But Petzing shares some blame in the collapse. His play-calling was constantly under criticism, and part of the reason for Arizona\u2019s failure was poor play in critical moments. After Week 2, they went 0-8 in one-score games, and the Cardinals offense converted just 42.9% of their fourth down attempts\u2014the fourth-lowest rate in the league. That was a consistent problem, too, as they ranked 28th in conversion rate in 2024 and 27th in 2023.<\/p>\n
Despite all those injuries and struggles, the passing offense stayed out of the bottom third of the league in most statistics. McBride, again, took another big step, leading all NFL tight ends with 1,239 receiving yards and earning himself first-team All-Pro honors. Third-year receiver Michael Wilson also had a good year, posting a 1,000-yard season for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n
There was nothing redeeming about the run game, however, and it has led some to believe that there was one other big impact on the offense in 2025: losing offensive line coach Klayton Adams. He left to become the Cowboys\u2019 offensive coordinator (but not play caller) and helped turn Dallas\u2019 rushing attack into a top-10 unit. That has led to a healthy debate in Arizona over who was the true mastermind behind the Cardinals\u2019 rushing success in 2023-24.<\/p>\n
Of course, with Petzing reuniting with respected Lions OL coach Hank Fraley (they coached together with the Vikings), perhaps that is less of a concern in Detroit.<\/p>\n
After two seasons, it really looked like the Cardinals had made the right hire and the offense was heading in the right direction. Those two years earned him a head coaching interview for the Bears in 2025 and some respect around the league. This past season was a disaster, but there was obviously some important injury context to the team\u2019s failures. Still, with only a small sample size to deal with, and just how bad everything fell apart last year, some skepticism is certainly warranted\u2014particularly as a play-caller in big moments.<\/p>\n Schematically, this selection really seems to make a lot of sense for the Lions. Petzing wants to use heavy personnel, run the ball a ton, and utilize a bunch of play-action\u2014all hallmarks of Detroit\u2019s offensive success over the past four years.<\/p>\n In a lot of ways, this hiring checks the boxes of what a lot of Lions fans were looking for. He\u2019s got plenty of play-calling experience, he\u2019s an external hire, and his specialty is where the Lions offense struggled the most in 2025: running the football. It\u2019s fair to think he may bring some fresh ideas to a running game that needs to be way more efficient in 2025.<\/p>\n But with only one truly good offensive coordinator season to his name and some questions about his situational play-calling, some caution is reasonable. You won\u2019t find a lot of candidates out there with flawless resumes, but there were certainly options out there with more success stories under their belt.<\/p>\n Detroit seems to believe that when taking into account schematic\/philosophical fit, age, and some production with lesser talent, Petzing could surprise a lot of people in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With reports that former Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing is being hired as the next Detroit Lions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,449,37982,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-691357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-detroit-lions-analysis","13":"tag-detroit-lions-coaching-news-rumors","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115927941592567276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-6.50.32\u202fPM.png\"\/)
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