Arizona Cardinals

The 2025 Arizona Cardinals finished three and fourteen, missed the playoffs for the fourth straight year, and set a franchise record for losses in a single season. They started two and zero — a road win over the Saints in Week 1, a home win over the Panthers in Week 2 — and then the floor collapsed. Arizona went one and fourteen the rest of the way, including a nine-game losing streak to close the year. Five of those losses came by a combined thirteen points, capped by a Week 5 home collapse to the Titans after leading twenty one to three. When the Bucs finished them off in Week 13 and ended their playoff hopes, this had become the worst four-year stretch since the franchise moved to Arizona — and one day later, head coach Jonathan Gannon was fired. The Cardinals got muffed.

Here's the team by the numbers. Arizona scored twenty point nine a game and gave up twenty eight point seven — a roughly eight-point negative margin that tells the whole season. On offense, per-play passing expected points added sat right at zero, and the rushing game was minus twenty one point five for the year, or minus zero point zero six per carry. On defense, pass expected points added allowed was plus eighty nine point five — and on that side of the ball you want that number deeply negative, so plus eighty nine is brutal. The turnover math was ugly too: eighteen takeaways against nineteen giveaways, and a third-down rate of forty two percent on offense against forty four percent allowed. And this wasn't boom-or-bust — this was a steady slide. After the two and zero start, Arizona lost five straight one-score games, then got blown out by forty four, forty one, forty five, forty, and thirty seven. The ceiling disappeared and the floor kept dropping.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. This was the one unit that held up. Arizona threw for two hundred fifty six yards a game, twenty nine passing touchdowns, and finished at plus one point six five in total passing expected points added — roughly neutral, which on a three-win team is a minor miracle, and the unit trended up late in the year as Brissett settled in. The problem was protection: fifty nine sacks allowed, three and a half a game. Kyler Murray missed the final twelve games with a foot injury, so Jacoby Brissett carried the load across fourteen starts. The engine was Trey McBride, who absolutely smashed — one hundred twenty six catches, twelve hundred thirty nine yards, eleven touchdowns, and plus seventy two point seven in receiving expected points added. In a season where nothing worked, McBride was a weekly floor, targeted on twenty eight percent of Cardinals throws.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This one got muffed. Arizona ran for ninety three yards a game on three point three a carry, minus twenty one point five in rushing expected points added, and just nine rushing touchdowns across seventeen games — steady floor, no ceiling. James Conner went down for the year in Week 3, Trey Benson's knee ended his year the following week, and the committee never found a pulse. Michael Carter led the team with three hundred thirty three rushing yards — the lowest total for a Cardinals rushing leader since John Grigas also hit three hundred thirty three back in nineteen forty three. The single snapshot of the season was Emari Demercado's seventy one-yard breakaway in Week 5 against the Titans, where he dropped the ball just before the goal line for a touchback. That play was the rushing offense in one snap.

Next up, the pass defense. This unit got absolutely muffed. Pass expected points added allowed was plus eighty nine point five, or plus zero point one five per play — a bottom-of-the-league result, and it stayed ugly week after week. Arizona gave up two hundred forty two yards a game through the air, thirty one passing touchdowns, and generated only thirty sacks — under two a game for a group supposed to be built around the pass rush. The eighteen takeaways were the real killer, because the secondary couldn't bail out a pass rush that rarely got home. Garrett Williams flashed with an end-zone interception on Trevor Lawrence in the Week 12 Jaguars loss, but the season-long pattern was explosive shots allowed and third downs extended, with opponents converting forty four percent.

And the run defense. Arizona allowed one hundred twenty nine point five yards a game on the ground at four point eight a carry, nineteen rushing touchdowns, and plus three point six five in rushing expected points added allowed — not catastrophic per play, but boom-or-bust at the worst moments. Nineteen rushing scores in seventeen games tells you the goal-line defense consistently cracked, and a twenty one percent red-zone touchdown rate allowed kept putting opponents in position to finish drives. There's no single standout to point at — this was a collective failure, and with the blowouts piling up late, opponents were running clock on a defense with no answers. This unit got muffed right alongside the one in front of it.