Cardinals' Deja Vu in Meaningful Games: 2-5 Tailspins
By Walter Mitchell
Over the past 4 seasons for the Arizona Cardinals with regard to meaningful games, their redundant failures have been like "deja vu all over again." (Yogi Berra).
Like 2-5 swoons "all over again."
2021 Scenario --- win 3 of the last 6 games to win the NFC West and get a home playoff game ---
Result: 2-5
@ CHI --- W 33-22
H LAR --- L 30-23
@ DET --- L 30-12
H IND --- L 22-16
@ DAL --- W 25-22
H SEA --- L 38-30
@ LAR --- L 34-11 eliminated from playoffs
Note: The Cardinals were favored in every game but @ DAL and @ LAR (Wild Card Round). They lost to a 1-10-1-win Lions team (ironically for the Cardinals' only road loss of the regular season) and they lost to the 6-10 Seahawks who had nothing but pride to play for with the chance to prevent the Cardinals from winning the NFC West.
2024 Scenario --- win 4 of the last 7 games to get into the playoffs and possibly win the NFC West.
Result: 2-5
@ SEA --- L 16-6
@ MIN --- L 23-22
H SEA --- L 30-18
H NE --- W 30-17
@ CAR --- L 36-30 OT
@ LAR --- L 13-9
H SF --- W 47-24
Note: The Cardinals were 6-4 heading into the Seahawks game. After losing to the Seahawks for the second time in three games, looking worse prepared at home than on the road, the Seahawks, under first-year HC Mike Macdonald had improved 8-5 while the Cardinals had fallen to 6-7. With the tiebreaker, the Seahawks essentially had secured a 3-game lead over the Cardinals for a playoff berth with 4 games remaining. The Cardinals' loss to the then 3-11 Panthers, who had lost 30-14 a home the week before to the Cowboys, was the rock bottom ending to the Cardinals' playoff hopes. By the way, of the Cardinals last 7 games, they were favored to win in 5 of them.
2025 Scenario --- with the first stretch games being the perceived easiest part of the Cardinals' schedule (Cardinals favored in every one of the first five) they needed to win at least 4 of the first 7 games to be in a position to challenge for a playoff berth.
@ NO --- W 20-13
H CAR --- W 27-22
@ SF --- L 16-15
H SEA --- L 23-20
H TEN --- L 22-21
@ IND --- L 31-27
H GB --- L 27-23
Result: 2-5
Two straight down to the wire wins, followed by 5 straight down to the wire losses. While one can argue that the offense had done just quite enough to win all 7 games, the fact is that the offense has had its chance to win every game in the 4th quarter, yet they have been 0-6 closing out games, while the defense has been 2-5.
Commentary:
A 2-5 stretch is a winning percentage of .286.
Kyler Murray's record in these three meaningful win scenarios is 6 - 13, a winning percentage of .316.
Monti Ossenfort's and Jonathan Gannon's 14-27 overall record after 41 games is a winning percentage of .342.
The reason why these winning percentages are important to note, particularly the ones in meaningful games, which Monti and JG are 4-10 in thus far at a winning percentage of .286, because if and when the Cardinals are no longer playing meaningful playoff-implicated games this season and they suddenly play better without the pressure of having to win, would it be wise to think that maybe the coaches and the $230M QB deserve another chance to see if they can turn things around in 2026?
The other thing is --- a number of Cardinals' fans are of the belief that Monti and JG deserve a chance to see how they would do with another starting QB of their choice. The first question that this scenario begs is whether the coaching staff has a genuine talent for developing maximizing the skills at the all-important QB position. Do they?
To be fair, Jacoby Brissett's level of play the past two weeks has given us a closer look at how well a sturdy pocket passer can play in Drew Petzing's offense. But we also have seen the consistent 4th quarter meltdowns on defense that would and should also put in question as to whether the current coaching staff will ever be capable of coaching the team how to finish out close, meaningful games. Do you believe the current coaching staff can?
Or will it be deja vu all over again, again?
Difficult for me to have any faith in the staff and FO to improve enough in any facet of their job performance to compete in the NFCW since I do not believe they have a remote shot at winning enough games to keep them from drafting top 5. The MO/JG rebuild lags well behind other rebuilds over 3 seasons-Seattle, Broncos, Texans, Colts, Chargers, Pats, Commanders.
ReplyDeletePS. Following the Cardinals is deja vu as in recurring failure dysfunction and ineptitude.
ReplyDeleteThis coaching staff has had three years to prove they could (a) improve personnel (b) develop draft selections, and (c) build a sustainable culture of winning. Now folks are talking another three (3) year rebuild is necessary. I am not convinced another three year rebuild is necessary. But we have failed in all three areas they wanted to improve. Consequently the biggest roster changes are in leadership roles (coaches & QB).
ReplyDeleteWhen organization was looking to moving on from Keim/Kingsbury there was a lot of talk about how the new staff might be the next Detroit Lions (Holmes/Campbell) as comparison of Ossenfort/Gannon hirings. That hope has faded in year three. As we all witness the lack of culture, lack of player development, and failure of our draft selections.
It is a crying shame to think all three NFC West teams have had personnel needs and need of asst (and head coach SEA) replacements in the same time period. While as Cardinals organization makes excuses for players and coaching staff our NFC West competition has no issues with replacing personnel and coaches to keep a winning record. Many other NFL teams (ie. WAS, HOU) have done better too.
OPINION: So it really is a question of making mistakes in hiring of FO/Coaches leading to bad draft choices, bad personnel development, and bad culture. How can anyone work for Bidwill affect a positive culture change when Bidwill remains in place with his cheapskate tactics (like vending machines, poor training facilities, etc...). Keep in mind that is what happened with DET too (Sheila Ford-Firestone), changed the culture in hirings. Could we ever hope for such a change? Not likely.
The saying "idiots tend to hire idiots" describes a well-documented phenomenon in which less-competent people hire or promote other incompetent people.
DeleteAffinity bias: Hiring executives (Bidwill) tend to favor candidates who are similar to themselves, whether in background, interests, or personality. This can perpetuate a cycle where incompetent managers hire people who share their own flaws.
"Birds of a feather flock together." In a more general sense, people tend to gravitate toward and feel comfortable with those who are similar to them. This extends to the workplace, where incompetent individuals may feel more at ease in a similarly low-performing environment, and therefore have no motivation to improve the team by hiring more capable people.
Bidwill and his franchise are the perfect example.
Player talent wise this team started the season as a top 15 team but the coaching staff is a bottom 5 IMO. Up until recently, I've been defending MO but this inexperienced coaching staff is on him.
ReplyDeleteThe question for me is if MB is willing to actually pay the money for an experienced coaching staff and give them the freedom to coach the right way. If MO wants to be cheap with the coaching staff and wants to meddle with major roster decisions like first round picks and who the starting QB is, then I don't think it matters who the coaches are.
ReplyDelete