Baldy Breakdown: Why the Cardinals Are IMPLODING in 2025

Baldy Breakdown: Why the Cardinals Are IMPLODING in 2025

It’s been a minute since we’ve gotten this guy in here due to the holiday last week. Glad to get Baldi back in. Drop a like. Subscribe to PHX Sports here on YouTube and so much more. Brian Baldinger in Baldi. Since we last talked, we’ve had two excruciating losses for the Arizona Cardinals. One to the Jaguars. They lose in overtime and then most recently they lose on the road this weekend. And they had some crucial fourth downs that they missed out on here. When you see these plays, it’s fourth and four in OT against the Jags. You get a fourth and one pitch play gets blown up by Tampa Bay and then a fourth and two to end the game. Are you seeing any commonalities between these plays that they’re missing out on to potentially give them a chance to tie or win ball games? Well, you know, the fourth the fourth and one play they played before on third and one they took a shot. They took the shot and they missed it and so they came back on fourth down. I’m not a big fan of tossing on fourth down. I’m just not because honestly if anybody misses a block on the outside, you get penetration. It’s just it’s I like kind of going straight ahead on fourth downs myself. I just think it’s too risky when you like you you toss it out there. You just give guys with speed a chance to defeat the blocks. And that’s what happened to Bam Knight on the play. Uh they they had chances. They had plenty of chances in this game. They missed an overthrow uh to Marvin. You know, he’s got his man beat. They just missed the throw uh for a touchdown maybe to tie the game up. Um you know, they they look good when they’re down, I don’t know, 17 to three, they go right down the field and you know, bing bang boom, like five straight completions, whatever it was, you’re in the end zone. Um is there a commonality? They just don’t make enough plays. You know, you throw an interception to start the game. I thought he threw it in I threw it I thought it was a one bad throw by Jacobe in the game. Threw it behind him and I think Tai Smith got his hand on it. Winfield intercepted it. Um you know I mean Bam gets the ball ripped out of his hands by a guy that’s on the ground like just kind of an improbable thing that caused a fumble. They’re just not making enough throw, you know, enough plays. You miss a field goal, you know, a chance to, you know, I mean you could have scored that play, but you’re at the 25 yard line. You miss a field goal right there. like they’re just not making plays right now. It’s, you know, the missing tackles. Buddha has he’s got Baker wrapped up like it’s a blitz. I mean, he’s got him behind the line of scrimmage like and Baker shakes him off and goes for 25. Like, I could just go through the the game in my head at just missed opportunities. Baldi, I thought a telling quote from Jonathan Ganon earlier this week, very candid, says, “Yeah, after three seasons as this team said, coach, we know how to compete. We don’t know how to win. They’re, you know, 15 and 31. Meanwhile, you’ve got guys like Ben Johnson thriving as a first year head coach. You know, what do you what do you think the common denominator is?” Because I I think we’ve watched this roster, I know we have, get better over the course of three off seasons. When a coach says something like that, what does it trigger in your mind as the culprit? Well, I mean, it it starts with the coach. We don’t know how to win. Why don’t you know how to win? What haven’t you taught guys how to win? Um, you know, when I mean, if you just make a quick comparison with Chicago, uh, I just remember being at training camp this summer and I just remember like they were going to run the football. No matter what, they were going to run the football. Now, this this seventh round pick, Kyle Manungi, he’s pretty good football player, but they know how to run the football. They do it from a variety of formations. They do it with a variety of motions, but they never And last week, they just pounded the Eagles, and the Eagles look like they’d never seen DJ Moore in a backfield before. And but there’s a there’s a creativity mixed to it, but they and the thing that always jumps out to me, the teams that can run the football, they can run it when they have to run it, when they need to gain a yard, when they’re on the two yard line and they got to score, they score like they they and I think there’s a toughness to that. There’s a toughness to teams that know how to do that. And that’s what I see from Ben when he was in Detroit. That’s what I see in Chicago with him right now. We might see it against Green Bay and that’s what now you can say, okay, your top three running backs are hurt and all that stuff is, you know, that’s all fair and good. You know, it’s legit, but still up you win the games up front. And that they’re just not good enough right now to be able to do that against a team honestly that was leaking oil that were giving up a lot of big plays. I mean, they were not a good defense at all until that game. That’s the best performance they’ve had in a month. Yeah. Cardinals 3 and N eliminated from postseason contention, 0 and seven in games decided by four or less points this season. Well, they lose one more. That’s an NFL record as far as point games lost by that narrow of a margin. So, like when you start to kind of look at it that way and how the Cardinals have just struggled to to figure a way out, you know, when you look at the roster, I mean, does it seem like it’s in a spot in in a decent spot to where if they did make a major change at a coordinator spot that it it could maybe unlock some things and put them in better situations for success? I think the roster is better than what the record is, but you know, I mean, they’re not winning close games and so why why don’t you consistently win? Like, you have the ball with a minute 49 to go. All right, you got a timeout left. They don’t go they go four plays and out. Like, they don’t make anything happen. Like, that’s a ch like you just saw Bo Knicks just did that. You know, they made a play. Like, Bo Knicks has done that over and over and over again. Um, but a minute, you’re down three, it’s a minute 49 to go. You got to at least tie the game up. Yeah. you know, go to overtime like that was every possession is valuable. You had 10 possessions. All right, you miss a field goal, you throw an interception, you have a fumble, you miss fourth downs. All right, there’s half your possessions right there. Like you’ve got to minute 49 in this game, in this league, in this game, I don’t care where you’re at that you you have to find a way to score to at least get to that game into overtime. You just do. Baldi Jonathan Ganon uh was asked earlier today the biggest reason why you know he thought the offensive line has regressed this year. It was a unit in the NFL that I think overachieved the last two years and this year you know clearly bottom tier and um you know he kind of danced around the question protected his guys which is admirable. when you watch that unit perform, uh, obviously we’ve talked about Jonah Williams who’s out for the year now, but for the most part, it’s the same group of guys as it was last year and the year before. Why do you think that unit has regressed so badly? Well, I mean, you lost your top three running backs, you know, I I think Jacobe Brassette has thrown well behind that line, you know, for the most part. I mean, I think, you know, the amount of sacks, I mean, I know Vita got a sack, kind of a covered sack, but I I think Brat can throw the ball pretty good. think he’s been protected pretty well. Um, but I I don’t think they come close to running the ball like they have in the past. Now, if you lose James Connor and you lose Benson, you lose these guys. You’re going to you’re going to lose something, but I don’t know if the tight ends are blocking well enough. You got to have tight ends that can block in this league. The right tackle is a backup. You know, he’s a great guy. Everybody loves Kelvin Beach. You know, he’s a captain basically wherever he goes. But, you know, I mean, you’re not getting great production from Kelvin right there. He’s got a guy that knows how to play and, you know, his experience and but, you know, you’re not getting, you know, you’re not getting a dominant performance out there at right tackle. Um, the center I always thought was really good. I thought he was uh act I thought he was very um athletic and I thought he was good in space. I don’t see them doing things like that. Um, you know, and so I think it’s a little bit of everything right now. Um, you know, Tampa lines up in an unbalanced formation, throw a touchdown to Tristan Worse. You don’t see I don’t even understand how you you don’t cover that. First of all, I’ve been in that situation like like Tristan. Like, you have to you have to say that you’re eligible. You have to you have to tell the official you’re eligible. Like, as soon as you hear that, you’re like, something’s got to be up. And they they acted like I don’t know. Like, I don’t think they should be that caught off guard, you know? And so like it’s just these little things that are getting them beat, you know, like that’s a third and two that Tristan scores on. Like maybe it’s a six nothing game instead of a 10- nothing game if you defend that play. You know, it just all kind of adds up over a period of time. Yeah, that that’s really strange when you’ve got starting left tackle coming in and he’s uh declaring himself eligible. And to your point, I mean, everybody is is made aware of that. It’s a mouse on a loudspeaker. Yeah. Yeah. You hear like if you’re listening to the radio, you can hear the the referee. You can hear him announcing the call. 78’s eligible. Like I when I hear that, I’m like, how did this He’s there. He’s eligible for a reason. You know, he’s eligible and and then you see the two Cardinals defenders just, you know, crash towards the middle of the of the end zone while Worfs is just wide open right there. Yeah. It’s uh it’s frustrating and it’s it’s been a frustrating season for Cardinals fans. you know, you do a great job as far as just from the analysis, you know, always you don’t like to get into like, you know, if you’re the GM, but if if you’re just looking at this team and it’s and its struggles, what do you think should be the number one priority going into the 26 off seasonason? And it could be from, you know, the coaching staff to maybe they need to upgrade at some sort of areas as far as the team goes, the personnel. What would you think is the number one priority for this team? I mean, just look around the league now. I mean, coaching matters. I mean, look what Liam Cohen is doing in Jacksonville. It’s the same roster as a year ago. Basically the same roster. Um, you look at what, you know, Vrabel’s doing in New England. You look at what Mike McDonald has turned around in Seattle. And then you look around and you go, okay, what’s the common denominator with the coaching change? Quarterbacks. Drake May leaves the league in all every quarterback statistic. Bo Nichz like, okay, they won nine in a row. All right. You got a Hall of Fame coach and you got a quarterback that just makes magic happen. Like, you know, you get great quarterback play and you get a coach like like Ben Johnson has built in a toughness to that football team where they can go into Philadelphia and run it for 281 yards. Look, the quarterback situation has to get figured out in Arizona. I don’t believe Kyler Murray is the answer for anybody. Whether the coach stays or not, I don’t believe we’ve seen enough evidence. like I don’t know how much more you need to see. Um like the quarterback situation has to get figured out. They couldn’t do that in New England till they got Drake May. Then they got a coach and a coordinator and Josh McDaniels that has figured it out and now all these young guys are flourishing. Um coaching quarterback, you know, and then building it the right way. Seattle, like you just go around the league, you know, or you could just say look at San Francisco with all the injuries, good coaching, stable organization, you know, um backups quarterback, backup receivers, whatever, backup defensive line winning games, you know, and figuring out a way to win games. Bald, the aha button topic will be over the course of the coming month or so will be uh Jonathan Ganon and his tenure thus far. And you know, we have a good authority like JG is is poised to return in January and we and we like him as a coach. I think he’s a good coach and a good man, but at the end of the day, like the record is what it is. You know, if you were talking to Cardinal fans knowing that Jonathan Ganon is returning in in 2026, like what would be the messaging there given the fact that they play in this gauntlet of a division where no one lets up and I I I don’t know if there’s a quick fix to be able to to close that gap. JG or not? Well, um, Seattle made a big change two years ago. They brought in a a hot young coordinator, Mike McDonald. You know, they blew out the coordinator that won helped them win 10 games a year ago and they got another one who’s better and they got themselves a quarterback with the same GM, guy that’s been building teams for a long time and John Schneider and now they’re very competitive. Like, you could say that the NFC West is a gauntlet. Why isn’t Arizona part of that gauntlet? You know what I mean? Like they they’ve been around as long as you know Shawn McVey is okay. He’s a special guy. Might maybe you need a special guy. I mean, you can look at McDonald, Shanahan, and McVey. It’s pretty good coaches, you know, and one that was a great coach that they said we got to do better than Pete Carol and they did and they’ve turned things around. So coaching coaching matters whether you want to keep money or not or like I don’t know you go around the league and you can look at where these teams are turning things around and are competitive right in front of us. There’s there’s some common denominators there. The coach, the quarterback, they always get coaches fired. Look, great coaches have been fired. Belch got fired in Cleveland. You know, Shanahan’s been fired, you know, in place. So sometimes you sometimes the coach, you know, could be fired and he could be a good coach and resurface and be a great coach and sometimes the guy that comes in takes your team and does a lot with it. There’s a lot of things that you would like about this team whether they keep Jonathan or not. Uh there a lot of things that you would like about this team, but there’s there’s an ingredient that is clearly missing. One of the non I guess issues that the Cardinals have is a guy that you’ve covered closely for a long time, Josh Sweat. Sweaty Jay tied his careerh high with 11 sacks. Just 12 games into it. Are you seeing anything different from Sweaty Jay this season? I mean, six sacks over his last five games. He’s kind of on a little bit of a heater. Have you seen anything different from him? Well, he’s always been um he always played with a very low pad level. He always could turn the corner. I remember when he came out of Florida State, like they said, he was a ticking time bot. like his knee was so bad the Eagles I think drafted him in the fourth round. He was a first round or second round talent, but the knee was so bad and so mangled that they’re like, “Ah, you know, he’s going to be out.” But he’s figured out how to play. I don’t think there’s any limitations to him, you know, as far as practice or anything like that. But he’s always been a guy that uh could turn the corner and that’s what he does. He’s not an overly powerful guy, but he’s very athletic and he doesn’t stay blocked and that’s what you’re seeing now. But, you know, two years ago when he had the 11 sacks, they had 70 as a team and they all kind of fed each other. And so, a lot of times it’s not just one guy, it’s it’s inside pressure. It’s pressure from the other side. It’s flushing your quarterback and you’re able to get the guy down. Um, but you you see a consistent effort from Joshua. Like I said, he he you know, not not many guys play with that low pad level, that on the edge like he does. Baldi, get you out of here on this. You look around uh the NFC landscape right now and it does feel like this is a heater year for the for the conference. You got a ton of teams, eight, nine wins that are are currently not in the postseason. You who would you peg as the favorite from the conference right now? Well, I think despite the Rams loss last week, they still look like the best team. I mean, they just have they don’t really have a weakness. You get to the five yard line, Devonte Adams catching a touchdown pass on, they’re gonna throw it to him and if they don’t get it on first down, they’ll throw it to him on second down. They’re gonna they’re gonna throw it to him. Puka is just I mean, he’s just that guy that he’s a little bit like he’s he’s somewhat like Trey McBride in that he could just work the middle of the field, but he’s just so dynamic and so tough, you know? So, they’ve got everything it takes and they’re reasonably healthy right now. I feel like the Rams are the team everybody’s looking at, but I’m not gonna say Seattle can’t beat them. They’ll play each other again. I’m not gonna say Chicago and Green Bay play this weekend. One team’s on a fiveame win streak, one team’s on a three-game win streak. One team is going to continue winning. If Chicago goes to Green Bay and wins, like they’re going to be tough because of the way that they can run the ball. You’re going to play in Chicago in a postseason game on that field in that weather. Who knows what you’re going to get, you know? So, and I don’t I don’t believe in Philadelphia right now at all. Uh I just seen enough things just aren’t right with that team. I seen this team collapse two years ago and they look like they’re on that right now. And I don’t know if Dallas takes care of business in Detroit tomorrow. If Dallas gets there, they look like they could beat anybody. I got real quick, let me jump in with this boat because he brought up Philadelphia and I brought this up on yesterday’s show. We’re slumbing it Baldi with quarterback solutions looking ahead to this off seasonason and this team being desperate. Is there any way given the if they implode in Philadelphia and given the struggles of the Philadelphia offense, is there any way they would shop Jaylen Herz given the fact that they they drafted that other kid that people are infatuated with in the preseason? Could you could you Yeah, Tanner McKe, could you see the somebody saying, “Hey, Howie Roseman, here’s three ones for Jaylen Herz.” Well, there there is a a love for Tanner McKe in that building. I’ll say that amongst players and other people. um because of the way that he plays and the rhythm that he can play with. I I’d have a hard trouble if somebody threw three if they completely collapse. I could see if somebody threw three number ones, I could see the Eagles possibly making that deal. Despite going to two Super Bowls and doing nothing but winning games and Super Bowl MVP, despite all that, I could see them like they’re always looking to upgrade. coaches, quarterbacks, you name it, they’re always looking. Oh man, you can’t beat the insight, the analysis from our guy Brian Baldinger. Baldi, always great to catch up with you. Have a great weekend. We’ll be watching. We’ll be listening. Uh we’ll check catch up with you soon. All right, guys. Uh, good luck this week,

Baldy breaks down why the Arizona Cardinals are imploding during the 2025 season. NFL analyst reveals the brutal truth Cards fans need to hear. Plus, what the film exposes from a loss to the Buccaneers and main fears facing the Rams in Week 14.

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