The Arizona Cardinals are not making a change at defensive coordinator, at least not yet.
In his press conference immediately after the Cardinals’ 45-21 loss to the Detroit Lions, head coach Mike LaFleur
declined to say whether there would be changes on the coaching staff or to label his confidence level in defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. It seemed to leave the door open to imminent changes, following the fourth consecutive 30-point game allowed by the Cardinals’ defense.
But on Monday, Oct. 12, LaFleur said that there will be no coaching changes this week.
“There's gonna be no changes with the playcallers, but we're looking at how to improve this defense and make sure that we are better than what we're putting out there,” LaFleur said. “Better with the points, better just in totality.”
While the Cardinals lack much high-end talent across their roster, LaFleur believes that they have the players to be better than their current results. Through five games, they are allowing the most points and the third-most yards per play in the NFL.
“We've gotta help (the players) with that,” LaFleur said. “Whether that's providing clarity, whether it's making it easier, what have you. And we've gotta dive into that hard over these next two days.”
Cardinals searching for man coverage answers
Over the past two weeks, the Cardinals have seen man coverage at a 51.6% clip, more than double the league average. Against those looks, they’ve been abysmal: 18 of 43 for 3.8 yards per attempt, two touchdowns, three interceptions and four sacks.
Now, there’s no secret what teams are going to do moving forward. The book is out on this offense: Shade safety help to Trey McBride and Michael Wilson, then make the other receiving options beat you one-on-one.
Solving that equation partially falls on those weapons. It also falls on the offensive coaching staff, starting with LaFleur.
“We've gotta scheme some stuff up a lot better to help our guys,” LaFleur said. “Cause it's easy to say, well, just throw up the go balls away from them, throw up the slot fades. And I think that's the loser way of looking at it from a coach's perspective, just throw it on the players and make it come to life.”
LaFleur explained some of the schematic solutions the Cardinals will look to implement.
“There's ways that you can get the bumps off, you can get some natural picks and stuff like that,” LaFleur said.
It feels, in many ways, like the first test of whether LaFleur has the schematic ability to be a difference-making head coach.
Yes, this roster lacks talent, especially with injuries on the offensive line. But the benefit of hiring an offensive playcaller as head coach should be that it creates schematic advantages.
“Yesterday's (gameplan) was about as unique and bizarre as I've ever seen,” LaFleur said. “It worked for them. So kudos to them. But they literally were cutting half the field out and just playing 2-on-1, 2-on-1 and Cover-0 everywhere else. And clearly we didn't have a good enough plan.”
LaFleur calls out run game
For all the Cardinals’ struggles through the air, that’s not where LaFleur believes their offensive issues begin.
“Trying to establish a run game, that's really — you guys want me to be candid, that's really where I want to see us improve more,” LaFleur said. “That was gonna be a hard game running the football, but we're better than that. There were more yards out there than what was had.”
The Cardinals running backs gained just 37 yards on 16 carries. As a team, the Cardinals now rank 22nd in yards per carry and 30th in yards before contact.
“Some of it was them swimming our blocks and our double teams, but other times, there was some space, and we just weren't taking up that space,” LaFleur said. “So we've gotta put them in better positions, but there's more to be had in the run game.”
LaFleur explains surprising personnel decisions
On defense, two personnel decisions against the Lions stood out as surprising.
At safety, the Cardinals started undrafted rookie Wydett Williams over Dadrion Taylor-Demerson — until a concussion forced him to exit in the first half. A week earlier, Williams struggled mightily in place of the injured Andrew Wingard. So with Taylor-Demerson healthy after missing two games with a back injury, it was surprising to see the Cardinals again turn to Williams.
“Just the time on task from the week before,” LaFleur said. “Making sure that (Taylor-Demerson) felt as good as we thought he was gonna feel and kind of ease him back in there.”
The other surprising move was that the Cardinals decreased cornerback Max Melton’s snap share from 88% to 58%. Melton has appeared to be their best coverage corner this season, but the Cardinals turned to Kei’Trel Clark for a season-high 47% of snaps.
“Just kind of mixing and matching, doing what we think we needed to do,” LaFleur said.
LaFleur left his answer there, but one reason could be Melton’s struggles in run defense. Just 37% of his snaps in this game were on run plays, compared to 58% for Clark.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Arizona Cardinals are not making coaching changes after blowout loss
