Jalen Thompson believes the additions to the D-line and secondary will make the Cardinals defense what lead the team.
The Arizona Cardinals have been known as an offensively led team for several years, basically since quarterback Kyler Murray was drafted first overall in 2019. Since Murray came back from his ACL tear two seasons ago, the offense has been a top-10 unit in terms of efficiency.
Will that continue?
Safety Jalen Thompson doesn’t think so.
“This is gonna be a defensive-led team in my opinion,” Thompson said on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM last week during the first week of OTAs. “I just think that it’s one of those things where, like we were talking about a little bit earlier,  we were in games, a lot of games last year with the defense, and we could have won those games if we had a little more, I feel like.”
The Cardinals lost by one score to the Buffalo Bills and had no answer for Josh Allen. They gave up a game-winning score in the final minutes against the Minnesota Vikings and allowed the Carolina Panthers to score 36 points.
One stop in those three games and the Cardinals are an 11-win team and in the postseason.
“This year should be a little bit different,” Thompson said. “We got the D-line, some new guys in the D-line. We got some new guys in the in the DB room that are all ready to go. They’re intentional, they come to practice, they’re consistent.
“I think that should be good for us.”
In free agency, the signed OLB Josh Sweat, DL Dalvin Tomlinson and DL Calais Campbell, They re-signed OLB Baron Browning and DL L.J. Collier. OLB BJ Ojulari, DL Justin Jones and DL Bilal Nichols are all coming back from injuries. They drafted DL Walter Nolen in the first round and CB Will Johnson in the second round.
This defense should the best unit from the Cardinals we have seen since the first half of the 2021 season.
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