Analysis of Bootleg Football’s Preview of the 2025 Arizona Cardinals Podcast

Thanks to Brett Kollmann and E.J. Snyder for breaking down the Cardinals’ chances in 2025

It has become an attractive annual tradition for Cardinals’ fans to watch and listen to Brett Kollmann’s and E.J. Snyder’s in-depth, comprehensive season preview for the team.

Good points:

BK: “Ah, the Arizona Cardinals, or as I like to call them, the slowest slow burn in the entire NFL. We are in year three of a complete teardown and rebuild in the desert —- what Cardinals’ fans want to know is have they done enough to make the playoffs this season?”

BK: “There were 4 key narratives to pay attention for the Cardinals last year, that ideally they are all going to be better this year:”

• They had a really efficient offense last year, most notably a deadly efficient running game.
• The pass game was hit or miss, because they apparently couldn’t throw fades.
• They could not rush the passer but that doesn’t mean that they had a terrible defense, they were actually ok defensively. It’s just that the defense couldn’t do arguably the one thing that was most important thing for any defense to do, which is get the QB on the ground.
• “They also struggled to get RBs on the ground too because they were one of the worst tackling teams in the NFL. Guys were in the right spot often and their coaching staff did a great job of scheming guys into opportunities to make tackles for loss or shut down the screen game, it’s just the actually tackling part which betrayed them a lot.

EJ: “What every coach tries to tell their players —- you’ve got to finish. If there was ever a tale of two cities, it was the Arzona Cardinals’ effectiveness summary in 2024:

• Passing Offense: 13th
• Rushing Offense: 8th
• Pass defense: 24th
• Rush Defense: 25th
• Points Scored: 12th
• Points Allowed: 15th
• Points Differential: 14th
• Overall Average: 14th in the NFL

BK: “The Cardinals defense was really good in the red zone 7th best overall in terms of scoring percentage —- they were better versus the pass and tackling in the red zone —- I don’t really know why, but they were one of the toughest defenses to score on when offenses got down to that space —- that should be reflected in EPA, but it’s not because, as far as field goal drives allowed, they were one of the worst defenses in the NFL. They were terrible on 3rd down, they were a bottom 5 defense in that category, and they had the 4th highest plays per drive, which mean they almost never got three and outs.”

BK: “A stat for Cardinals’ fans to have earmuffs on —- the Cardinals had the 4th highest blitz percentage, and were still 27th in pressure percentage, which are numbers that should not go to together.”

BK: “Fact was on offense whenever the Cardinals needed to make big plays...