It would be an understatement to proclaim that the National Football League is a weekly battle for survival. Survival of the fittest, many might say.
The reality is that many of the lazy narratives that described the Cardinals Collapse late last season ignored the obvious: the team was decimated by injury or COVID-19 and it wasn’t only the loss of wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to a knee injury during the Week 14 game against the Rams.
Running backs James Conner and Chase Edmonds were active for the same game only once in the final nine games of the regular season. Wide receiver Rondale Moore, a significant part of the early-season success, was inactive for the final three games.
Center Rodney Hudson missed the losses to the Lions and Colts while on reserve/COVID-19, while left tackle D.J. Humphries was on the COVID-19 list for the Week 17 win over Dallas, but wasn’t himself in the season finale against Seattle or in the playoff loss to the Rams. The Cardinals were 9-3 with Hudson last season and 2-3 without him. No wonder he was one of the eight team captains announced Wednesday.
Eight different players started on the offensive line in 2021 and the unit was gassed by the end of the season.
Defensive end J.J. Watt was injured when the Cardinals moved to 7-0 and they were 4-6 in the final 10 games without him. Cornerback Marco Wilson’s regression might have begun when he missed the final two games because of a shoulder injury. Safety Budda Baker and linebackers Jordan Hicks and Isaiah Simmons were the only players on the entire roster that started all 17 games.
Heck, even the absence of punter Andy Lee contributed mightily to the Week 16 loss to the Colts because he wasn’t available to hold for Matt Prater’s kicks. Prater missed two field-goal attempts and an extra-point attempt thanks to poor holds in a 22-16 loss.
OK, I know what many of you are thinking: Enough of the excuses. After all, players and coaches parrot ”the next-man-up” mantra, while not addressing that normally there’s a reason many players are backups. All teams have injuries, right? Heck, even head coach Kliff Kingsbury fell into the usual coach-speak trap Monday when he was asked about the team’s current injuries, especially at cornerback, and said, “It’s not ideal, but everybody’s dealing with something this time of year.”
Maybe something, but not all injuries are created equal. When they come in bunches to crucial players that makes it difficult to compete, it’s an explanation of reality, not an excuse.
The scary part now is that while everyone is pumped for the start of another season, the Cardinals appear to be picking up where they left off last season on the injury front and that doesn’t include the suspension of Hopkins for the first six games.
For that game against the Rams, the Cardinals listed two players (Conner and running back Jonathan Ward) as not practicing on Friday with six limited (Edmonds, Moore, left guard Justin Pugh, defensive end Zach Allen, defensive tackle Jordan Phillips and Wilson). Pugh was added that day with a recurrence of the calf injury that cost him three games earlier in the season.
Only Ward and Phillips were inactive against the Rams, but many of the others likely wouldn’t have played had it been a regular-season game. Only two did not practice for the Rams while two were limited.
Wednesday, the Cardinals listed three players out of practice because of injury and five were limited.
Not working were edge rusher Markus Golden (toe, really?), recently acquired cornerback Trayvon Mullen Jr. (toe) and Watt (calf). Mullen underwent surgery in May, presumably for the toe injury that limited him to five games with the Raiders last season. Kingsbury said he’s not sure if he will be available Sunday.
Limited were tight end Zach Ertz (calf), Pugh (neck), Ward (shoulder), linebacker Ezekiel Turner (shoulder) and long snapper Aaron Brewer (ankle).
How does that compare with the rest of the league? There were only two teams, Detroit with three and New Orleans with four, that had more players not practicing. Two teams, Cleveland and Detroit, also had five players limited, while Miami had nine. That’s it.
Oh, did I mention that Kansas City had no players not practicing or limited?
Or that backup quarterback Colt McCoy laned on reserve/injured with a calf injury Wednesday, necessitating the signing of Trace McSorley from the practice squad and the addition Jarrett Guarantano the practice squad?
Meanwhile, Golden’s absence since Aug. 1 resulted in Devon Kennard being listed as his backup on the depth chart even though Kennard isn’t on the active roster! Kingsbury said he “earned that,” but cynics might say if he earned it, he should still be on the 53-man roster. However, Kingsbury added, “We had a feeling he’d be activated (elevated) pretty much each week. And that’s where he belonged to be placed. And that’s where we put him.”
Teams are allowed two players to be elevated from the practice squad for each game.
Finally, there is another mystery with Hudson, who had many wondering in the offseason why he skipped minicamp. Kingsbury only added to the intrigue by claiming his absence was “unexcused,” while later acknowledging they knew he was deciding whether to continue playing. The head coach dodged a question in camp that wondered why that wouldn’t be excused.
Hudson was said to have a knee issue in training camp and rarely practiced. He did not practice Wednesday for what was listed as NIR-Rest (not injury related), the official description of a veteran’s day off.
However, when asked about him, Kingsbury said, “Rodney has gotten better each week, but we want to make sure he’s completely healthy before we put him out there.”
It often seems we need detective Hercule Poirot to get to the bottom of it all.
Consider that it was Poirot who famously said, “It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within; not without.”
These little gray cells will always pursue it.
Follow me on Twitter @hbalzer721 and don’t hesitate to comment there or ask questions.
