The Arizona Cardinals released their 2019 schedule Wednesday evening. What do we learn from the schedule?
It is home-heavy early and late in the season
The Cardinals will have the opportunity to start the year well, as they have three of their first games of the season at home. And while they will play their final two games of the season on the road, they will have played three consecutive weeks at home before that, so they open the season playing three of four at home and close the season playing three of five at home, including three straight home games.
No extreme weather games
The Cardinals will take trips to potential cold-weather cities like New York, Cincinnati and Baltimore, while they have one potential steamy hot game in Tampa Bay.
However, the Cardinals will not face any of these teams in extreme conditions. They play in New York, Cincinnati and Baltimore in September and October, while they have to travel to Tampa in November, when things have cooled a little.
The middle of the schedule is brutal
Because the beginning and the ending of the schedule is heavy on home games, the middle of the schedule is going to be full of road games. They will have a stretch where four of five games are on the road and five of seven are.
Very late bye week
With a Week 12 bye week, it is the latest the Cardinals will have their week off since 1993. They will get a mini-bye in Week 9 after playing the San Francisco 49ers on Halloween night.
Cardinals opponents don’t come off bye, have short weeks
Their opponents will not have extra prep time leading up to games against the Cardinals. No team will come off its bye week leading up to a Cardinals game. The Cardinals actually will benefit a few times from an opponent’s short week of preparation.
Three teams (Bengals in Week 5, 49ers in Week 11, Rams in Week 13) will have played on Monday night the previous week.
Two teams (Panthers in Week 3, Giants in Week 7) will be coming off a long weekend after playing on a Thursday night.
Only one prime-time game
The Cardinals will appear on national television only once, and at that, it is probably the lowest profile game of the year. They will host the San Francisco 49ers on Halloween night, when families will be out for trick-or-treating. It isn’t as inconvenient as having a Thursday night home game the same night as Arizona State’s football team has a home game like last year but it is pretty inconvenient for many fans, who will have to make a choice between taking the kids out on Halloween or attending the game.
The Cardinals had two tailor-made prime-time games, too. They will face former head coach Bruce Arians, now the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They also play the Cleveland Browns, who have Steve Wilks as their defensive coordinator. Wilks was fired after one atrocious season as head coach and the Browns staff has several former Cardinals players and coaches.
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