The Arizona Cardinals had their best five-year run in franchise history in the last decade. However, they also had some of the worst teams, units and player performances, too.
Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz wrote a piece for ESPN about the best and worst teams and players from 2010-2019.
Despite a great run in the middle of the decade, the Cardinals do not make any of the best lists. However, several of their teams and player seasons make the bottom.
2010 Cardinals
The Cardinals get the distinction of having two of the five worst overall team seasons in the last decade. The fifth-worst team was the 2010 Cardinals, the year after Kurt Warner retired, when Matt Leinart was cut and the Cardinals relied on Derek Anderson, Max Hall and John Skelton as starters. They went 5-11 that year.They had the second-worst defense in the league and the offense was ranked 26th.
They were -37.1% below the mean that year.
2018 Cardinals
Cardinals fans know the 2018 team was terrible. It was, in fact, the absolute worst team of the decade. 10 years and 32 teams per year, and the 2018 Cardinals were the worst, 40.7% below the league average.
They had a historically bad offense and a terrible defense that could not stop anyone’s running game.
2012 Cardinals offense
The Cardinals also had three of the five worst offensive seasons in the decade. The 2012 Cardinals came in fifth worst. That was the year of Kevin Kolb getting hurt, John Skelton playing terribly and having to turn over the offense to rookie Ryan Lindley, who did not throw a touchdown pass. The offense was rated 30.9% below the league average. They were dead last in total offense and second-to-last in scoring.
2010 Cardinals offense
They were the second-worst offense in yards and ranked 26th in points that year as an offense. The only player on the unit who had a good year was Larry Fitzgerald, who caught 90 passes for more than 1,100 yards somehow from Anderson, Hall and Skelton. They rated 35.6% below the average.
2018 Cardinals offense
The 2018 offense was historically bad, 41.1% below the average. The struggled to run the ball. They couldn’t do anything in the passing game. They struggled to move the ball at all. It is why they fired Steve Wilks and scrapped almost the entire offensive unit, hiring Kliff Kingsbury last year.
2018 Josh Rosen
Rosen was put in an impossible situation but he didn’t do much to show he was going to be great. His 2018 season was rated the worst of any quarterback season in the last decade with a rating of -1,122 DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement). Essentially he produced more than 1,100 yards less than what the average QB would produce.
2018 Ricky Seals-Jones
After flashing as a rookie in 2017 in the final few games, Seals-Jones was not great in 2018. Granted, no one on the Cardinals was good, but his season was the second-worst season by any tight end in the decade at -158 DYAR. He caught 34 passes for 343 yards and had five drops on 69 targets.
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