ESPN’s Barnwell: Cardinals primed to improve because of Kyler Murray and more

A healthy Kyler Murray alone does not make the Arizona Cardinals feel optimistic about taking a leap forward in 2024.

But it sure doesn’t hurt.

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell listed the Cardinals among five NFL teams he thinks will markedly improve. There’s reason to trust in his prognosticating: He’s hit on 27 of 33 teams dating back to the 2017 season with ESPN, and Barnwell’s picks have improved by an average of 3.3 wins per 17 games.

Sure, Arizona didn’t open the gates and let that sweet, sweet cash flow in free agency like it could have.

But a combination of Murray’s availability, reasonable roster upgrades and the Cardinals’ opposing quarterback luck compared to an unlucky 2023 projects Arizona to up the win total. Barnwell dug deep into that third point.

The average NFL team faced the opposing team’s No. 1 passer on about 73% of dropbacks in 2023. If it felt as if teams were struggling with quarterbacks, well, they were; the average rate between 2002 and 2022 was closer to 78%. The low over that time frame was 2007, when defenses faced top passers just 67% of the time. Still, 2023 was definitely a season in which a lot of defenses got to face second- and third-stringers more often than they would have expected.

That didn’t extend to the Cardinals. Their defense faced No. 1 quarterbacks just under 93% of the time, which was comfortably the highest mark in football.

…

Teams can’t control whether the opposing quarterback shows up to the game healthy, obviously, so there’s no way the Cardinals should expect to face top passers that often again. And when teams don’t have to deal with that, they usually improve.

Arizona is already set to face a Minnesota Vikings team (Week 13) that lost potential rookie starter J.J. McCarthy for the season.

Its schedule includes the rookies taken 1-2-3 in the 2024 NFL Draft: the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels in Week 4, the Bears’ Caleb Williams in Week 9 and the Patriots’ Drake Maye in Week 15 (if Maye wins the starting gig).

Onto the things the Cardinals can control.

Let’s start with Murray. Arizona’s offense ranked 28th in EPA (expected points added) before Murray returned and 10th when he was on the field. Toss in the Marvin Harrison Jr. addition, and there are obvious reasons to be optimistic.

Where Arizona did spend money at least hints toward an upward trajectory for the team, according to Barnwell.

There are new big bodies up front in Justin Jones, Bilal Nichols and first-round pick Darius Robinson, all of whom should help a team that allowed 2.9 yards before first contact, the fourth-highest rate in the league. A cornerbacks room that had been among the league’s worst for nearly a half-decade finally has some capital invested at the position with veteran addition Sean Murphy-Bunting … This team is still a couple of edge rushers short of being able to challenge for above-average status, but it isn’t Budda Baker, Kyzir White and praying that somebody in pass protection slips on the defensive side of the ball again.

A lot for Arizona comes down to Gannon finding answers in the NFC West against Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams and Kyle Shananan’s San Francisco 49ers, who averaged 34.3 points per game against the Cardinals in four combined games last season.

To close, Barnwell said the Cardinals “could find themselves on the fringes of the wild-card race in the NFC,” which after a 4-13 season a year ago signifies just how likely it is he thinks Arizona will improve.

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