Cardinals quietly have a penalty problem that could derail the Mike LaFleur era

The Arizona Cardinals' rebuild looks strong overall thanks to the new era under first-year head coach Mike LaFleur. They may be 1-2 to start the season, but this young Cardinals roster has already exceeded expectations, showing promising flashes of this new LaFleur era.

Still, after winning just three games last season, there's plenty to improve before Arizona becomes a legitimate playoff contender, especially since they're stuck in the stacked NFC West.

Offensively, you can point to the long-term quarterback question after Jacoby Brissett's reworked deal, lack of a true WR1 after Marvin Harrison's struggles, or, more generally, an offensive line that ranked below league average according to PFF.

Defensively, the Cardinals surrendered 28.7 points per game to opponents last season, ranking 29th just ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, and Dallas Cowboys.

Rebuilding Cardinals must be more disciplined under Mike LaFleur

When looking at how the total penalty yards stack up by team through Week 3, thanks to the visual representation from Ari Meirov of MySportsUpdate on X, you can see the more defensively challenged teams such as the Jets, Cardinals, and, surprisingly, the Packers without superstar Micah Parsons have had to resort to penalties.

To a certain extent, it should be a warning sign to the Cardinals' below-average offensive line, which should be a point of emphasis going forward regardless of how one interprets this social media graph.

It also doesn't take much analytics to tell you this team needs more help on defense, which should be obvious just by how heavily the Cardinals have invested in their top picks on offense this rebuild.

Those investments could pay off if Arizona finds a long-term answer at quarterback to unlock these playmakers further. But in reality, they won't make serious noise in the NFC West against the Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams until they clean up the more important positions of need. That goes well beyond quarterback, including continuing to address their offensive line, inconsistent defensive front, and, quite frankly, flawed linebacker room.

The Cardinals have assembled a strong group of skill players, including elite tight end Trey McBride, No. 3 overall rookie Jeremiyah Love, and an underrated offseason extension at wide receiver, Michael Wilson.

It's eerily similar to the investments the rebuilding Atlanta Falcons had at their skill positions between top ten draft picks Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Bijan Robinson. The Falcons finally saw that talented offense unlock in Week 3 largely thanks to the return of quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

The Cardinals are still desperately searching for even a league-average quarterback solution to turn these playmakers into the star weapons they're capable of. While that should continue to be the goal for Arizona's front office, this team will never become a legitimate contender until they solve their penalty problem, regardless of whether they find that signal caller or not.

Fortunately, it's a small sample size of just three weeks, and should likely continue to improve as first-year head coach LaFleur gains more experience and familiarity with this new position.

That said, this penalty problem has quietly plagued the Cardinals throughout the first three weeks. If left unaddressed, it will become a far bigger problem when these regular-season games carry more playoff implications for this young roster.

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