Nick Rallis’ maiden voyage as an NFL coordinator was anything but memorable. While there were stretches where the Arizona Cardinals defense carried the team, the same thing can probably be said for most teams. You don’t get points for inconsistency.
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).
There were, of course, mitigating circumstances — a mountain of them.
The players had to learn new concepts and new terminology. That always takes time and the lack of familiarity led the staff t0 run a more basic defense.
While he received guidance from Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon, who was the defensive coordinator in Philadelphia for two seasons, Rallis, hired at age 29, was the youngest NFL coach to hold a coordinator position last season. Eleven players on the Cardinals’ 53-man roster were older than Rallis when he arrived, and he only had five seasons of NFL coaching experience on his résumé.
Rallis also inherited a poor defensive unit that was riddled with personnel issues and a lack of depth, both of which were further impacted by key injuries throughout the season.
Season 1 of the Monti Ossenfort-Gannon regime was always going to be as much about evaluation as much as it was about building. That’s what new regimes do. Everyone knew that roster changes would accompany the change in GM and coach, whether it came through the draft or through free agency.
Ossenfort drafted linebacker BJ Ojulari, defensive lineman Dante Stills, and defensive back Garrett Williams last season, while signing linebacker Kyzir White, nose tackle Roy Lopez and DB Starling Thomas. He selected defensive lineman Darius Robinson and DB Max Melton while signing cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, linebacker Mack Wilson Sr., and defensive linemen Bilal Nichols and Justin Jones this year.
In two seasons, Ossenfort has overhauled the defense.
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Will it be enough for marked improvement? It had better be, because the NFL is unforgiving to coaches and managers who don’t take quick advantage of the league’s parity-driven model.
It’s hard to be awful for three consecutive years under the NFL’s salary cap structure. The cap creates an environment where quick turnarounds are both possible and prevalent, as long as you have a good and healthy quarterback.
Kyler Murray is currently both.
“I would say we’ve improved in a lot of different ways,” Rallis said Thursday at the Cardinals training facility in Tempe. “I love what Monti was able to do over the course of the offseason and improve really the depth and the competitiveness of each position.
“Individually, there was a lot of improvement I saw from guys that were here last year going into the spring; from the start of spring to the end of spring. Guys committed to it and put a lot of work in and got better from a schematic standpoint, technique standpoint, physical, psychological, health, all of it.”
Rallis isn’t the only one responsible for defensive improvement, of course. Gannon’s Eagles-inspired defense will draw increased scrutiny this season, and Rallis’ players must perform better in 2024 than they did in 2023.
Outside linebacker Zaven Collins has to be more consistent.
For all the accolades that the 2023 draft class received, its first season in the NFL was just OK. Ojulari had an undisclosed procedure that slowed him down his rookie season, but he must build on the impact he made over the latter part of the season when he started earning regular playing time.
A free agency crop that received middling grades from national outlets must perform.
And the Cardinals will need some impact from their highly drafted rookies, Robinson and Melton.
“They’re highly intelligent, so conceptually, they can understand things at a high level pretty fast in the classroom and then even out on the field,” Rallis said of his rookie class. “Even if they mess something up on the field, they know it right away, which tells you they know it. They just need to bank the reps of the sensory process.”
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Nobody is sounding alarm bells about the Cardinals defense just yet. Nor should they. Given the enormity of the rebuild, first-year pains were to be expected, and there will be more growing pains in the next few seasons as Ossenfort continues his overhaul of the roster.
That said, Rallis’ grace period is over. The defense needs to show significant improvement this season. Preseason hype won’t accomplish that. Only performance will.
Top photo of Nick Rallis via Getty Images
