The Arizona Cardinals did WHAT?
The Cardinals came into the week as one of the worst run defenses in the league, by any metric. Near the bottom in both EPA and Success Rate, they faced a Chargers’ offense that was one of the most physical in the entire league.
And they shut them down.
Arizona held the Chargers to 59 yards rushing, -0.14 EPA per carry and a 35% Success Rate on the ground in their 17-15 victory. One of the most impressive team performances of the year, and one that saw them go away from their schematic tendencies. They’ve played the third-most snaps against the run with six or fewer players in the box (largely because of the lack of girth up front). However, against the Chargers, they beefed up significantly, playing a large majority of their snaps in base personnel with LBs Kyzir White and Mack Wilson on the field together. Being in their bigger personnel not only added more bodies onto the field, but it allowed White and Wilson to flow fast to the ball if the defensive line played it correctly.
On this run that ended up going for a loss, EDGE Zaven Collins ends up beating his tight end across his face and colliding with the pulling guard, taking out two blockers by himself. This allowed Mack Wilson to trigger extremely hard and come downhill to make this tackle, something we haven’t really seen from the Cardinals this season.
We’ve talked a lot about wasting gaps and blockers when it comes to pass rush, but on Monday the Cardinals were able to waste blockers in the run game as well. Again, Arizona is in their base personnel, but because they’re in a six-man front, someone from the defensive line has to drop in coverage if they want to maintain structure. Arizona drops their weakside EDGE, effectively meaning RT Joe Alt has nobody to block. This creates one-on-ones for the right guard and center, and with nose tackle Roy Lopez crossing the face of the center, he can’t see White trigger down hard on this split zone run and make the stop. Just incredible run defense all around by the Cardinals.
When the Chargers would go lighter, the Cardinals would match it, but still had the ability to stop the run from depth. Arizona has a trio of great safeties that can come down from depth to play the run, which allowed them to get fun with their personnel groupings. When Arizona would go to their “Penny” package, with five people on the line of scrimmage and one linebacker off the ball, one of those edge players was actually LB Mack Wilson. Someone with a better feel for coverage and dropping from the line who can serve as that edge player to still create one on ones for Arizona up front. Then, either Jalen Thompson or Budda Baker would come from depth to essentially be the weakside linebacker, cutting off any cutbacks that the Chargers would have available.
This is how the Cardinals want to play defense due to their lighter personnel, and when LA got lighter, Arizona would win in the run game.
The Cardinals are a weird team. Despite still having many questions on both sides of the ball, they sit at 3-4 and boast a win over the San Francisco 49ers, which keeps Arizona in second place in the NFC West. The road gets tougher from here with two more games against Seattle combined with matchups against Chicago, Minnesota and Miami on Sunday, but if they can gameplan like they did against the Chargers then they should stay right in the hunt for the playoffs.