When NFL coaches put together their weekly game plan, they try to find a balance between highlighting their players’ strengths, exposing their opponent’s weaknesses and running their own preferred scheme. If there is a matchup to exploit, the best play callers will spam certain plays to take advantage of it like that annoying kid you play video games against online who you swear knows a glitch in the animation.

This balance for the Arizona Cardinals’ offense under coach Kliff Kingsbury has been interesting to watch. When studying the Cardinals’ offense the past few seasons, there are times when it’s tough to determine how much is weighted toward their players’ strengths versus Kingsbury’s preferred play design style. Whatever the correct answer is, it’s important to consider at a time when the team and quarterback Kyler Murray are engaged in a contract standoff.

Murray, much like he did in 2020, started last season on fire. By October, he was the betting favorite for the MVP award, and the Cardinals were 7-1.

KYLER MURRAY IS ELECTRIC. #AZCardinals

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Then the injury bug bit Arizona. Murray (ankle) and top receiver DeAndre Hopkins (hamstring) missed the same three games, a stretch in which Arizona went 2-1 with Colt McCoy under center. Though Murray returned to play the rest of the season, Hopkins appeared in just two more games, and the Cardinals lost to the Rams, 34-11, in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

With Hopkins suspended for the first six games of this coming season for PED usage, taking a glimpse at the Cardinals’ offense in the games Murray played without him is a nice case study to project what the Arizona offense might look in 2022. As Murray’s contract status hangs over the team, it’s worth wondering whether the offense tailed off without Hopkins because of what Murray can’t do, or because Kingsbury and Cardinals coaches won’t design and call certain things.

2021 Murray with and without Hopkins 10 Games With Hopkins 4 Games Without Hopkins EPA/Dropback 0.19 -0.11 EPA/Dropback w/ 5+ Pass Rushers 0.49 -0.27 EPA/Dropback vs. Man Coverage 0.08 -0.16 Completion % 72% 65% Passer Rating 108.2 90.1 Yd/Att 8.7 6.3 1D/Att 40% 29% (Postseason stats not included)

To put the drop in EPA per dropback into perspective: Murray went from performing like Aaron Rodgers in 10 games with Hopkins to playing like Davis Mills in the four regular season games without him.

The Cardinals still had wide receivers A.J. Green and Christian Kirk and tight end Zach Ertz available in those games, yet the constraints of the Arizona’s preferred offensive structure started to become more glaring.

In a typical 3×1 formation — three receivers on one side, and one to the other — offenses will isolate a receiver away from the strength of the formation, the side where the tight end lines up. That isolated player is the X receiver, which is traditionally the receiver with the best one-on-one winning ability. Under Kingsbury, the Cardinals have preferred to keep their outside receivers in relatively static positions, with Hopkins isolated to the offense’s left and Green aligned to the offense’s right, often with other receiving options also on that side. Here’s where Green’s targets came last season:

Keeping outside receivers in their same spots from one play to the next helps them operate quickly in no-huddle situations, and the Cardinals having both Hopkins and Green on the field at the same time gives them two traditional X receivers on the outside for defenses to deal with.

The drawback to having players aligned in the same spots every snap is that defenses aren’t worried about offensive variability, and their alarm bells might go off when a receiver is in a different location than usual. But this setup can be beneficial for the quarterback, who doesn’t have an extra variable to sort out on every play. Murray can quickly identify where a preferred matchup might be, and he has no qualms attempting to take advantage of potential one-on-one situations:

A.J. Green got 'em with the double move 🔥 #RedSea

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Notice the route being run by Green in the above clip against the Cowboys. It’s a double move, but it’s a vertical route from an isolated situation. This is important because of how the Cardinals design their plays and also how Murray prefers to read those plays out.

On concepts the Cardinals like to major in, the three-player side of 3×1 formations will run a route combination that is meant to give the quarterback an answer versus various types of coverages. The lone receiver is typically asked to run a vertical-based route that the quarterback can throw against man coverage or other situations in which he thinks he has a matchup advantage, whether it be a go route downfield, a stop route at around 10 yards or a back-shoulder throw — some type of route that allows the receiver to box out a defender and win with his ball skills:

This is really as basic as throwing the football gets. It’s a team saying, “I like my guy more than your guy, and I’m going to give him a chance to win the football.”

Murray is an excellent deep ball thrower, and since 2020 he has averaged the second-most throws of 20-plus air yards per game. His EPA/attempt on those throws (.56) ranks 10th in the NFL during that span, just behind Patrick Mahomes.

Kingsbury’s preferred scheme makes sense when you have a quarterback who can place the ball like Murray can and plus-sized receivers who can win in contested-catch situations as often as Green and Hopkins do. Since 2019, Green (63) and Hopkins (64) both rank in the top 15 in outside targets on post and go routes, according to TruMedia and Pro Football Focus. Among players with at least 50 such targets, Hopkins ranks second in EPA/target (.72), behind only the Chargers’ Mike Williams.

But what happened when Hopkins was out? Surely Murray and the offense adapted without their All-Pro receiver trotting out to the left side every snap, right?

Even when the Cardinals isolated a player such as Antoine Wesley, who started the season fifth on the Cardinals’ depth chart, Murray still showed a preference for taking one-on-one opportunities rather than attempting to progress through a three-man combination. And with Murray’s faith understandably not as high in Wesley, who has 19 career receptions, dropback plays started to unravel behind an inconsistently healthy and productive offensive line. Murray’s numbers against man coverage waned as he more often had to progress through plays. His inconsistency operating over the middle led to an overreliance on extending plays, exerting more effort on his body when a throw would have sufficed.

But that’s not to say Murray didn’t in general get better at operating from the pocket last season. His pocket movement improved, and though he continued to bail from the pocket to extend plays a bit too quickly at times, he was better at finding receivers against zone coverages and against blitzes:

*Ranks among 60 quarterback seasons with 300-plus pass attempts since 2020

Murray’s ability to break out of the pocket and adlib on plays helps him find throwing lanes, especially if the defense is bringing the blitz. But compared to previous years, Murray was better last season at manipulating defenders with his eyes and shoulder movements, where his quick-twitch ability shines.

On this example, a quick-game play against the Packers, Murray opens up a throwing lane for his inside route with a pump fake that his quickness unlocks and before the Green Bay defenders even know what hit them:

Murray’s height and size do not diminish his ability to operate in the quick game. He consistently shows an ability to change arm angles and find throwing lanes up front on underneath throws like the one above.

However, Murray’s height and size do affect his ability — or at least willingness — to find throwing lanes over the middle of the field more than about five yards past the line of scrimmage. This heatmap reflects the Cardinals’ diet of go balls, quick game and screens:

This reliance on vertical routes to the outside, quick-game options or Murray extending plays with his legs can lead to moments of brilliance and stretches of frustration.

This play against the Seattle Seahawks during Week 18 encapsulates the issues when Murray no longer had Hopkins as a bully-ball option on the outside. With Wesley isolated at the top of the screen against a pressed D.J. Reed, Murray glances to see if he wins at the snap of the ball:

When Wesley does not win, Murray instead goes to his three-man combination that features a high-low route distribution meant to attack the Seahawks’ intermediate defenders:

The end zone angle of this play shows Murray attempting to progress on this high-low read, but he doesn’t have the confidence to anticipate and throw to Ertz (No. 86) settling into space on the high portion of the route combination:

Murray ends up scrambling for five yards on the play, which forces second-and-10 before an eventual punt.

The throw to Ertz is not easy, but it is fairly reasonable one to expect from a top-10 quarterback in the NFL.

Hopkins’ injury, a continuously leaky offensive line and Murray’s propensity to favor one-on-one situations could have pushed Kingsbury to change the Cardinals’ method of attack. Arizona could have made Green the full-time X receiver to leave him isolated in these situations, or altered Murray’s launch point to clean up his sight lines, or leaned into play action plays that put players on the move and let Murray attack downfield. But Kingsbury and the Arizona offense instead continued on. In fact, the Cardinals’ early-down play-action rate dropped with Hopkins out, going from 42% with Hopkins to 20% without him.

A static offense in need of variety instead became even more static.

What does this mean for the Cardinals in 2022? Kirk is gone and Hopkins is suspended to start the season, but the Cardinals re-signed Green and traded a first-round pick to the Baltimore Ravens for wide receiver Marquise Brown, Murray’s college teammate at Oklahoma.

Brown is coming off of a career season in 2021 and gives the offense a different flavor. He is an undersized but speedy receiver who operated both inside and outside in Baltimore but will likely start as the left outside receiver for the Cardinals before moving to the slot when Hopkins returns.

Brown was asked to run tons of vertical routes from outside alignments in Baltimore, and while surroundings have a big impact on receivers’ stats, the results were underwhelming. (Green and Hopkins are also highlighted in the graphic below.)

I believe Brown’s best role is as a vertical slot threat who can be freed up from physical defensive backs and utilize his speed and feel for space, much like how he was used at Oklahoma.

Though the 25-year-old is coming off his first 1,000-yard season, the advanced statistics aren’t flattering. And even in a down year, Lamar Jackson is far from a no-name quarterback.

*Ranks among 125 players with 100-plus targets over 2020-2021 seasons

Brown’s lack of size, effectiveness and a true calling card other than speed might make him one-dimensional deep threat in Arizona — and an expensive one at that. But Cardinals general manager Steve Keim is betting Kingsbury can find Brown a more productive role with Murray and in a familiar offense. Otherwise, Keim has largely brought back the flawed 2021 Cardinals’ offense for an encore in 2022.

There are many viable paths for Murray to continue to improve, but the offense around him has to evolve as well. If not, those trick-or-treat stretches of frustration might happen before the Cardinals reach Halloween.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)