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Justin Carter breaks down what the Arizona Cardinals will look like after the Marquise Brown injury and with the return of DeAndre Hopkins. What's the fantasy football value on this team moving forward?
Welcome back to Tape Tells All, the weekly series where I look at film and data for something that happened in the NFL this week.
There's actually a slight change of program this week. The Cardinals get DeAndre Hopkins back from suspension this week and traded for Robbie Anderson, but Marquise Brown is set to miss some time.
And I wanted to write about that, so instead of analyzing a player from last week, I'm writing about what's going on with the Arizona Cardinals. Can Kyler Murray get back on track? How will the passing game work with these additions?
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What Arizona Has Done So Far
Kyler Murray has not looked like a high-end NFL starting quarterback so far this season. The former No. 1 overall pick had had one game this season with over 300 passing yards and he's had two games where he didn't even throw a touchdown pass. This comes despite some huge volume: that 300 yard game was in Week 3, when he threw 58 passes and didn't record a touchdown pass.
Something has been off with Murray.
Looking at his advanced numbers, his aDOT has fallen from 8.0 last year to 6.5 this season. Murray is throwing more this year, but he's also throwing passes that don't travel as far. His raw numbers when it comes to deep ball attempts and overall air yards are fairly in line with last season, but the per play stuff shows a clear drop.
But it's not necessarily that Kyler is regressing as a passer. He can still hit his man accurately on the short stuff, like on the play above where he places this ball perfectly to keep it out of the reach of the defense. Per PlayerProfiler, Murray ranks fourth in true completion percentage this season.
One issue seems to be that Kyler has really struggled when pressured, and when you're pressured, you don't have time to push the ball down the field. Per The 33rd Team, Murray ranks 39th out of 45 QBs in completion percentage when pressured.
And also from 33rd Team, Murray is third among quarterbacks to play in every game in accuracy between zero and 10 yards, but is near the bottom in accuracy on passes over 20 yards.
Marquise Brown was supposed to help that, but Brown's aDOT has fallen from 10.5 last season in Baltimore to 9.2 this year. That's not to say anything negative about Brown, who has been really good:
But with Hopkins out, Brown's had to become the kind of "do it all" receiver that Hopkins usually is, which has limited his ability to make an impact down the field. Hopkins returning should have changed that, but now Brown is hurt:
Which means we're not going to see this offense at full force until after that.
But, the team did make one big move that might really unlock some things now that Hopkins is back:
There are a few different ways that Anderson could be used, but whatever it is, his versatility will add a layer to this offense.
What Can We Expect From The Cardinals Now?
The NFL as a whole is playing a lot of two high safeties this year, preventing teams from really taking the top off of defenses. We've seen a lot of adjustments. Patrick Mahomes, for instance, has the fewest intended air yards per attempt of his career this season.
That's leading to lower scoring, but it's also leading to chances for players to make plays in the short passing game. That's what Brown was doing. He wasn't stretching the field like he was in Baltimore, but he was thriving as a target hog.
For the next six weeks or so, DeAndre Hopkins should play that role. He just might not do it as well.
Hopkins was once one of the NFL's best receivers, but he averaged just 57.2 receiving yards per game last year, the lowest mark since his rookie campaign. His aDOT was up. His YAC was down. It was just a weird year for Hopkins.
Because YAC feels so much more important this year, Hopkins probably won't be quite as good as Brown. Per The 33rd Team, Brown actually ranks fourth among all players in fantasy points scored against Cover 2 defense this year, while his teammate Zach Ertz ranks first. It shouldn't be a shock that Brown is 18th among wideouts in YAC. Hopkins, last season, ranked 105th. Brown has a better skillset to account for this new era of NFL defenses.
But that's where Anderson comes in.
His numbers this year are hard to really parse through since things in Carolina are so weird, but when Anderson has played in good situations, he's served as a deep threat. The last three years in Carolina are hard to call good, but in 2019 with the Jets, he was eighth in the NFL in aDOT and 11th in deep targets.
In Carolina, he stopped being used as a deep threat and instead was the YAC guy, finishing fifth among receivers in 2020 in YAC. That dropped down last year, but, again, the Panthers were a mess offensively the last two years.
Anyway, I'm starting to go in circles. The point here is that Anderson benefits this offense in one of two ways: either he becomes your deep threat, pulling the safeties deeper and opening up room for Hopkins to make plays in the short passing game, or Hopkins becomes your deep threat and Anderson's ability to get YAC gives him more of the Marquise Brown role, which should help free Hopkins up down the field. I think either way, the results are good for the Cardinals offense.
But the results aren't necessarily good for Hopkins. If he gets used as a deep threat on a team that's struggled to give its QB time to throw and in an NFL environment that has made deep passing less effective, we could see a lot of disappointment when it comes to Hopkins.
Arizona Cardinals Fantasy Football Projections
So, what does this all mean for the Cardinals in fantasy? Let's go over each player and my fantasy outlook.
Kyler Murray
This one's easy. More weapons for Kyler is good, and his ability to run the ball gives him one of the highest floors in fantasy. He was a fantasy QB1 before all this recent wackiness, and he remains a fantasy QB1 now.
Running Backs
As you might notice, I didn't really mention running backs above, since they weren't directly impacted by this receiver swapping. The Cardinals rank second in the NFL in pass attempts right now, so despite adding weapons for Kyler, I don't think there's really much room for Arizona to throw more passes. They'll just be re-allocating where the passes they do throw end up. maybe that means Eno Benjamin's ceiling is lowered a bit, considering he has six catches over the last two games, but Arizona wasn't really throwing that much to running backs anyway.
DeAndre Hopkins
Ugh. As I mentioned above, this really depends on how he's used. If he ends up in the Marquise Brown role and Kyler Murray is looking his way 10 times per game, he's a WR2 play with WR1 upside, with a little less ceiling than Brown just because I don't think Hopkins can do as much anymore after the ball touches his hands.
But if that inability to produce YAC becomes an issue and Hopkins is instead pigeonholed into being out there for medium and deep passes, we'll see the floor plummet. Last year, Hopkins played seven games that I would consider "healthy" games, and he had four or fewer receptions in four of those games. If that's where he ends up, he's more of a touchdown dependent WR2—you'll still need to play him, but Hopkins finding the end zone becomes more important.
Robbie Anderson
I really like the upside of Anderson. He can do a lot more with the ball in his hands than Hopkins so while his upside isn't the same as Hopkins, I think he'll demand a pretty key role. I'd consider him a WR3/4 play because of his upside, but maybe I'm just too high on him?
Moore had 10 targets last game. It seems safe to say that number falls some with another mouth to feed, but he should maintain a decent role until Brown returns, especially with how much the Cardinals throw the ball. I like Moore slightly more than Anderson for the next six weeks because I anticipate a higher target share, so let's call him a WR3/4 play like Anderson, but with a little more safety built in because we know what he can do.
Zach Ertz
Again, the targets might go down a bit because there are more cooks in the kitchen, but tight end is a thin position and Ertz has seen 10 or more targets in four of the six games so far. He'll continue to be a useful player to help the Cardinals move the chains, as 17 of his 35 receptios have gone for first downs this year. He's still a TE1 play.
Green's best game this year: 20 receiving yards against the Eagles. He should not be on your fantasy radar.
Dortch was fun for the first three weeks. Since then, he was one reception, and he played just four offensive snaps in Week 6. You should have already dropped him.
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