You only get one chance to make a first impression. For Mike LaFleur and the 2026 Arizona Cardinals, things couldn’t have gone better last weekend.

When they faced the LA Chargers last week, few people gave them a chance at competing with them, let alone beating them. The NFL predictions panel which includes NFL media and content creators predicted a clean sweep for the Chargers while the NFL Next Gen Stats win probability model gave the Chargers an 80% chance of winning. The Cardinals were the biggest underdogs of the week with the bookmakers and honestly, who can blame them?

In their first season under Jim Harbaugh’s leadership, the Chargers finished second in the AFC West, with an 11-6 record. They were the third best rush defence, ninth best passing defence and ninth best defence in terms of points allowed in 2025.

Although the offence hadn’t lived up to its potential the previous year, Justin Herbert is always capable of magic and they were able to call on a fully healthy Omarion Hampton who likely would’ve challenged for Offensive Rookie of the Year consideration if it wasn’t for a midseason injury that forced him to miss two months of the season. Combine that with an offensive tackle tandem that nearly every other team in football would kill to have in Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater and the offence looked primed to bounce back.

Oh, they’d named Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator too.

Arizona had appointed Mike LaFleur as Head Coach in large part because of his credentials as an offensive whizz after spells as OC at the Jets and the Rams. The front office had also gone out and improved the offensive personnel that LaFleur would have at his disposal, with Isaac Seumalo, Kendrick Bourne and of course, Jeremiyah Love joining the team over the offseason.

It wasn’t the offence that was the biggest concern. The offence proved last year that it was capable of putting up points.

The Cardinals had, by and large, decided to “run it back” with the same defence that had given up the fourth most points, the sixth most total yards (6081), and generated the third least amount of sacks (30). That included retaining the services of defensive coordinator Nick Rallis despite the organisation interviewing a number of potential replacements for the post in the days following LaFleur’s appointment.

Preseason hadn’t helped the feeling that Mike LaFleur was heading into a shootout with only one loaded gun, with the hallmarks of last season plain to see with missed tackles, busted coverages and wide open receivers.

That feeling still hadn’t shifted when Omarion Hampton barrelled through for the first Chargers touchdown of the day on Sunday.

Things had started incredibly well for the Cardinals. LaFleur’s first drive as an NFL Head Coach had ended in a debut touchdown for Jeremiyah Love. Jacoby and Trey McBride, as he’s apt to do as the best tight end in the league, had got the drive rolling with a 27 yard play which allowed LaFleur the opportunity to showcase some of the ways that he can scheme guys open.

If there’s one area that the Cardinals offence can improve upon, it’s in generating explosive plays – rushing plays of 10+ yards and passing plays of 20+. For all of the yards and points they eventually put up last year, they weren’t the most explosive offence. It was cumulative. Across the NFL in 2025, if a drive had zero plays of 15+ yards, it had a 16% score rate and a 6% TD rate, averaging out at 0.7 points scored per drive. If it had just on play of 15+ yards, it skyrocketed to a 61% score rate, a 36% TD rate and an average 3.3 points per drive.

However, if LaFleur’s offence was firing on all cylinders, then his defence looked like they’d barely finished putting their pads on as Justin Herbert marched the Chargers down the field with ease. Nobody in a white jersey looked capable of laying a glove on Ladd McConkey and when Hampton ran the ball in, at least SIX Cardinals had the opportunity to make a tackle yet Hampton was still able to get into the endzone. He didn’t even hit the floor. The Cardinals have been a poor tackling team for a number of years now but that was taking the piss.

A comical (but timely) fumble recovery where Hampton had run into his own teammate was sandwiched in between one unsuccessful and one successful Chad Ryland field goal attempt. As Herbert guided his team towards the Cardinals endzone, it felt inevitable that the Chargers would take the lead and the momentum into halftime. Then something happened that has barely happened over the last 12 months.

The Cardinals defence stood the fuck up. On 4th and goal, Dante Stills took Herbert down to force a turnover on downs. With Walter Nolen being double teamed by the right side of the Charger Oline, Stills was able to bulldoze through Trey Pipkins and hand Jacoby Brissett the ball back with time left. That not only gave the defence a much needed boost but it also allowed the Cardinals to launch a final attack, resulting in another successful Ryland field goal, in large part thanks to the recently-extended Michael Wilson who drew a huge DPI flag to put them in sight of the posts.

While it only ended in a field goal, the Cardinals first offensive drive of the second half gave us a real insight into what to expect from Mike LaFleur’s offence. After Max Melton had done enough to prevent a 3rd down pass attempt from Herbert, forcing the Chargers to punt, the Cardinals spread the ball around the offence.

Marvin Harrison, Michael Wilson and Kendrick Bourne all made big plays through the air to gain first downs while Tyler Allgeier was able to show off his brute force running style. Perhaps the best compliment you can pay the Cardinals offence after one week of regular season action is that they look capable of making the kind of plays that have plagued the Cardinals defence for years – people are getting open and everyone is getting used. How many times have we all cursed the fact that the opposition’s WR4 is carving us up? Kendrick Bourne, who on paper may be Arizona’s sixth offensive option, had 8 catches for 75 yards on Sunday.

For all of the good that the Cardinals had done, they did come close to ballsing things up. Ryland’s kickoff after the field goal went out of bounds giving the Chargers the ball at their 40. Herbert went deep immediately and Melton was flagged for DPI on rookie receiver Tre Harris and Herbert would soon find McConkey for the touchdown to make the score 16-14 to Arizona.

A false start hamstrung Arizona’s next drive and when they punted the ball back to the Chargers, you’d have been forgiven for feeling like we were in for another episode of “Typical Cardinals”. So close but so far.

That was until Mack Wilson knocked Ladd McConkey into next week and out of the game in a violent collision on third down. You shouldn’t celebrate a player getting injured but who knows what happens if McConkey had stayed on the field? When he was in the game, the Chargers were averaging 8.9 yards per pass and an EPA/Play of 0.12. With the third-year receiver on the sidelines, those stats dropped to 3.9 yards per pass and -0.61 EPA/Play.

Good football teams play complementary football. You hear it all year round because it’s true and though the offence didn’t capitalise on the drive immediately after Mack’s detonation of the Charger’s main weapon, the defence and special teams unit gave them another opportunity soon after, giftwrapped and all.

Jordan Burch swallowed up Justin Herbert for a sack and when the Chargers couldn’t convert on 3rd and long, they had to punt from deep within their own territory. Enter Simi Fehoko, who broke through the line and blocked J.K. Scott’s kick with his head. Even though the Chargers recovered the ball, it meant that the Cards offence took over on downs at the 2 yard line, where Trey McBride got the better of Derwin James to snag a Jacoby pass for the TD to extend the lead to 23-14. Trey and Derwin had a good battle on Sunday but that was the defining moment.

Last year, the Cardinals had one of the worst special teams units in the league. They were the worst unit in terms of EPA/Play in the league (-0.12). In Week 1, they were the sixth best with +0.11 ST EPA/Play. Fehoko, Kitan Crawford and rookie Karson Sharar were particularly effective for new special teams bigwig Michael Ghobrial. Though he’s been placed on IR, hopefully Crawford’s ankle sprain doesn’t keep him out for much longer than the mandatory four week period.

Given the pre-match essentially handing the victory to the Chargers before a down was played, they were getting embarrassed and that looked like it nagged Justin Herbert when he tried to find Derius Davis with a deep ball that was never really on. Davis had both Andrew Wingard and Denzel Burke on him, with new signing “Dewey” gleefully plucking the ball out of the air for the interception. In his own words, every team needs a crazy white dude and it looks like Wingard will be taking that mantle. He’s got all the makings of a fan favorite.

There was certainly frustration in that pass from Herbert but on that play, he was forced out of the pocket by a barrelling Roy Lopez who was exceptional in this game. Lopez, who rejoined the Cardinals in the offseason after one year with the Lions, beat the crap out of the Chargers interior offensive line. He was incredibly unlucky that his pass deflection fell into Chargers hands rather to the floor and finished 11th amongst NFL DT’s in pass-rush win rate (27%) and seventh in run-stop win rate (50%).

Fingers crossed that the complication Lopez has been dealing with during training this week isn’t a serious one.

In the fallout of this game, there has been (mostly national media) some claims that this was a Chargers loss rather than a Cardinals win. It’s a lost art in modern society but two things can be true at once. Were the Chargers poor in this game? Yes, especially when it got sticky. Conceding back-to-back-to-back penalties, putting their franchise QB in a 3rd and 30 situation with four minutes left is criminal. They didn’t make any offensive alterations when it became clear that the offensive line was struggling and consistently allowed the Cardinals defence a free run at Herbert.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Cardinals were good. They capitalised offensively when they needed to. and dominated the time of possession (37 mins 31 seconds to 22 mins 29 seconds for the Chargers). You’ll win ball games by doing that.

The defence stood up and showed some backbone. They forced the Chargers into awkward situations, especially when Herbert’s safety blanket of McConkey was removed from the game. They finished the game as the 3rd best defence when it comes to creating “havoc”, making some form of defensive impact – a sack, TFL, pass break up, INT, forced fumble – on 51% of plays.

Special teams rocked.

Even the players that might not stand out for the box score merchants were influential. Marvin Harrison had one catch for 33 yards (a damn good throw from Jacoby and catch from Marv) but he repeatedly opened up opportunities for his teammates as he was getting double teamed. Ditto for Walter Nolen who only made one assisted tackle but had to deal with double and triple teams. The Chargers were terrified to leave their rookie center one-on-one with Nolen, who spanked Jake Slaughter in their college days, and the rest of the defence benefited.

Love, the 3rd overall pick in the draft, who will face the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for quarterbacks “only” managed 41 yards rushing but you can immediately see how special of a player he could end up being. It feels like *something* is going to happen every time he touches the ball.

No matter how good or how bad your opponents are, you still have to win. We’ve seen the Cardinals fail to do that countless times over the years and on Sunday, they won convincingly.

It wasn’t a perfect game by the Cardinals. The defence struggled with McConkey and they have an even tougher assignment this week when they face Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

The offensive line only gave up one sack though Jacoby Brissett frequently had Chargers defenders in his face. Without his composure, that number could’ve been much higher.

The offence did give the ball back to the Chargers a couple of times when they were attempting to close the game out in the fourth quarter. Better functioning offences might have made them pay for that while they can’t afford to shoot themselves in the foot with multiple false start penalties, though that should improve as the players get used to the amount of pre-snap motion LaFleur utilises.

The football season is a long one. Things only get harder from here starting with the reigning Super Bowl champions (yuck) on Sunday even if they are missing their first choice quarterback. Drew Lock is capable of managing a game and they have a deadly defence that can wreck anybody in the NFL.

Whether Mike LaFleur and this Cardinals team can build on their first win remains to be seen but you only get one chance to make a first impression. They couldn’t have asked for a better start.

Image Credits: TST Sports, Arizona Cardinals