{"id":794046,"date":"2026-03-05T15:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T15:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/794046\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T15:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T15:50:18","slug":"no-team-suffered-like-the-cardinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/794046\/","title":{"rendered":"No Team Suffered Like the Cardinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Arizona Cardinals were a disaster in 2025. Originally thought to be a sleeper contender by some preseason prognosticators, the Cardinals instead crashed out at 3-14 to finish way, way back at the bottom of the NFC West. The Cardinals plan on cutting quarterback Kyler Murray<\/a> on the first day of the league year next week, setting things up for a complete franchise reset.<\/p>\n

But was the Cardinals\u2019 season really as bad as it looked? There are a couple of important explanations for why things went so bad for Arizona in 2025. First of all, the Cardinals played the hardest schedule in the league based on average DVOA of opponent. That\u2019s what is going to happen when two of your division rivals rank among the top teams in DVOA history. But it gets even worse, because the Cardinals had to play those games with a roster decimated by injury.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Arizona Cardinals finished 2025 with the second-highest total in the history of my Adjusted Games Lost metric, which measures how often a team\u2019s starters and other important players are missing games or playing at less than 100%. The Cardinals had 179.8 Adjusted Games Lost in 2025, trailing only the 2021 Baltimore Ravens (180.2) for the highest total I have ever measured.<\/p>\n

Highest Season AGL, 2001-2025<\/p>\n

Year
\nTeam
\nAGL
\nW-L<\/p>\n

2021
\nBAL*
\n180.2
\n8-9<\/p>\n

2025
\nARI
\n179.8
\n3-14<\/p>\n

2016
\nCHI
\n171.5
\n3-13<\/p>\n

2020
\nSF*
\n161.6
\n6-10<\/p>\n

2019
\nNYJ
\n160.1
\n7-9<\/p>\n

2023
\nHOU
\n157.9
\n10-7<\/p>\n

2015
\nNYG
\n152.0
\n6-10<\/p>\n

2022
\nDEN
\n148.6
\n5-12<\/p>\n

2021
\nNYJ*
\n147.5
\n4-13<\/p>\n

2022
\nLAR
\n146.6
\n5-12<\/p>\n

2024
\nSF
\n141.2
\n6-11<\/p>\n

2013
\nNYG
\n140.5
\n7-9<\/p>\n

*Does not include COVID.<\/p>\n

Adjusted Games Lost totals have been higher in recent seasons, especially with the move to the 17-game season.<\/p>\n

The biggest issue for Arizona was injuries in the secondary. There is some subjectivity here to which players are and are not counted, and for which weeks they are counted. Slightly different decisions from me while putting the data together could result in the Cardinals being No. 1 all-time or being a little bit more behind the 2021 Ravens, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that the Cardinals lost a lot of defensive backs in 2025. It started when Sean Murphy-Bunting<\/a> was injured, reportedly in an offseason softball game. Starling Thomas V<\/a>, who had started 15 games in 2024, missed the entire season with a torn ACL. Rookie Will Johnson<\/a> had groin, thumb, and back injuries. Max Melton<\/a> had a heel injury and a concussion. Nickelback Garrett Williams<\/a> was on the IR with a knee injury and then tore his Achilles later in the season. The top three safeties also missed games.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals also led the NFL in Adjusted Games Lost at running back and missed a significant number of games at offensive line, defensive line, and wide receiver.<\/p>\n

No other team came close to the Cardinals in AGL for 2025, as the gap between Arizona and No. 31 Detroit was larger than the gap between Detroit and No. 19 New Orleans. Other teams that suffered a high number of injuries, besides Arizona and Detroit, included Washington, Miami and San Francisco. Only three of the top 10 teams in AGL made the playoffs: the 49ers, Chargers and Texans.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the docket, seven of the 10 teams with the lowest AGL totals made the playoffs, led by the New England Patriots. The opposite of the Cardinals, the Patriots had the exact opposite record (14-3) with the fewest AGL and the easiest schedule. However, the Patriots\u2019 AGL wasn\u2019t even close to historically low. Three teams in 2024 had lower AGL than the Patriots had in 2025. Other teams that were low in AGL included the Eagles, the World Champion Seahawks, and, believe it or not, the Kansas City Chiefs. Obviously, the Chiefs lost Patrick Mahomes<\/a> at the end of the year, but they didn\u2019t have that many injuries in the first three months of the season. There are a number of reasons why the Chiefs\u2019 saw their win-loss record collapse in 2025, but injuries are not to blame until you get to December.<\/p>\n

Speaking of late in the season, I should note here that AGL is only measuring the regular season. So, for example, Bo Nix<\/a> missing the AFC Championship Game doesn\u2019t count for the Broncos, and George Kittle<\/a>\u2018s torn Achilles does not count for the 49ers.<\/p>\n

This year produced a new problem: Travis Hunter<\/a>. Is Hunter a defensive back or a wide receiver? He played both positions enough to matter for AGL, so as far as I\u2019m concerned he counts as both. I double-counted the 10 games that Hunter missed. This was enough to move the Jaguars from third to seventh in fewest AGL.<\/p>\n

Just as we did on our old website, I\u2019ve continued to collect data from the NFL\u2019s weekly injury reports (with the help of Zach Binney from Emory University) and transformed it into Adjusted Games Lost. We also have the data going backwards, covering the entire 21st century. Adjusted Game Lost doesn\u2019t just add up total injuries. It accounts for both absent players and those playing at less than 100%, and it specifically measures injuries to expected starters and important situational players rather than little-used backups. As such, AGL estimates the impact of injuries on teams and provides a comparable total that often succinctly explains why teams improved or declined from one year to the next.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Here we go with the numbers. Hopefully this isn\u2019t confusing, but ranks go from best (1, fewest injuries) to worst (32, most injuries). That\u2019s why the Cardinals are listed as No. 32 but they are on top of the table.<\/p>\n

2025 Adjusted Games Lost<\/p>\n

Team
\nOFF
\nRK
\nDEF
\nRK
\nTOT
\nRK
\n2024
\nRK<\/p>\n

ARI
\n101.7
\n32
\n78.1
\n31
\n179.8
\n32
\n104.7
\n26<\/p>\n

DET
\n37.6
\n15
\n92.7
\n32
\n130.3
\n31
\n96.6
\n25<\/p>\n

WAS
\n71.0
\n30
\n53.4
\n27
\n124.4
\n30
\n45.5
\n5<\/p>\n

MIA
\n71.4
\n31
\n45.9
\n20
\n117.3
\n29
\n111.0
\n28<\/p>\n

SF
\n60.2
\n27
\n54.8
\n28
\n115.0
\n28
\n141.2
\n32<\/p>\n

LAC
\n56.3
\n25
\n49.9
\n23
\n106.2
\n27
\n64.2
\n10<\/p>\n

CLE
\n56.2
\n24
\n48.2
\n21
\n104.4
\n26
\n106.6
\n27<\/p>\n

HOU
\n65.9
\n28
\n35.4
\n15
\n101.3
\n25
\n88.9
\n21<\/p>\n

TB
\n70.6
\n29
\n25.5
\n8
\n96.1
\n24
\n75.8
\n17<\/p>\n

NYG
\n43.8
\n19
\n51.3
\n24
\n95.0
\n23
\n70.3
\n13<\/p>\n

NYJ
\n49.2
\n22
\n43.9
\n18
\n93.1
\n22
\n84.9
\n20<\/p>\n

CAR
\n59.1
\n26
\n33.3
\n14
\n92.4
\n21
\n115.0
\n30<\/p>\n

ATL
\n33.4
\n12
\n53.1
\n25
\n86.4
\n20
\n44.2
\n4<\/p>\n

NO
\n54.4
\n23
\n28.9
\n12
\n83.2
\n19
\n114.6
\n29<\/p>\n

BAL
\n15.6
\n4
\n63.1
\n30
\n78.7
\n18
\n16.3
\n1<\/p>\n

CHI
\n21.7
\n8
\n53.2
\n26
\n74.9
\n17
\n40.3
\n3<\/p>\n

Team
\nOFF
\nRK
\nDEF
\nRK
\nTOT
\nRK
\n2024
\nRK<\/p>\n

CIN
\n48.0
\n20
\n26.4
\n10
\n74.4
\n16
\n71.6
\n15<\/p>\n

GB
\n48.3
\n21
\n24.6
\n6
\n72.9
\n15
\n46.1
\n7<\/p>\n

DAL
\n23.4
\n9
\n49.1
\n22
\n72.5
\n14
\n84.7
\n19<\/p>\n

BUF
\n11.0
\n1
\n61.4
\n29
\n72.4
\n13
\n56.1
\n8<\/p>\n

IND
\n20.4
\n7
\n45.5
\n19
\n65.9
\n12
\n89.8
\n22<\/p>\n

TEN
\n24.0
\n10
\n38.8
\n16
\n62.8
\n11
\n69.8
\n12<\/p>\n

LAR
\n36.1
\n14
\n26.1
\n9
\n62.2
\n10
\n90.8
\n23<\/p>\n

MIN
\n38.6
\n17
\n22.8
\n4
\n61.4
\n9
\n65.3
\n11<\/p>\n

DEN
\n40.3
\n18
\n20.3
\n3
\n60.6
\n8
\n45.9
\n6<\/p>\n

JAX
\n29.7
\n11
\n24.9
\n7
\n54.7
\n7
\n57.3
\n9<\/p>\n

PIT
\n13.2
\n2
\n40.1
\n17
\n53.3
\n6
\n76.9
\n18<\/p>\n

LV
\n35.6
\n13
\n15.6
\n2
\n51.3
\n5
\n118.8
\n31<\/p>\n

KC
\n38.3
\n16
\n11.2
\n1
\n49.4
\n4
\n70.4
\n14<\/p>\n

SEA
\n15.5
\n3
\n31.4
\n13
\n46.9
\n3
\n72.4
\n16<\/p>\n

PHI
\n16.1
\n5
\n27.9
\n11
\n44.0
\n2
\n33.7
\n2<\/p>\n

NE
\n19.4
\n6
\n24.0
\n5
\n43.5
\n1
\n93.2
\n24<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the Detroit Lions ranked among the top teams in history in terms of AGL on defense. Well, last year it got even worse, as the Lions ended the season with 92.7 AGL on defense. That\u2019s the second-highest total ever measured behind only the 2021 Jets. Here\u2019s a look at the worst defensive AGL totals. Unlike the table above, this one includes COVID absences for 2020 and 2021, although the 2021 Jets would still be No. 1 even without considering COVID.<\/p>\n

Worst Defensive AGL, 2001-2025<\/p>\n

Year
\nTeam
\nAGL
\nW-L<\/p>\n

2021
\nNYJ
\n101.3
\n4-13<\/p>\n

2025
\nDET
\n92.7
\n9-8<\/p>\n

2018
\nTB
\n91.4
\n5-11<\/p>\n

2021
\nBAL
\n88.0
\n8-9<\/p>\n

2020
\nSF
\n87.9
\n6-10<\/p>\n

2016
\nCHI
\n87.5
\n3-13<\/p>\n

2024
\nDET
\n86.5
\n15-2<\/p>\n

2022
\nTEN
\n85.6
\n7-10<\/p>\n

2015
\nNYG
\n85.6
\n6-10<\/p>\n

2019
\nNYJ
\n83.7
\n7-9<\/p>\n

2024
\nLV
\n79.1
\n4-13<\/p>\n

2025
\nARI
\n78.1
\n3-14<\/p>\n

It\u2019s remarkable that the Lions of the last two seasons are the only teams on this list with winning records.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, we\u2019ll look at which teams struggled the most with AGL at each position group in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Arizona Cardinals were a disaster in 2025. Originally thought to be a sleeper contender by some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,7,6170,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-794046","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-football","13":"tag-football-outsiders","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116177367028604104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794046","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=794046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}