Revenge of the Birds
The Arizona Cardinals are fresh off the firing of head coach Jonathan Gannon after a historic 14-loss season. During training camp, the team was projected to be a sneaky good roster that would make the playoffs. Black Monday has come and gone, and although there may be a team or two that will still ax their head guy, it appears that this year in the NFL, only six teams will be looking to replace their head coach.
Which is troubling for a team like Arizona. If the league has 8-9 clubs looking for a new head coach, it allows more competition for the better coordinators. As it is now, the struggle will be fierce focused on a select few.
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The process now is to gather information on which coaches the franchise would prefer to hire as their head man, and then work with their agent in order to schedule an interview. For the Cardinals, they didn’t wait very long. They now have an interview set up with Denver Broncos DC Vance Joseph, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The Broncos have the #1 seed in the AFC, so there is some free space for Joseph to interview. He will interview with Arizona either Thursday or Friday via Zoom, according to 9News.com.
The thought process to bring in a talent such as Joseph is that the defensive side of the ball can become elite if given some effort here and there. The ingredients are mostly in place, with free agency and the April NFL draft two key components to help elevate this group.
Joseph is an elite coordinator. He has already been an NFL head coach while with the Broncos in 2017-2018, and then slid right back into the DC role where he shines. He was the Cardinals’ DC from 2019-2022. His defense has been amazing the last two seasons.
This year, the Broncos’ defense is ranked #2 overall, allowing just 278.2 yards per contest. That breaks down to #7 in pass coverage and #2 against the run. LB Alex Singleton finished the regular season ranked #13 in total tackles with 135.
Last year, Denver ranked #7 in total defense. A trademark of a Joseph defense was the #3 rushing defense.
His scheme is an aggressive system. Joseph’s defensive backs play something called a “match” principle, where his DBs cover one side of the route, which gives them leverage and limits the open areas for quarterbacks to throw to. Joseph will double down on blitz packages and often operates in five-man fronts. He also likes to use quite a few stunts with a focus on getting teams short gains on first downs.
Denver blitzed at a tremendous rate and creates a lot of sack opportunities.
Joseph wants to control the run output, and with his personnel, he has accomplished this. The Cardinals should be able to continue this trend with their current defensive personnel. This forces opponents into a predictable passing attack which creates mismatches for the offensive...
