Red Rain Blog for Arizona Cardinals Fans

 PFSN's 2025 Top 100 NFL Players Features 4 Cardinals PFSN's Top 100 NFL Players for 2025: Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, and Josh Allen Continue to Ascend (profootballnetwork.com) Here are their NFC West Top Players by Overall Rankings 9. Jared Verse, DE, LAR 38. Fred Warner, ILB, SFO 40. George Kittle, TE, SFO 43. Puka Nacua, WR, LAR 50. Kobie Turner, DT, LAR 55. Julian Love, S, SEA 59. Trent Williams, T, SFO 61. Deommodore Lenoir, CB, SFO 69. Nick Bosa, DE, SFO 76. Budda Baker, S, ARI 78. Devon Witherspoon, CB, SEA 87. Jonah Williams, T, ARI 88. Brock Purdy, QB, SFO 91. Trey McBride, TE, ARI 92. Kyler Murray, QB, ARI Rams --- 3 49ers --- 6 Seahawks --- 2 Cardinals --- 4 Comments: 1. It's encouraging to see the Cardinals have 4 players selected. One more than the Rams. Two more than the Seahawks. Two fewer than the 49ers, which should be a motivation for the Cardinals to prove otherwise. 2. Jonah Williams comes as a surprise, especially choosing him over Paris Johnson Jr....

 Top 2 Priorities for the 2025 Arizona Cardinals' Defense by Walter Mitchell Number 1: Tackling Should any NFL defensive coaches be given a mulligan for their team's poor tackling? No.  This is professional football and professional football players are paid to tackle and tackle well. Yesterday during JG's presser, he exclaimed how tough his players in the secondary are. He said,  "We don't have one guy in the defensive backfield that's scared or a coward or doesn't wanna play with his pads." This statement is right in line with a theme that JG introduced to his players from day one: "I am looking for killers." The problem is --- JG's defensive players thus far in Arizona don't tackle consistently well. Not even close. Cardinals' 2024 PFF tackling grades: Garrett Williams --- 58.9 Budda Baker --- 62.0* (dude was #2 in NFL with 161 tackles, 122 solo and a whopping 55 stops, but he missed 28 tackles --- which reveals the fact that s...

Starting Zaven Collins at MILB and Baron Browning in the "Reddick OLB Role" is a Win-Win for the Cardinals' 2025 Defense  Opinion: This is the ideal starting lineup for the Cardinals' defense in 2025: LOLB Baron Browning LDE Calais Campbell NT Dalvin Tomlinson RDE Darius Robinson ROLB Josh Sweat MILB Zaven Collins WILB Owen Pappoe LCB Will Johnson SS Budda Baker FS Dadrion Taylor-Demerson RCB Garrett Williams Some might say, wait, isn't Zaven Collins the starter at LOLB? Well, guess what? This was reported yesterday by ESPN's Josh Weinfuss: Josh Weinfuss @joshweinfuss · 16h In the first padded 11-on-11 of camp, Zaven Collins lined up at ILB with the first-team defense. In my mind, this is a glory halleluiah development. Not only would Zaven Collins return to his most natural position, where at 6-5, 258 he can shed blockers and wreak thunderous havoc in defending the run --- and with his superior length and agility be the type of zone coverage playmaker the C...

 A Two-Dimensional Plan for the Arizona Cardinals CB Unit It was very tough to hear about Starling Thomas V's season-ending ACL injury on Day 3 of the Arizona Cardinals' training camp. Star's Cinderella ascension from tearing an ACL and losing his dear mom to cancer while at UAB to going undrafted in 2023 and after being claimed off waivers by the Cardinals becoming a 1st and 2nd year starter in the NFL is nothing short of compelling.  My message to Star:  https://x.com/WBJMItch/status/1949544884274090422 It was also difficult to hear that 2nd year CB Jaden Davis has been placed on the IR due to a knee injury. Jonathan Gannon said that Jaden has a chance to return to the field at some point this season. Davis had been making solid strides as a nickel CB and during OTAs he came through with a nifty TD-preventing interception while making a textbook break on the ball. Now that three of the Cardinals CBs on the 2024 depth chart are on the IR, let's take a look at the top c...

Early on at the Cardinals' training camp this week, Mack Wilson Sr. revealed that he will be wearing the green dot as the MIKE inside linebacker. Last season, Wilson started 16 games at the weak inside linebacker position. His PFF grades were as such:  * Overall: 63.8;  *  Run Defense: 68.5;  *  Tackling: 60.0;  * Pass Rush: 61.4;  * Pass Coverage: 56.8. It's yet another curious move by Jonathan Gannon and Nick Rallis. Wilson admitted that he hasn't played the MIKE position since his college days in Alabama. And while Wilson was solid against the run last season, his weakness was in pass coverage where he gave up 30 receptions on 35 targets for 237 yards, 188 of which were RACs, while recording 1 pass breakup, 1 interception and giving up 1 TD and a QB/RTG of 92.5. The reason why the team did not re-sign Kyzir White was that despite Kyzir being good versus the run last season (73.0) he struggled mightily in pass coverage (29.0). The supposed t...