The 2024 Arizona Cardinals finished the season with 543 pass attempts, the 21st-most in the league. Kyler Murray started every game for the first time since 2020. In the other two years that Murray played an entire season, he attempted 542 and 558 passes. Arizona had the 22nd-highest pass rate at 55.31%.
Since Jonathan Gannon replaced Kliff Kingsbury in 2023, Drew Petzing has been the offensive coordinator while Nick Rallis has been the defensive coordinator. Over that span, the pass rate has been 55.9% and 55.31%.
I’d expect much of the same, especially since the offense is running it back with the same cast of characters. There have been big changes in terms of personnel on the defensive side of the ball.
Cardinals target share overview
And that’s where we will start, on defense.
Arizona transitioned to a 4-2-5 nickel defense, often utilizing three safeties back in a shell to keep everything in front. The defensive aDOT of 7.0 yards was tied for the fourth-lowest. The unit ranked sixth in allowing the fewest passes over 20 yards and the longest pass allowed was 53 yards. Only the Washington Commanders were better at 45 yards.
Not surprisingly, Arizona allowed the seventh-highest yards per carry at 4.6 and the 3:07 average time per drive was the second-highest.
Calais Campbell, Josh Sweat and Dalvin Tomlinson were added to the defensive line in free agency, while premium picks were used to select linemen in the draft. A linebacker was selected in the fourth round of the draft. This should greatly enhance the rush defense, which could mean more possessions for the offense.
The offensive line is rated 16th by PFF heading into the season.
Last season, James Conner rushed 236 times for 1,094 yards and eight touchdowns. Sure, he’s now 30 years old and has missed plenty of games in the past, but Trey Benson has potential and the Cardinals will likely remain run-centric in philosophy.
With an improved defense, there’s a chance the pass rate gets closer to 50%, especially with Murray saying that he wants to rush more as well.
Now, let’s take a look at how the targets should be distributed in Arizona this season.
Wide receivers
Marvin Harrison Jr. led the wide receivers with 116 targets and a 22.2% target share as a rookie. Harrison finished with 62 receptions for 885 yards and eight touchdowns in what was considered a disappointing season. Now, some point to the type of routes that Harrison ran or did not run as the issue. Matt Waldman of Footballguys put it best when he blamed it on both Harrison and Murray – Harrison for tracking/catching issues and Murray with pocket awareness ones. Harrison will be the alpha of the wide receiver group and could see a slight uptick in target share, but he will remain second on the target totem pole behind Trey McBride, so any uptick would be minimal.
Michael Wilson was second with 71 targets and a 14.5% target share. He shouldn’t see much of a change this season.
Greg Dorth had 50 targets and a 9.6% target share while Zay Jones finished with 11 targets and a 3.1% target share.
Tight ends
Trey McBride is the alpha of the passing attack. He finished with 147 targets and a whopping 29.3% target share last season. The 147 targets were only six behind Brock Bowers, but Bowers played one more game, so on a per-game basis, McBride led all tight ends with 9.2 targets per game last season. That number was seventh-best amongst all pass catchers. He has an obvious rapport with Murray and I don’t see that changing.
Running backs
James Conner garnered 55 targets and an 11.2% target share last season. Kyler Murray had the fourth-highest checkdown rate at 13.5% last season.
Emari Demercado was second on the depth chart with 20 targets. He played 13 games and had a 5.2% target share.
