Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator Nick Rallis wouldn’t address the obvious at his media availability on Tuesday — even if the elephant was sitting in the front row, dressed in fire-engine red.
Six of the Cardinals’ first eight opponents made the 2023 NFL playoffs. The quarterbacks they will face in that stretch are the Bills’ Josh Allen, the Rams’ Matthew Stafford; the Lions’ Jared Goff; Heisman Trophy winner, former Sun Devil and Commanders QB Jayden Daniels; the 49ers’ Brock Purdy; the Packers’ Jordan Love (if he’s healthy); the Chargers’ Justin Herbert; and the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa.
Five of those QBs were ranked among the top 12 in the NFL by the league’s own website, and seven were ranked among the top 14. Four of those QBs were ranked in the top 10 in an ESPN survey of executives, coaches and scouts, and seven made the top 14.
The first half of the Cardinals season is daunting, and Rallis knows what pundits are saying about his defense which finished among the league’s worst units in myriad statistical categories last season.
In the 32-team NFL, the Cardinals finished 31st in points allowed (455), 29th in yards allowed per play (5.7), 28th in takeaways (17), 31st in first downs allowed (369), last in rushing yards allowed (2,434), 20th in passing yards allowed (3,613), 30th in sacks (33), 31st in QB pressures (98), and last in QB knockdowns (23).
Rallis didn’t have a lot of help last season in Monti Ossenfort‘s first year as GM, and he won’t have BJ Ojulari or Darius Robinson — Ossenfort’s top two defensive draft picks — when the Cardinals face the Bills on Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York.
But he insists he saw promise from his players in training camp and the preseason. So what was his message to his unit as the Cardinals begin this gauntlet of games?
“We’re focused on Buffalo, so the messaging is about how do we go win the game,” he said, effectively shutting down the long-range narrative before moving on to another question.
It’s an understandable approach for a coach. He doesn’t want his players thinking about anything other than the task at hand, but the players know how much this run of games will define what they are able to achieve this season. They know how good the competition is, and they know that this stretch will define external opinions of this defense.
“I just look at it as another opportunity to prove somebody wrong,” Cardinals defensive lineman Bilal Nichols said. “It ain’t the first time somebody took a knock at us. What are we going to do about it? I think that we have a great opportunity to change some minds.”
Like his coach, Nichols won’t be worrying much about that on Sunday. Allen — the highest ranked QB on that aforementioned list — will have the defense’s’ full attention.
“We’ve got to rush well as a unit. You’ve got to cover well as a unit, too,” coach Jonathan Gannon said. “If he gets out of the pocket, coverage can break down. You just can’t cover that long.
“We’ve got to do a good job at all three levels of containing him, making sure that we try to keep him in, affect him, and then not let him generate explosives [plays] with his legs or his arm off of play extension. It’s gonna be a big-time factor in the game.”
The last time a Cardinals team won in Buffalo was the clubs’ first-ever meeting in 1971 when the Cardinals were in St. Louis and OJ Simpson was in the Bills backfield. The teams haven’t played often since then, but the oddsmakers do not like the Cardinals chances, giving them the second-worst odds on the opening week of NFL action.
The Cardinals are hoping that additions such as Nichols, defensive lineman Justin Jones and linebacker Mack Wilson Sr. will help stabilize a front seven that had myriad issues last season.
They are hoping that an offense with weapons aplenty can shelter that defense by running the ball effectively behind James Conner and a physical offensive line. They are hoping that QB Kyler Murray, receivers Marvin Harrison Jr., Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch and tight end Trey McBride can put up enough points to outscore any deficiencies.
If the Cardinals can survive the first half of this season, they’ll get Robinson back, the schedule will get a little easier and momentum will be on their side. But Nichols repeated the age-old mantra of his coach when considering those possibilities.
“This is my seventh year in the league and that stuff that Nick’s saying is the stuff that I’ve been hearing since I was a rookie,” he said. “You have to take it one week at a time. When you start looking down the road on the schedule and you’re not focused on what’s going on in that present moment, that’s when you get yourself in trouble.
“Starting with Buffalo, we gotta go out there and play hard, play tough, and put who we want to be as a defense this year on tape. Everything else will handle itself.”
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3 Keys to a Cardinals victory
1. Contain Josh Allen: As Gannon noted above, the Cardinals can’t let Allen get out of the pocket and extend plays with his legs. That means sound rushing technique from the defensive front. It means containment.
“The first thing is you’ve got to be very aware of your rush mechanics,” Gannon said. “Whether you’re [a] three-man, four-man, five-man, six-man or seven-man [rush], you’ve got to be detailed out with who’s doing what, who’s responsible for what, and you’ve got to rush together very well because it does you no good for one guy to win a one-on-one and then [have] him escape through a B gap or an A gap or out the other back door.
“It’s kind of wasting the rush. You’ve got to be coordinated with that. Anytime you’re playing a mobile quarterback, that’s always the first thing that comes to my mind is rush mechanics.”
2. Establish James Conner: The Cardinals offensive line is built to run and the running back room features bell cow James Conner and Trey Benson, a pair of physical runners who can wear down a defense. The Bills run defense ranked 27th in yards allowed per rush (4.6) last season and linebacker Matt Milano is on injured reserve. With Milano, the Bills allowed 6.7 yards per attempt with no TDs and five interceptions. Without him they allowed 7.2 yards per attempt and seven TDs with no interceptions. If the Cardinals can dictate pace and win the time of possession — thereby keeping Allen off the field — they will be in good shape.
3. Exploit the middle: The Bills secondary and linebacking corps have been depleted by defections and injuries. Can tight end Trey McBride and slot receiver Greg Dortch take advantage, especially if Marvin Harrison Jr. is drawing double teams? The Cardinals have a clear skilled-player advantage. They need to lean into that advantage.
Final injury report
Quotable
“It [feels] just like we started camp yesterday and we’re sitting here today. You’ve got to maximize every day, and every second counts, but it’s a fun week. You haven’t played in a while so you’ve always got some emotion. You get a little bit of nervousness. You might have some anxiety. Anxiety, I think, has a negative connotation to it, but I don’t think it’s negative.”
— Jonathan Gannon on channeling the nerves that his team is feeling before the season opener in Buffalo
Game Notes
- Cardinals cornerback Max Melton faced Bills rookie receiver Keon Coleman when both played in the Big Ten; Melton at Rutgers, Coleman at Michigan State.
- Kyler Murray has started two season-openers on the road in his career. He is 2-0, beating the 49ers in San Francisco in 2020, and the Titans in Nashville in 2021. He threw for 519 yards and five TDs in those games. He ran for 11 yards and two more TDs.
- The Cardinals will feature seven starters who were not on the team last season, not counting special teams. They are WR Marvin Harrison Jr., OL Evan Brown, OL Jonah Williams, DL Bilal Nichols, DL Justin Jones, LB Mack Wilson Sr., and CB Sean Murphy-Bunting.
- A win would mark the Cardinals first victory in a season-opener on the East Coast since 1999.
- With 100-plus rushing yards, Conner would have three consecutive games with 100 or more rushing yards, matching Ottis Anderson (twice – 1979, 1980), David Johnson (2016), Stump Mitchell (1987) and John Grigas (1944) for the longest streak of games with 100-plus rushing yards in franchise history.
- Broadcast info: TV, FOX; Radio: 98.7 FM
Predictions
Top photo illustration by Shane Dieffenbach, PHNX Sports
