Arizona Cardinals: Top 3 things we never anticipated in 2022
By Sion Fawkes
The 2022 Arizona Cardinals season was full of surprises, and not in a good way. Here are three things we didn’t see coming in September.
To say the 2022 Arizona Cardinals season was a disappointment is an understatement. This team was flat out abysmal in every facet of the game, even if they showed a few flashes here and there.
Therefore, a lot of things happened that we just did not see coming. Below, we will outline the top three.
1 – Kliff Kingsbury’s and Steve Keim’s Job Security
When your two most important cornerstones sign five-year extensions, the odds of them getting fired sit between slim and none, with slim ready to catch a bus out of town. Somehow, head coach Kliff Kingsbury and general manager Steve Keim managed to put themselves on what might be the NFL’s hottest seats less than a year after they signed their respective extensions.
While Kliff hasn’t been fired yet, the signs are in the stars, and he has likely coached his final game as the Arizona Cardinals head coach in Week 18. Expect Kliff and Keim to receive walking tomorrow morning.
2 – Kyler Murray’s Regression
Speaking of contract extensions, Kyler Murray signed one and despite most of the Arizona Cardinals faithful believing he’s one of the league’s best quarterbacks, reality told us a different story. However, Kyler can do no wrong in the eyes of many, so they will point the finger at someone else, with Kliff serving as the likely guilty party.
Not that Kliff didn’t play a hand in Murray’s regression; he did. But many in the fanbase believed Kliff was 100% the reason why Kyler flopped in 2022, despite the kid playing lights out at times in 2020, and putting up remarkable performances in 2021. Bottom Line: Kliff wasn’t the only reason Kyler flopped. Kyler also deserves to take a fair share of the blame.
If Kliff was the main reason behind Kyler’s failures, then Kyler would be a perennial draft bust at the moment. And that simply isn’t true. It’s time to have a moment of truth and admit that Kyler needs to take ownership of his failures in 2022, and return to form when he eventually takes the field in 2023.
3 – FOUR WINS!
While it’s possible the Arizona Cardinals could end up with five wins this season if they pull off an upset this afternoon, no one expected this team to go 4-12 in their first 16 games this season. But after a year of a toxic culture, former players calling out the organization, Kliff and Keim’s persistent failures, a rash of injuries, and Murray’s regression, this is what you get.
Anyone looking at the Cardinals roster in September would have said this is a good football team on paper. Even after their debilitating loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 1, you’d still think the same. But at the end of the day, or the year, this was nothing more than a poorly run group organization from the top down.
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No, we didn’t see this coming early. In fact, most of us didn’t even see it as late as November. But come December, the tidal wave hit, and the Arizona Cardinals have become arguably the NFL’s most dysfunctional franchise.
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