Ever since the beginning of the Cardinals 2022 season one main area of focus was the Cardinals defense. It was a tumultuous end last year with the Rams putting a beating on the Cardinals during Super Wild-Card Weekend. Over the offseason, Chandler Jones signed a contract with the Las Vegas Raiders, losing one constant that had produced double-digit sacks every season with the Cardinals.
As everyone knows by now, the Cardinals made no moves during the offseason or by the trade deadline to address the position opposite of Markus Golden. Golden last year led the team in sacks with 11 but this year he stands at 1.5. This year, the Cardinals have 23 sacks total on the year, being led by J.J. Watt with 6.5 and Zach Allen having a breakout season with 4.5. Both are interior guys, but the guys at the edge have only produced 6.5 sacks, with Myjai Sander having 2 and Cameron Thomas adding another 2.
What’s astonishing is the ILB’s have a combined 5 sacks, Simmons with 3, and Zaven with 2 (both coming in the Seattle loss in Seattle). Any sacks not coming from a defensive linemem or edge usually is an indication that they were produced in one of two ways, blitzing or spying. That was the calling card for Vance Joseph; even without superior edge rushers, he was able to produce pressure and sacks.
We remember the 2020 season as the one Chandler Jones went down with a biceps injury. He had single sack and that came against the 49ers in Week 1. Chandler didn’t look like the dominant edge rusher from the year before where he accumulated 19 sacks and was 2nd in defensive player of the year voting. When Chandler went down, our edge rusher room included the newly signed and first stringer Devon Kennard, the former ILB and special teamer Dennis Gardeck, and the shopped around 1st round bust Haason Reddick.
You can see from the names why there was so much concern for our pass rush. Devon Kennard, who was the offseason acquisition, had a high of 7 sacks which he accomplished in back-to-back years. That being said the Cardinals ended up with a total of 48 for the year, ranking them 4th. A feat the 2021 Cardinals didn’t achieve; they only produced 41 sacks ranking them 13th in the league. The outlier for the 2020 season was really two different variables, the ascension of Haason Reddick at OLB, and the crazy efficiency of Dennis Gardeck. Haason ended up with 12.5 sacks on the year and Dennis had 7.
Both Haason and Dennis had similar body frames and styles being small bodied 6″0-6″1 235 LB frames but still managing to become the Cardinals leading sack-getters. This led to the perception that Vance Joseph was the mastermind behind this. Of course, 2 years later Haason stands with 10, and 11 the season before when he played for the Panthers. Haason has the technique of an DE/OLB because of his college usage, Dennis, on the other hand, was an anomaly, and thus far with the Cardinals this year he hasn’t been able to replicate that 2020 performance.
Why are things so different this year?
So what’s the deal this year, we stand with 23, J.J. and Allen leading the way. There are a few factors that are hampering this defense and I would say the scheme is the main one. Last year and the years prior the Cardinals had an established pass rusher, an established cornerback, or both. In 2020, both Haason and Dennis were used in Tex stunts often allowing them to use their natural leverage to bullrush linemen who are inches taller and sometimes 100 lbs heavier. They also had Patrick Peterson and Dre Kirkpatrick. It’s been no secret that Vance trusts veterans more often then young players, and I noticed that Vance is not comfortable playing press with young players. This year has seen a lot of off-ball coverage. After hours and hours of watching the Cardinals defense this year, I can say with all confidence the number of times our defensive backs play press and don’t end up blitzing is less than 1 percent.
The NFL is a copycat league but it’s also a league of adjustments and counters to said adjustments. We all know that running the ball has been crucial to offensive success for decades now, which was why the running back was so important to an offense. The counters to those measures were having bulk on the defensive line with linebackers ranging from 250-270 lbs and being around 6″3-6″4. That was the reason why power running schemes were dominant in those eras, and play action was the result of taking advantage of defenses stopping the run. We are going through a different era now where the game has gotten faster and much more athletic. It is a pass-heavy league where speed dominates, allowing for positions to be smaller in stature.
In the new pass-heavy league, defenses have been aggressive in going after the QB, but recently, OC’s have been combating the blitz, making it so defenses now have backed off and are taking away the deep ball. Vance definitely has one part of that equation, but he adds another part that is hampering the defense when getting to the QB.
If you heard my podcast with Walter Mitchell on the Red Rain podcast, I threw out stats from the last time the Cardinals played and they were telling. According to Sports Info Solutions as of November 26th (they are different now of course) when the Cardinals rushed four they ranked 29th in sacks with 8 (now 9), 11th in hurries with 67, 7th in hits with 63, 5th in knock downs with 33, and 20th in pressures. That number gets better with 5 pass rushers, which is the usual look in a 3-4 defense. With 5 pass rushers, they are 4th in sacks with 10, they led the league in hurries with 44, led the league in hits with 43, led the league in knockdowns with 17, led the league in pressures with 69 (nice). With 6 pass rushers, they are 8th in sacks with 2, 8th in hurries with 8, 7th in knockdowns with 3, 8th in pressures with 13.
Those numbers tell a story, the only way to decipher what these numbers tell us is by watching the film, and of course if anyone knows a thing or two about my articles, I love incorperating film.
Let’s get to the film, already!
The reasoning behind running this type of scheme is simple. Keep everything underneath and in front of you and trust that the blitz will get there to cause a play or a bad decision. Now, given certain circumstances that can be a great philosophy, for example, against younger QB’s or those who are bad against the blitz. But just like the arms race for adjustability in the NFL, teams have developed plays to punish those zone-pressure looks. More and more has been incorporated sooner and sooner in young QB’s careers. We have a great example in that with our own QB Kyler Murray.
Last year when Kyler was blitzed during his hot start he had a 156.7 passer rating. That’s a huge jump from when he was a rookie when he had a 77.2 passer rating. Obviously, those numbers show that when you haven’t seen certain looks in the NFL when reading defenses, you have a harder time beating those looks. Offensive coordinators combat those looks with hot routes, screen plays, and throws to the direction of that blitz.
There have been tells that tip-off that we are executing a blitz, it’s up to everyone on the offense to call it out in order to set up protection. Everyone has tape on this defense and they work towards combating those blitz calls.
Here, Mecole Hartman is pointing out Byron Murphy on this look. Nothing else tipped off that Byron was coming other than how close he was to the LOS (line of scrimmage). This isn’t the first time players move closer in order to blitz, but in back-to-back downs Vance dials up corner blitz off the edge, both of which didn’t alter the play.
This was the first drive of the game where the Chiefs moved down the field to score. In the first clip, Isaiah creeps up to line, trying to time it perfectly in order to use his momentum. The idea behind it is to catch opposing offenses off guard in order to get a free run at the QB. But by doing so, Isaiah had to call out help on Mecole, resulting in Zaven having to cover the deep crosser, almost resulting in a TD pass. Not sure that’s a matchup I want, but that won’t be last time I promise.
This play represents what the result is when Vance gives blitz looks and teams max protect. Often times, Vance will bring his LB’s to the LOS, pulling them into the underneath zones at the last second. This causes a problem for the pass rushers up front in that when he bails them out, there is now more pass pro than needed. This creates double teams across the board, effectively killing any chance of a pressure or sack.
You see how much time Derek had to deliver the throw and it doesn’t help that Marco is taught to bail with all the cushion he’s giving Holland. That makes it easy for Holland to dig his route in between zones. To add to it, the Cardinals run zones like they do in high school: drop into your zone and watch the QB. The proper way to play zones is you play man on any defender who’s in your zone till you have to hand the route off. At the time Derek releases the ball, every WR, with the exception of one, is open in between zones with 7 defenders in coverage.
There is a play I want to highlight, it happened in the first drive of the game. It was a great combination of good coverage and a pass rusher winning his one-on-one.
This was man across the board, with what you can call a 4-2 over front. The Cardinals boundary corners are up at the LOS but not in press stance, more of a mirror or a bail stance. The quick throw option was taken away with both corners not giving cushion for WR’s to plant and turn, but it helped that Watt faked the tackle thinking it was a power move, then switching to a swim move to give Carr no chance to react. Sadly this was one of the only times this combination was used.
This film is an example that I found too often, I believe that when the pass rush does get there with the 4-5 man fronts, the coverage behind them lets them down. As you see above, JJ Watt and Devon Kennard force Matthew Stafford to step out of the pocket. This moves him away from his protection to which DT #90 takes a straight shot at Stafford. Unfortunately, our linebackers lose the tight end in coverage, giving Stafford the opening he needed. This is a huge reason the Cardinals are ranked 25th currently in passing yards given up. These openings give QB’s easy completions to avoid any pressures and sacks.
By now we know Vance’s trademark is the double mugs alignment on 3rd and longs. Just as the example I showed earlier, what an offense does to counter the look is to go max protection, usually out of 11 personnel. The reasoning once again is to not allow the offense time to know where the pressure is coming from, leaving OLinemen to stay in place sometimes blocking no one. Offensive coordinators have picked on this and are countering by keeping max protection. In turn, this causes some of our pass rushers to face double teams or creates more traffic to get after the QB. On this play, they were able to flush Jalen Hurts out of the pocket, but once again the coverage on the back end lets them down. Hamilton is on coverage on DeVonte Smith, DeVonte cuts his route to the wide open void between the zones with no one picking him up (I believe Hamilton was handing this route off to the deep middle zone, who was Budda’s assignment) and allowed the first down conversion on 3rd and 13.
The double mugs alignment has also been a factor in holding back the pass rush with what I mentioned protection wise, but also with how they are teaching our linebackers to cover the underneath zone they are assigned. I will be covering the double mugs alignment in my next article. There is an eerie similarity to the Seahawks’ 2019 defense. They ran a zone pressure scheme, handling the run by throwing bodies at the LOS. No run fit scheme just the same way Vance handles the run. Just like the Cardinals this year, the blame was heavily placed on the pass rush, but giving opposing offenses easy completions did not help their cause in any way.
