It has been a horrendous start for the 2018 Arizona Cardinals.  On offense, the team is performing like an expansion team. Consider that through two weeks:

• The Cardinals rank 31st in ANY/A, ahead of only the Bills.
• Arizona ranks 31st in rushing yards, ahead of only the Saints.
• The Cardinals rank 31st in yards per play, ahead of only the Bills.
• Arizona ranks dead last in offensive yards, with just 350.

Things aren’t much better on defense.

• Arizona ranks 31st in ANY/A allowed, ahead of only the Saints.
• The Cardinals rank 28th in rushing yards per game allowed.
• Arizona ranks 28th in yards per play allowed and 30th in total yards allowed.

But perhaps it’s easiest to see how poorly Arizona’s done this year with a graph. I have plotted each of the league’s 32 teams in the graph below, with their total yards of offense through two games on the X-Axis, and total yards allowed on defense through two games on the Y-Axis. Obviously you want to be low and to the right — gaining a lot of yards while allowing few. Arizona, plotted below in Cardinals colors, is high and to the left. And like, really high and to the left:

The four best teams in this are Washington (763 on the X-Axis, 494 on the Y-Axis), Baltimore (794, 526), the Rams (797, 532), and the Chargers (890, 655). Yes, that means both of Arizona’s opponents (Redskins, Rams) are on the list, although it’s too early to say which is the chicken and which is the egg there.

After two games, the Cardinals have been outgained by 511 yards, making them just the 8th team since the merger to be outgained by 500+ yards after just two weeks. ^[1]It’s worth noting that yardage margin isn’t always meaningful — the Chiefs have been outgained by 205 yards so far — but here the fundamentals back up the fact that Arizona … Continue reading Just three other teams from the last 20 years join them on that list: the expansion 1999 Browns, who finished 2-14, the putrid 2005 49ers, who finished the year 4-12 despite ranking last in both total offense and total defense (and who lost the ANY/A battle in their final 15 games), and the 2008 Rams, who finished 2-14. If you were to create a list of the worst teams of the last 20 years, those three teams would be on it, so this is a pretty bad omen for Arizona fans.