The last two weeks have been a reality check for the Arizona Cardinals.

This isn’t a “gotcha” article to poke fun at any Cardinals fans that were buoyed by the team’s success in Week 1 against the Chargers. I was one of them. That game showed us what this team can be capable of when all of the wheels are turning in motion at the same time. The offence was moving the ball well, the defence stood up and were resilient, while the special teams unit gave the team an upper hand with field position and brought some much needed intensity.

Even in that game, there were warning signs. It’s incredibly hard not to get caught up in week-to-week hyperbole especially when there are only 17 weeks of the year of guaranteed football. Every win and every loss means far more than in other sports where teams get to play multiple games per week.

However, the win against the Chargers didn’t automatically wipe out some of the concerns around the team coming into the season and both the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers have been able to expose those fragilities.

The most alarming, because it’s the most obvious, is with the defence. Over the past two weeks, they have given up 67 points, which averages out at 33.5 per game. You are not going to win a lot of football games by conceding nearly 34 points a game and you certainly aren’t going to win games in the NFC West with such a porous defence.

Currently, the Cardinals rank third in the entire league for highest percentage of defensive drives that result in a touchdown (36.7%), with only the Dolphins and Lions conceding at a higher rate. Only four teams have mustered up less pressure on the quarterback through three weeks (20) and their 4 sacks is more than just five other teams.

This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who has watched the Cardinals over the past three years. They have routinely struggled to attack the opposition quarterback and the team was crying out for support in this regard during the offseason.

They were propped up by Josh Sweat last year but he has failed to make an impact so far. Perhaps training alongside his colleagues would’ve been a better use of his time this offseason.

Per PFF statistics right after the game, the Cardinals did not have a single player with more than one pressure against the 49ers, despite the fact that they lost Trent Williams midway through the game. Against the Seahawks, Drew Lock was afforded the freedom to comfortably find his targets as the backup QB led a rout of the Cardinals.

Both divisional games have seen the Cardinals give up massive touchdown plays early on, putting the team into a “backs against the wall” situation from the off. The fact that defensive coordinator Nick Rallis didn’t seem to have any plan to cover Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the 2025 Offensive Player of the Year and someone he has faced TWICE A YEAR since taking the job in 2023, is comical.

The Deebo Samuel lateral play that resulted in the 49ers first touchdown on Sunday was a beast of a play that could well have bamboozled any defence, though you get the impression that if the Cardinals had tried that, it would’ve ended up in a fumble, but Budda Baker was in position to bring Samuel down on the sideline and failed.

Rallis stated in an interview this week that the Cards have “got to execute that better” in answer to a question about missed tackles. No shit, Sherlock.

For missed tackles and poor technique to be such an issue at this stage of his leadership of the defence, a problem that has plagued the team since he walked through the door, is inexcusable.

The 33-year-old is in a put up or shut up situation and he has to start fighting for his job. The safety first approach that has infected his decision making does not work across four quarters.

Since 2024, when he earned a reputation as bringing “exotic” ideas to a defence that outperformed its lack of star power, the Cardinals have gone from being the fourth most blitz heavy defence to the 24th. They have plummeted from 11th to 30th in disguise rate and utilise the nickel the 25th most compared to the 13th most in 2024.

Mack Wilson noted that he missed blitzing in his press duties this week. Cut some of these boys loose.

Rallis can’t shoulder all of the blame. The minimal improvements made to the defensive personnel in the offseason were always going to bite the team on the arse at some point. With Sweat being a non-entity so far, the team doesn’t have a notable contributor off the edge and the run defence couldn’t hold up against the Seahawks or 9ers, giving away a combined 302 rushing yards across the two games.

The offence also struggled through 6 quarters against two on-form defences. They were absolutely savaged by a Seahawks D that oozes class and attitude. When you think about the Cardinals and who you can regularly count on when shit hits the fan, you can count them on one hand.

You could rely on every starter on the Seahawks front 7 to stand up and be counted. They forced the Cardinals to punt seven times and limited them to seven points.

Even against the 49ers, the offence sputtered. That might sound harsh, given that the game ended with the team separated by six points, but it took the Cardinals nearly 42 minutes of game time to score their first touchdown.

Yes they rallied back and made the 9ers sweat, but you aren’t going to beat any of the other teams in the NFC West by waiting until the third quarter to put meaningful points on the board while also giving away 30+ points.

Since Brissett officially took the reigns of the Cardinals offence against the Indianapolis Colts in October 2025, he has thrown 27 passing touchdowns. 20 of those have come in the second half. In that time, the Cardinals are 2-13.

Jacoby Brissett isn’t Superman. He doesn’t have that type of magic. Not many quarterbacks do. He is only as good as his defence can allow him to be. We saw a prime example of that against the Chargers where he was functional and composed.

He isn’t being helped by his offensive line. Through the first 3 weeks of the season, only the Packers have a worse pass block win rate than the Cardinals (32%). Brissett has the third lowest average time to throw this season amongst quarterbacks with at least 75 dropbacks at 2.53 seconds.

The other four of the top five are Jordan Love (2.45), Joe Burrow (2.50), Patrick Mahomes (2.57) and Matthew Stafford (2.67). They have all thrown more passing touchdowns and more passing yards per game than Brissett but so they should.

Where Brissett is really struggling is in his passing yards per attempt. Only four quarterbacks have less yards per attempt than him so far this season (5.6). Nobody with 55+ passing attempts is averaging less yards per pass attempt. This leads directly into the Cardinals having the least explosive plays in the NFL with 6.

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.

Some of those issues are down to the offensive line asking Jacoby Brissett to be as good as Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow. Some of that is down to Brissett being reluctant to take shots downfield. Whether it’s the gameplan, a lack of confidence or a mixture of both, Brissett has not been pulling the trigger, even when his receivers are open.

The run game has also been hit and miss. The line is slightly better at run-blocking right now (24th in run block win rate) but they’ve been a burden on rookie Jeremiyah Love and Tyler Allgeier. Neither has managed to average over 4.5 yards per carry in a game.

They are capable of moving the ball – shown by being ranked 14th in EPA/Play – but they have to find the answer to their explosive play problem if they want to win games.

This is where Mike LaFleur needs to earn his crust. He has been brought in because of his reputation as an offensive whizz. It’s up to him to get Brissett firing downfield, to scheme Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. open and to give Jeremiyah Love the platform to showcase his skills to the best of his ability.

The lack of discipline the team are showing, offering the refs an opportunity to throw up more yellow flags than Borussia Dortmund’s Yellow Wall and killing drives, has to stop immediately.

We saw bits and pieces of that against the 9ers, with Love putting in his best performance so far with 109 total yards, and important snags from Mike and Marv but it has to be done consistently.

That should be easier now they get to play teams outside of the division. To steal a line from Kenny Loggins, LaFleur has been asked to ride into the Danger Zone over the past two weeks. There isn’t anything else like the NFC West in football. Five of the last eight Super Bowls have featured a team from the division. Last year the 9ers went 12-5. That would have been enough to win four of the eight NFL divisions outright. They came 3rd in the NFC West.

For comparison, two teams have won the NFC South with a losing record in the last four years. In 2025, three divisions had three or more of their teams finish the season with a losing record. That last happened in the NFC West in 2016.

That is the reality of the situation that Mike LaFleur finds himself in as Head Coach of the Arizona Cardinals. That’s the job he signed up for.

His team now faces two leakier defences over the coming weeks in the Giants and the Lions. He has to take advantage of that.

The Giants defence, now without their star rusher Brian Burns, have particularly struggled on third down (third worst third down defence) and in the red zone (joint-5th worst). They haven’t scored a touchdown since Week 1 and will be starting Jameis Winston who has thrown 229 yards for one interception and no TDs in two weeks. That is less than Brissett managed in one game against the 49ers. They may also be without OT Andrew Thomas who hasn’t practiced yet this week due to a groin injury.

Even though the Lions have one of the worst defences in the NFL as things stand, LaFleur can expect a firefight. The offence will have to be explosive to match up against the likes of Jared Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Although he’s still in the opening weeks of his tenure, being outgunned and outfoxed offensively by Drew Petzing would be terrible optics for LaFleur.

He has to be brave, he has to be aggressive while also being smart.

Reality might have bitten Mike LaFleur and the Arizona Cardinals over the last two weeks. It’s time for them to bite back.

Image Credits: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images, Sergio Estrada/Imagn Images, AP Photo/Kelley L. Cox