The Skeptic's NFL Training Camp Guide: NFC West
The Rams and Seahawks may be the two best teams in the NFL. The 49ers are almost as good when healthy, which is never. And then there are the Cardinals, who are so bad that even the search engines have forgotten them.
The Skeptic's Guide ends on a less skeptical note. There are two legitimate Super Bowl contenders in the NFC West, three if the 49ers' injury apocalypse finally abates.
Does that mean this segment will be less snarky than the last seven? You know better than that!
Arizona Cardinals
This is what it looks like when a professional sports franchise curls up into a little ball and gives up.
Leadership Structure
New head coach Mike LaFleur is a toddler tailing after his big brother and his pals while trick-or-treating, wearing one of those 1970s-style Halloween costumes that’s just a Sean McVay mask and a plastic overcoat with McVay’s face on it.
LaFleur’s offensive coordinator is Nathaniel Hackett, the only person ever to be kicked out of Aaron Rodgers’ entourage for incompetence.
Quarterback
Jacoby Brissett has a newly-adjusted contract and reported to training camp last week. Crisis averted! Congratulations to the Cardinals for successfully overcompensating the NFL's 27th-to-38th best quarterback after just a few months of fraught deliberation and unnecessary drama. Little victories!
Brissett’s challenger is Gardner Minshew, who probably spent his summer in the Estrella Mountains communing with the Gila monsters or something.
Offense
Trey McBride, Michael Wilson and rookie Jeremiyah Love will win lots of fantasy leagues by racking up garbage-time statistics. Marvin Harrison Jr.’s It’s a contract year! alarm may also go off.
Defense
Josh Sweat wants to be traded out of this chicken outfit, preferably to the Packers. Watch him end up with the Dolphins. Sweat began training camp on the Don't Wanna Be Here list. (The PUP list, technically.)
The Cardinals defense suffered so many injuries last year that they needed to borrow crutches and gauze tape from the 49ers. So this might actually be a league-average unit if it manages to enjoy league-average injury totals, and if Sweat is appeased.
Special Teams
Chad Ryland won the kicker battle from Josh Karty in minicamp. Karty will be kicking for the Jets by December.
Camp Stuff
So...
I entered “Cardinals camp battles” into my web browser, just as I did for 31 other teams during this series. Except that I entered “[Actual Team Name] camp battles,” but you probably gathered that. Anyway, the results included several articles about Kyler Murray’s progress in Minnesota, plus some features on baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals. One article promised to spotlight the Cardinals’ “corners,” but that turned out to be a reference to corner infielders.
One blog indicated that Cody Simon appears to be the frontrunner to start at inside linebacker beside Mack Wilson. That may not meet your recommended monthly allowance of Cardinals news, but it least fills out the word count on this subheader.
Early Thoughts
There will be all sorts of sound ‘n’ fury coming from Cardinals camp: the Brissett/Minshew quasi-competition, Sweat’s discontent, Love’s preparation for an immediate starring role, LaFleur’s attempt to instill a personality without having one of his own, whatever silliness Harrison dreams up.
What did Hamlet say about sound ‘n’ fury again? Oh yeah: it’s all bupkis. The Cardinals might be competitive, in a going-nowhere sort of way, in the NFC South. But in the NFC West, they’ll be lucky to win six games.
Los Angeles Rams
This is what it looks like when the Smartest Guys in the Room are actually the smartest guys in the room.
Leadership Structure
Sean McVay and Les Snead come across as jerkwads who brag about their glamorous lifestyle on Instagram. But you cannot deny that their lifestyle is pretty damn glamorous.
Quarterback
Matthew Stafford, aging like The Glenlivet.
Offense
Puka Nacua might possibly be an antisemitic cannibal, but he’s still one of the NFL’s most gifted playmakers. (And yes, I feel great about typing the previous sentence; thanks for asking.) Meanwhile, Davante Adams is still hanging around in the backs of end zones.
McVay probably just fiddled with three-tight end packages to beat opponents that the Rams could have beaten running the Delaware Wing-T, but it will be fun watching 20 teams trying to copy it while Puka and Adams combine for 3,000 yards.
Defense
Trent McDuffie AND Myles Garrett? Come the hell on, rest of NFL: at least try to act like you aren’t getting snookered.
