The Arizona Cardinals are on the verge of a full-blown identity crisis.

After Sunday’s disastrous blown-lead loss to the Tennessee Titans, the Cardinals face yet another gloomy Monday. Another game Arizona had every possible opportunity to win slipped through the fingers of a team that currently looks broken in nearly every non-defensive category.

There’s plenty of ugliness to gaze upon this season — incriminating statistics, poor individual player lines and mind-boggling mistakes. But the aftereffect of losses like Sunday’s goes much deeper.

The Cardinals, suddenly, have a massive identity problem — a problem that (for the past two seasons) felt long-dead and buried.

Cardinals Creating Identity Problem

When GM Monti Ossenfort and head coach Jonathan Gannon took over prior to the 2023 season, fans knew they were in for a poor season (or two). Rebuilds are a necessary evil when looking to purge the dysfunction of the previous regime.

And for the first two seasons, Arizona got essentially what was expected. They had a feisty, talent-needy team that could challenge contenders on any given Sunday — but clearly needed reinforcements.

Ossenfort and Gannon were looked at as a breath of fresh air — a pair of mature adults who were finally capable of pushing the Cardinals in a more serious, fundamentally-sound direction from the inside out.

And yet, suddenly, that perception is rapidly changing. That’s not a surprise in the results-based NFL, by any means.

But now, for the first time since the new regime took over, Arizona no longer feels like a rising, newly-competent organization headed in the right direction. Instead, they’ve reverted back to the same inconsistent mess of a team that fans have endured for the majority of the last several decades.

Some of the key selling points when Gannon and Ossenfort were brought in were the “fire in the gut” mentality. The “killer” mindset. The “no ego in this organization” rule.

And yet, in year three, with the most talented roster in this regime’s young tenure, the Cardinals have displayed a lack of offensive urgency, a (general) lack of visible emotion or passion, no such killer instincts, and game-breaking mistakes. Their two wins were ugly and uninspiring. Their three losses have been infuriating “what if?” games.

That lack of aggression and fire was exemplified on Sunday, as the Cardinals ran the ball unsuccessfully three times with a chance to ice the game. They did not put the ball in the hands of Kyler Murray, Trey McBride or Marvin Harrison Jr., and gave the ball back to the Titans, who marched down the field for a game-winning drive.

“Yeah, I talked to Drew [Petzing] about [the play call],” Gannon said on Monday. “I think we’ve got to put our guys in a little better spot there. We were expecting one thing, they didn’t give it to us. I could have used a timeout there, that’s something I could have [done] a little but better, because I know he didn’t really love the call either.”

The call itself was playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. Not calling a timeout to rectify the call is another issue, entirely.

Fans can point fingers at anyone. It’s Gannon’s fault, Ossenfort’s fault, Murray’s fault, Petzing’s fault. While not inaccurate, it’s also not entirely productive, nor do any one of those culprits hold enough sole responsibility to assume their departure would cure all. Cleaning house completely doesn’t seem like much of an option, either, unless Arizona wants to watch its football team flounder under its fourth coaching staff since Bruce Arians exited.

So is it all doomed? Rationally speaking, no, as much as it may feel like it is. But there isn’t much time left to re-establish the identity Gannon came in to establish.

How Cardinals Can Re-Establish Identity

The Cardinals are about to face some tougher opponents. The Colts, Packers and Cowboys all lie ahead, with more NFC West matchups right behind them. Arizona, outside of its Thursday night matchup with Seattle, has not played a genuine contender this season — unless Mac Jones’ 49ers are as legitimate as they seem now.

Think back to the Cardinals’ 2023 and 2024 seasons. What wins stand out the most? Perhaps it was defeating the Super Bowl champion Eagles in Philadelphia, or taking down the perennially-winning Steelers in Pittsburgh.

Maybe it was sweeping the San Francisco 49ers, or dropping 41 points in a blowout win over Sean McVay’s Rams. Maybe, even, it was downing the Cowboys in 2023 behind Joshua Dobbs and a nearly XFL-level defense.

The point? The Cardinals’ identity was being a tough out — fighting hard and playing up to tough competition. It wasn’t about the run game, or the offensive scheme. It was about a tangible, nearly-delusional belief inside the locker room that Arizona could hang with some of the league’s best.

Is it realistic to imagine the Cardinals making the playoffs after the start they’ve had and the losses they’ve endured? No, likely not. But maybe, just maybe, a few heavyweight bouts with contenders can up the energy level.

Maybe it’s a coaching deficiency that Arizona looks unprepared for inferior (in terms of talent) opponents. Strangely enough, it’s been the poorer opponents that have forced the toughest outcomes to swallow in recent seasons (think Giants in 2023, Panthers in 2024).

It’s hard to match that deficiency up with what we’ve seen the Cardinals do against tougher teams. Clearly, there’s something internally that needs adjustment.

“Collectively, we have to do a better job, and it feels like that’s now three games in a row that I’m saying the same thing,” Gannon said after Sunday’s loss.

“But until we do a better job, we’re going to keep losing. It’s never about one play, never about one phase, all of us collectively have to do a better job. … Our sense of urgency, our connectedness is always there. It obviously needs to increase, because time’s ticking.”

That is ultimately the only way for Arizona to recover from Sunday’s loss. They have to find a way to compete (and win) against some of the immense obstacles ahead.

If the Cardinals do, there’s absolutely hope in this regime. The hard-nosed identity can live on, resurrected by results. But if Arizona walks out of their matchups with Indianapolis, Green Bay or Dallas looking like the clearly-inferior team, its previously-utilized philosophy will no longer carry enough weight to justify the agonizing installation process.

And that may signal the end of hope for this iteration of the Cardinals.