Arizona Cardinals

Trey McBride caught one hundred and twenty-six passes for a tight end this year. One hundred and twenty-six. That's not a tight end season, that's a number-one wide receiver season disguised in a tight end's jersey. Here's how the Cardinals went from a two-and-oh start to a three-and-fourteen finish, what happened when Kyler Murray disappeared after Week 5, and the one defensive number that explains why nothing else mattered. Three wins. Fourteen losses. They missed the playoffs entirely, finishing ninth among NFC teams on the outside looking in. This was the year Arizona got muffed — and the data tells you exactly how it happened.

Let's set the table with the team numbers. Arizona's offensive expected points added on the season — that's the total value every offensive play added or subtracted from their scoring chances — was minus 19.9, which ranks twenty-third in the league. That's bad, but not catastrophic. The catastrophe lives on the other side of the ball. The defense allowed plus 93.1 expected points added on the season, twenty-seventh in the league. When we're talking defense, you want that number deep in the negatives — Arizona's was deep in the wrong direction. The third-down offense was actually a strength, converting forty-three percent, top ten in the league. But the season was boom-or-bust with a heavy lean toward bust — they were competitive through seven weeks, lost five one-score games before Halloween, then got blown out by twenty-two, nineteen, twenty-eight, twenty, and twenty-three points down the stretch. Turnover differential was a problem too, with just nineteen takeaways on defense.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. The headline number here is sacks allowed — fifty-nine of them on seven hundred and forty-eight dropbacks, a seven point nine percent sack rate, which puts Arizona in the top eight in the league for getting their quarterback hit the ground. Total passing expected points added was plus 2 on the season, basically league average at seventeenth — and honestly, given the protection breakdowns, that's a minor miracle. Jacoby Brissett carried this unit after Murray went down in Week 5. Brissett threw for three thousand, three hundred and sixty-six yards, twenty-three touchdowns and eight picks, with a completion percentage of sixty-five against an expected sixty-one point six — plus 3.4 above expected, top ten among qualified starters. He was accurate. He just had no time. And he had McBride, who turned one hundred and sixty-nine targets into one hundred and twenty-six catches, twelve hundred and thirty-nine yards, and eleven touchdowns. There's your passing offense in one sentence: an accurate veteran throwing to a star tight end while getting sacked nearly four times a game. The Brissett-to-McBride connection produced the season's signature do-or-die conversion — fourth and six, down thirty-one in Seattle in Week 10, fifteen-yard touchdown that meant nothing to the scoreboard and everything to the film room. That's the offense in a nutshell. The throws were there. The blocks weren't.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This is where Arizona got muffed worst on the offensive side. Four point three yards per carry, thirty-first in the league — only one team ran the ball less efficiently. Total rushing expected points added was minus 21.5, twenty-fourth in the league, on three hundred and sixty-seven attempts. Ninety-three point one yards per game on the ground, and nine rushing touchdowns all season — that is not enough touchdowns from your run game over seventeen weeks. The backfield was a committee with no answer. Michael Carter led the rotation with three hundred and thirty-three yards on ninety-two carries, one touchdown, and a rushing expected points added of minus 6.8. His yards over expected on the year was minus sixty-eight. The committee never produced a featured back, the run game never produced a featured identity, and the play-calling tilted heavily pass because the ground game simply did not work.

Next up, the pass defense. This is the unit that broke the season. Pass defense expected points added allowed was plus 89.49 on the year — and remember, on defense you want that number deeply negative, so plus 89 is brutal. That ranks in the nineteenth percentile league-wide. Arizona allowed thirty-one passing touchdowns, gave up two hundred and forty-two yards per game through the air, and generated only thirty sacks on the season — thirtieth in the league. They could not get home. They could not affect the quarterback. Q-B hits delivered was just sixty-nine on the year, in the thirteenth percentile. When you can't pressure and you can't sack, you can't take the ball away, and Arizona only forced eighteen takeaways total. There were bright spots — Josh Sweat had a strip-sack scoop in Week 1 against Carolina that he returned to the three, and an interception by Garrett Williams against Trevor Lawrence in Week 12 was worth seven expected points to the defense. But those moments were islands. The variance read here is brutal — they held three opponents under twenty points and gave up forty-plus in four different games down the stretch.

And the run defense. This one is closer to respectable, which only makes the pass defense look worse by comparison. Arizona allowed one hundred and twenty-nine point five rushing yards per game and nineteen rushing touchdowns, but total rushing expected points added allowed came in at just plus 3.65 — essentially neutral, thirty-eighth percentile. Per carry, opponents gained an expected points added of plus 0.01 against this run defense. So the math says the run defense roughly held serve. The problem was that opposing offenses didn't need to run — they could throw at will against the secondary, and they did. The run defense wasn't the villain in 2025. It was the bystander.

Arizona took a running back third overall. In a cycle where the consensus said don't spend top-five capital on the position, the Cardinals did it anyway — and the player they got rushed for 1,372 yards and 18 touchdowns at Notre Dame. Seven picks across seven rounds. One top-five headliner. The whole class tilts toward fixing what the offense couldn't do in 2025.

Start at the top. Arizona's 2025 rushing offense generated minus 21.5 expected points and averaged minus 0.06 expected points per carry — a unit that actively cost the offense points every time it handed off. Enter Jeremiyah Love at three. He went for 1,372 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns at Notre Dame, first in his conference and 17th and 10th nationally, with a long of 94. Add 27 catches for 280 yards and 3 scores out of the backfield. His predicted points added per play — the college equivalent of NFL expected points added — was plus 0.22, totaling plus 48.89 on the year. Top-of-the-board efficiency, workhorse volume, legitimate pass-game value. You can debate the positional cost. You cannot debate the player.

The offensive line surrendered 59 sacks and 129 quarterback hits in 2025, and the run game graded below replacement. Round two, pick 34: Chase Bisontis, guard, Texas A&M — and an athletic outlier. His Relative Athletic Score, the zero-to-ten grade comparing combine and pro-day testing to every player at his position since 1987, came in at 9.85. Top two percent of every guard ever tested. You don't fix that line with one rookie, but you start with the most athletically gifted interior lineman on the board. Arizona doubled back in round seven with Jayden Williams out of Mississippi, a developmental tackle whose 7.59 Relative Athletic Score lands in roughly the top quarter of tackles ever measured. Late-round dart, real testing baseline.

The 2025 passing offense finished essentially neutral in total passing expected points — behind a line that gave up those 59 sacks. So Arizona swung at quarterback in round three: Carson Beck, Miami, pick 65. Beck threw for 3,813 yards and 30 touchdowns in his final college season, second in his conference in both yards and touchdowns, fifth nationally in passing yards. He's 24, he's experienced, and at pick 65 he's exactly the swing that profile asks for. Round five, pick 143, added Reggie Virgil, wide receiver, Texas Tech — a 7.58 Relative Athletic Score, upper third of receivers historically. Late-round flier with a real athletic floor.

Arizona's run defense allowed 2,202 yards and 19 rushing touchdowns in 2025, and the fix is built on testing. Round four, pick 104: Kaleb Proctor, defensive tackle, Southeastern Louisiana. Relative Athletic Score of 9.15 — top decile of all defensive tackles ever measured — with conference-leading 2 sacks and second in tackles for loss with 3. Small-school production, big-time athletic profile. Round six, pick 183: Karson Sharar, linebacker, Iowa. 83 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, and a Relative Athletic Score of 9.71. Elite testing paired with real Big Ten tackle-for-loss production. Athletic bets, not finished products — but the baselines are loud.

Pick of the draft is Love at three, and the case isn't the highlight reel — it's the fit. You can argue Bisontis on pure Relative Athletic Score. You can argue Sharar as the best testing-to-production value on day three. Love wins because of what he does to the rest of the offense. Arizona in 2025 ran 71 percent shotgun and a pass rate over expected of plus 398.6 — leaning on the pass because the run wasn't a credible threat, and the quarterback got hit 129 times for it. Drop a back with plus 0.22 predicted points added per play and three-down receiving chops into that offense, and the math on every play call changes.

The 2026 stress test is whether the offensive investment shows up in offensive output. Love at three, Bisontis at 34, Beck at 65, Virgil at 143, Williams at 217 — five of seven picks went to the side of the ball that finished 2025 with a neutral passing grade, a deeply negative rushing grade, and one of the most pass-heavy game-state profiles in the league. Flip the run game from minus 21.5 expected points to even average, and the whole operation breathes. Monti Ossenfort said the board fell to them, that they got the players they wanted at the picks they were sitting on, and that every rookie is expected to carve out a role and help the team win.