Did the Cardinals do it with smoke and mirrors?

[LACHAMP46]

should i hazard a guess or was this a rhetorical question?

.

LOL....Shoulda been in BLUE FONT.....but I digress.....LOL

 

[blue4]

No smoke and mirrors. They got lucky a few times, but made the plays to capitalize. They stayed focused, minimized mistakes, and had coaches and coordinators who could make in game adjustments. Imagine what we could have done with our talent if not for repeated bonehead plays, poor playcalling, and stupid penalties. I give Arizona credit for taking a team with 8-8 talent to 11-5 while losing two QBs. I don't think you can overlook a team like that. I guarantee Seattle is not.

 

[blue4]

Which is why I'm not a fan of Run centric offenses. Hard to recover from mistakes.

Absolutely. I think we've agreed on this before in another thread. Every facet has to work in every game.

 

[ram007]

Here we go:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/arizona-has-a-numbers-problem/

 

[HometownBoy]

The NFL only has 16 games which is why the numbers always lie. The sample size is just too small to think "24th ranked" means everything, there's always hidden stories underneath in the individual game results themselves. I think what jumps out to most people about the AZ season is the QB situation -- e.g. "wow they won 11 games even without Palmer!" -- and you have to factor that in to rankings. But to me it's their turnovers -- specifically takeaway luck -- that makes me conclude they had more wins due to smoke & mirrors. I think they are a good team but not 11 wins good.

They jumped out to a 9-1 record primarily because they had a +11 turnover margin in their first ten games, then they went minus-3 over the rest of the season to go 2-4.

The Palmer injury was a factor, but it's not like the backup QBs became turnover machines. Their giveaways without Palmer were only about a half turnover per game worse than with him (and of course Stanton was magically mistake-free against the Rams). The huge difference in their season was their defense *takeaways* went from 19 in the first 9 games (2.1 per game) to 6 in the final 7 games (less than 1 per game).

Perhaps losing their starting QB affected the defense's aggressiveness and ball hawking, but I still think a lot of that 9-1 record came from just a lot of takeaway luck. Here's a good article on it: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-arizona-cardinals-have-been-the-luckiest-team-in-the-nfl/

I think you and Mojo nailed it.

Sometimes you can't just take stats at face value and then not consume anything else. So much goes into making an NFL team, like any other sport sometimes the stats simply don't tell the full story.

 

[Fatbot]

Here we go:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/arizona-has-a-numbers-problem/

Good (and timely) read, thanks. The conclusion is pretty much what I think: "It’s not hard to imagine the Cardinals being good. It’s just hard to imagine them being as lucky."

 

[PFaulk]

Well, this probably won't help matters as Palmer coalesces from his ACL reconstruction.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JasonLaCanfora/status/629070557523283968

Michael Floyd out six weeks with three broken fingers in his hand.

 

[Ram65]

This has become my favorite subject...I've talked about it a lot lol.

Week 1 - home against the Chargers - with SD getting in position to take the lead, they snap the ball over Rivers' head. Takes them out of scoring range - Chargers lose by 1. I bet that was the only snap over the head of Rivers all year - pure luck for the Cardinals.

Week 2 - at NYG - that team was a dumpster fire the first few weeks, and got much better with OBJ

Weeks 3, 6, and 7 - played the Niners at home, Redskins at home, and at Oakland - all pretty bad teams...the Niners win was impressive

Week 8 - win over Eagles was close, but impressive nonetheless

Week 9 - played Cowboys without Romo....who ended up having the best passer rating in the NFL

Week 10 - beat the Rams - but were losing going into the 4th quarter against the Rams 3rd string QB

Week 11 - beat Lions at home in a close game - impressive win

Weeks 14 and 15 - won close games over the Chiefs and Rams - Chiefs at home and Rams on the road on Thursday night

That Thursday night game, the Rams got ran all over. During Thursday night games all last year, there was weirdness. Usually blow outs. The Rams were coming off back to back shut outs. I think if that game was on Sunday we would have clobbered the Cards, so I call that luck of the draw for them. Win over the Chiefs was a good win, but very close game.

SO - that's their 11 wins - out of those, 4 of them were impressive. Of those 4 wins, only 1 came against a team that actually make the playoffs (Lions). I guess you could call the two wins against the Rams impressive, which would make 6 impressive wins with only 1 coming against a playoff team. All their impressive wins save for one was at home (at STL).

Their losses tell a more accurate story IMO. This is a .500 at best team next year.

Their coach gives them something extra...See description below. I agree they had some luck on their side.

2 things about them really stand out to me on the per drive stats.

1.) They did a great job limiting their turnovers. (.097 per drive, fifth in the NFL).

2.) Semi-related, their defense has an excellent advantage in terms of starting field position against them 6th in the league, teams started on AVG at the 25.6 yard line).

So, opponents had to march down the field further than most against them to score. Then you think about Campbell breathing down the opposing QB's neck when a drive against them starts to stall, Peterson (in the first half of the season, before he fell off a cliff), Cromartie, Honey Badger in the secondary tightening up...

But then they lose Palmer, Peterson's play does fall off a cliff, and they struggle. 4-5 down the stretch...

Limiting TOs helps a lot.
Their D Line stopped the Rams running game cold. Should have a harder time this year. Campbell is a monster.

My 2 cents:
1) Excellent red zone defense
2) Teams didn't gameplan very intelligently against them IMO
3) Palmer when healthy is a pretty good QB
4) They only surrendered 49 points directly off turnovers all season(4th best in the NFL behind Seattle, Green Bay and New England). Our Rams surrendered 102 pts(2nd worst)....for reference.
5) Arians is the offensive play-caller, and that bloated, classless turd is good at it.

That it's that bloated, classless turd............All good points. I like these posts. I don't think they will keep up that kind of winning. The Rams need at least split or take two.

 

[snackdaddy]

I believe the Cardinals and Rams are in a similar situation when it comes to costly mistakes such as turnovers, penalties, blown assignments, etc. Neither team is good enough to overcome them. But the Cardinals do a better job of avoiding them than the Rams. Are they more disciplined? Is the coaching better? If the answer is yes to both of them, then Fisher and his assistants need to crack the whip more in practice. That is where you learn the good habits.