accustomed to a season ago. I also don’t think we see Kyler Murray make any meaningful improvements to his game after countless seasons of the industry expecting him to take a drastic step forward. That leaves this team with a focus on defense handed down from head coach Jonathan Gannon, and an offense that is best suited to take advantage of opponents that allow them to remain close in games and remain as run-balanced as possible. The good news for them is that their opponent in Week 1 is one such adversary. What better way for the Cardinals to start the season than against a team with innumerable offseason changes that is starting Rattler under center?
A total of 69.5% of James Conner’s rush attempts last season came behind man/gap concepts, behind which he averaged 4.93 yards per carry. That’s an interesting revelation considering the matchup against Brandon Staley’s new-look New Orleans defense. Staley, a Vic Fangio understudy, utilizes a tight front, gap-and-a-half base concept that has notoriously been stout against the run, particularly against man/gap concepts. His hybrid 3-4, 4-3 base also shows varying pre-snap looks, allowing versatility in the second level amongst linebackers and safeties. While it could take some time to see this defense perform at peak levels, their offseason hire at defensive coordinator should have this defense looking much better this season. I’m not sure I fully buy the offseason narrative that Trey Benson will be more involved in the offense on a weekly basis, something that came from Conner’s mouth and that was almost immediately refuted by his coaches to the media. Conner started the 2024 season seeing 60% or more of the offensive snaps in 10 of 14 games and handled a robust 75% of the carries inside the five on the season.
Staley’s back end runs from heavy rates of two-high shells but with a unique twist in that they routinely bail from two-high coverages via pattern-match concepts. What that means is that his secondary shows two-high alignments at a heavy rate pre-snap (as much as 80% in recent seasons) but with defenders that react like they were in man, adjusting their assignments and coverages based on route combinations. This complex scheme is a big reason why Staley’s Rams in 2020 and Chargers in 2021-2023 routinely found themselves in the top 10 against the pass – it makes diagnosing coverages extremely difficult for opposing quarterbacks. This is not good news for the Cardinals, considering their relatively vanilla pass-game scheme that relies heavily on its players winning in one-on-one situations, which we have not seen any improvements on from early clips from camp and preseason. That’s particularly an issue for second-year wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who struggled in that area last season. And since their other wide receivers consist of non-world-beaters Michael Wilson and Zay Jones, this spot sets up nicely for another spike volume week for third-year tight end Trey McBride. He’s one of the only tight ends in the league that brings 30+ fantasy-point upside and is a great candidate to see extreme touchdown progression after scoring just twice (four total, two receiving) a season ago.
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