With six games left on their schedule, how will the rest of the 2021 turn out for the Arizona Cardinals?
The Arizona Cardinals head into the bye week with a league’s best 9-2 record. It would have been a bold prediction if anyone said the Cardinals would own the league’s best record as the 2021 NFL Season reaches its twilight. Many pundits pegged Arizona as the weak link heading into the season, given the talent in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
What a difference a few months make. The Rams have become inconsistent, even with the likes of Matthew Stafford and Von Miller joining the party. The 49ers have been streaky as they sit at 5-5. And the Seahawks are off to their worst start in over a decade at 3-7.
Even more interesting, two of the Cardinals’ nine wins have come with 35-year-old career backup Colt McCoy leading the charge. Oh, and McCoy also has not had the luxury of throwing the ball to DeAndre Hopkins.
The 2021 Cardinals have taught us one thing: Expect the unexpected. There is no limit to what this team will do. That said, here are three bold predictions for the Cardinals following their bye week.
Kingsbury wins Coach of the Year
Last January, I wrote an article about why the Cardinals needed to consider firing Kliff Kingsbury. Here we are in November and Kingsbury has already surpassed his win total from last season. He entered 2021 with a 13-18-1 record, and mathematically, he can double his win total in Year 3 of his coaching tenure in Arizona.
If he finishes 13-4, he’s a strong candidate to win Coach of the Year. But if the Cardinals cash in on home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, he’s a lock to win the award.
Kingsbury took a team that collapsed last season, partially because of Kyler Murray‘s AC joint injury and the coach’s questionable playcalling. Penalties were also a factor, but Kingsbury’s head-scratching decisions in 2020 made you wonder whether the coach who finished with a 35-40 record at Texas Tech was cut out for the job.
At least in 2021, he’s become one of the league’s elite coaches. If nothing else, the Cardinals, for the first time in forever, have a young coach/quarterback combo with dynasty potential.
Cardinals earn home-field advantage in playoffs
The Cardinals will finish 13-4, win the NFC West, and lock up the conference’s top seed by beating the Dallas Cowboys in the penultimate game of the year. I’m not going to be so bold as to say they’ll end up with their first Super Bowl Championship in team history (and first championship since 1947), but they will put themselves in a prime position to do so.
Better yet, the Cardinals play stronger competition well. And they still have the Rams, Cowboys, and resurging Indianapolis Colts left. So, for this bold prediction for the Cardinals to become a reality, they must not play down to the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, or Seattle Seahawks.
Yeah, they beat the Seahawks with backups playing at some of the most important positions on offense. But they need to stop playing down to bad football teams. Those same backups also allowed the Carolina Panthers to knock them around for four quarters.
So to add to the bold prediction: They finish 3-0 against the teams with winning records. And 1-2 against the remaining teams with losing records.
Murray wins NFL MVP
Murray would be 8-0 as a starter in 2021, had A.J. Green just remembered to turn around. No, the play wasn’t designed to go his way. But they teach you early, regardless of sport, to act as though the ball is coming your way every play.
Then, Murray missed three games with an ankle injury. And while the Cardinals showed they could win without him, the offense is nowhere near as explosive. It’s serviceable. But they’re a different unit without Murray. I’m leaving Hopkins out of this because Murray has spread the ball around to Rondale Moore, Christian Kirk, and Green in 2021. Showing he doesn’t need to solely rely on Hopkins to move the ball through the air.
Murray’s ability to elevate talent around him, along with his dual-threat ability, helped catapult the Cardinals to a 7-0 start in 2021. For the most part, the Cardinals’ offense remained one of the best in the league with Murray lining up under center. And odds are, he returns near or at 100 percent to finish off the 2021 season and lead his team into the playoffs for the first time since 2015.