The early buzz around the 2026 Arizona Cardinals starts with the part of the roster that can still make people lean in: the skill-position talent. On “The Athletic Football Show,” Robert Mays said that’s what has him most fired up, especially when he looks at how this offense is built and what it could mean for Marvin Harrison.
“I am very excited about the skill position talent. I am even more excited about the skill position talent filtered through the ideas of this offense, because if we’re going to figure out what that next gear potentially looks like for Marvin Harrison, this offense, to me, is a way to potentially realize some of that. If you think about the way the Rams play and the way that the Cardinals play, you could not find two offenses that are more different in the ways that they approach some of this stuff.”
The contrast Mays pointed to is pretty stark. The Cardinals were in spread formations on 28 percent of their snaps last year, which ranked third in the league, while the Rams used spread looks on just 7.3 percent of their snaps, second-lowest in the NFL.
Arizona also used motion at the snap on only 20.6 percent of plays, the lowest rate in the league. The Rams, by comparison, were at 54.7 percent, third-highest.
And where Los Angeles threw 133 passes last season to a receiver in motion at the snap, no other team topped 95. Arizona did it 18 times.
The biggest question hanging over the Cardinals, though, isn’t scheme. It’s health. Dave Helman said the first month of the season will tell a lot about “how feisty a healthy Cardinals defense” can be, while also asking a bigger version of the same question: how feisty are the Cardinals if they’re healthy at all?
He pointed to how battered the 2025 team was, noting that it lost the second-highest number of adjusted games due to injury in the 25-year history of that charted statistic. Hjalte Froholdt was the only offensive lineman to start all 17 games.
Five defensive backs spent significant time on injured reserve. Mack Wilson missed half the season.
Walter Nolen tore a meniscus in December after showing promise in the second half of the year. Will Johnson missed a month.
The running back room was hit hard too, with James Conner and Trey Benson both sidelined at different points.
Helman also noted that the Week 1 starting quarterback missed half the year. He added that while Kyler Murray’s absence wasn’t really injury related, sitting him in November still made it a brutal season for production, especially on defense.
Derrik Klassen’s concern is less about any one player and more about whether all the pieces ever stop feeling unfinished. He said he worries the Cardinals could get through another season with the defense still looking more theoretical than real, with only flashes here and there instead of something that actually holds together.
“I’m just worried that we are going to get through another season with this team where all of the defensive talent still feels abstract and theoretical, and it’s just bits, it’s just these flashes. It’s these moments of like, ‘He was good at this, and then he missed a bunch of time,’ or, ‘This part of his game never really came together.’
And if it all comes together, if all seven dominoes fall, this can be like a top-14-ish style of defense. They can be totally solid.
I’m just worried that they’ve spent so many resources here to get this thing off the ground, and it’s just another year of, ‘Ah, you know, maybe.’”
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