A healthy Kyler Murray. A generational prospect. A young defense. Here’s everything you need to know about the Arizona Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season.
We’re entering Year 2 of head coach Jonathan Gannon’s rebuild of the Arizona Cardinals. 2023 exceeded most people’s (low) expectations, with Gannon notching four wins despite a depleted roster and injured quarterback.
Now, the Cards have a new weapon for Kyler Murray and lots of young faces on defense. With the NFL season right around the corner, we’re breaking down all the biggest storylines surrounding the Arizona Cardinals.
The Offense
Quarterback Kyler Murray has had a rough go of things in his career: coaching shuffles, a lack of receiving weapons (outside of DeAndre Hopkins for a few seasons), and an ACL tear. Despite all that, Murray has never looked bad; he’s just never quite looked elite, beyond flashes. He has never finished as a top-ten passer (in terms of either yardage or touchdowns) in any of his five pro seasons.
But this year is a reset, a chance for Murray to prove what he’s really capable of. He has a capable offensive coordinator in Drew Petzing, and the Cardinals gave him a wide receiver often touted as a generational prospect in Marvin Harrison, Jr., of Ohio State.
It’s easy to set expectations too high for a player like Harrison, but there is a real chance that from the very first game, he’ll be the best player on this team. He’s big, he’s fast, and he’s a nuanced route-runner. If nothing else, he should give Murray a decent floor.
And there’s hope that he won’t be the only one helping to elevate Murray. Trey McBride has emerged as one of the league’s better pass-catching tight ends, and there’s reason to think that last year’s third-round pick, wideout Michael Wilson, is due for a breakout. Wilson struggled with injuries in college and did miss time in his rookie season, but when healthy, he’s been ultra-consistent. Now, if he can pair that consistency with a higher ceiling, this will suddenly look like a very good receiving corps.
Even better news? The Cardinals are already quite good at running the ball. Running back James Conner seems to just get better with age, breaking 1,000 rushing yards for the first time in his career last season. And in the third round of this year’s draft, Arizona brought in Trey Benson of Florida State to inject some youth into the backfield. He’s an impressive athlete who should spell Conner’s workload nicely.
And then there’s the offensive line. Right now, it looks average at best, with the potential to actually be pretty bad. But there are a couple of reasons for hope at tackle.
On the right side is last year’s first-rounder, Paris Johnson. He didn’t look incredible in 2023, but he looked as good as you can reasonably expect for a rookie right tackle who played on the left side in college. A full offseason of development could work wonders for Johnson. There’s really no reason to doubt that won’t be the case.
On the left, the Cardinals signed former Cincinnati Bengal Jonah Williams in free agency. Williams switched to the right side in Cincinnati last year and struggled there, but before that, he showed consistent stopping power from the left. It’s probably a safe assumption that Petzing will move him back to the left in Arizona.
The Defense
There’s no nice way to put this: The Cardinals might have the worst defense in the NFL. They certainly did last year, and adding inexperienced rookies to the starting lineup probably won’t change that.
Edge defender Dennis Gardeck looked surprisingly great as a pass rusher in 2023, but that’s about where the praise ends on this side of the ball. And even Gardeck was a liability against the run.
One of the most interesting players to watch this year will be rookie defensive lineman Darius Robinson of Missouri. He has a strong build and is dynamic enough for Jonathan Gannon to deploy him all over the line, a true chess piece that can frustrate blockers.
But Robinson is still just a rookie (without quite the pedigree of Marvin Harrison, Jr.), as is second-round cornerback Max Melton of Rutgers. Safety Budda Baker is in a contract dispute with Arizona, and can only do so much to help a defense that largely lacks established talent.
Overall Outlook
Sportsbooks are putting the over/under of Arizona wins at 7.5. For context, last year’s over/under was 3.5, and they ultimately finished with a win-loss record of 4-13.
As this year’s line reflects, the Cardinals are clearly a better team than they were a year ago. But with such a young team, it’s reasonable to question just how much better they are. For all the optimism on offense, the defense just looks so weak that a Super Bowl appearance is almost certainly out of the question for this year. And it’ll be hard for Arizona to compete for an NFC West championship with such fierce competition – the San Francisco 49ers have been one of the best teams in the league for a while now, while the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams should both remain feisty.
If all goes right, they could compete for a Wild Card berth, though even that seems unlikely. A reasonable expectation would be right where the Vegas line has them: 7 or 8 wins. And if the trio of rookie starters (Harrison, Robinson, and Melton) all experience major growing pains, this could once again be a team that only wins three or four games.
