Arizona Cardinals: No McCoy, no excuses
By Chad Barrett
Was Mike McCoy the real problem for the Arizona Cardinals miserable offense? We’re about to find out.
Now that the Arizona Cardinals have “sacrificed” Offense Coordinator Mike McCoy, they have no one to blame but themselves for the offensive numbers going forward. This Sunday will be the first test of new OC Byron Leftwich’s revamped scoring attack.
The offense is rumored to be rapidly heading back toward “no risk it, no biscuit.” Leftwich spent significant time under BA, and Arians recently spoke very highly of him on the Doug and Wolf Show on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM:
"He was outstanding. He was always a play ahead. You could tell he was a quarterback and a really, really smart one."
Arians also mentioned to Doug and Wolf that Carson Palmer leaned heavily on Leftwich and that Leftwich had a great rapport with the guys in the locker room. Coming from a guy who Josh Rosen recently called “a ghostly legend,” BA’s words carry weight.
Leftwich certainly has a steep mountain to climb. Currently the Cardinals are next to last in the entire NFL in scoring and dead last in 3rd down conversions.
To put that in perspective, Cards kicker Phil Dawson is second on the team in scoring and has scored more points than Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk, and Chad Williams combined. McCoy didn’t have anything to do with dropped passes either.
The Cardinals have a very generous eight. The Miami Dolphins also have eight, but 458 more passing yards to go with them.
The proof will be in the pudding Sunday afternoon in the desert. Now that the short-lived era of run David Johnson up the middle every play has seemingly come to a close, the results will speak for themselves. Let’s hope that Byron Leftwich can spark some new fire into this team, saving the Cardinals fans more disappointment, and possibly Coach Steve Wilks’ job.