Are Cardinals Sleeper Team in 2024?
The Arizona Cardinals have bolstered both sides of the ball in hopes of improving on their 4-13 record from last season.
Out of the biggest factors to determine if that will happen is the health status of Kyler Murray, who enters 2024 fully healthy and recovered from major ACL surgery that caused him to miss the first half of the 2023 season.
Weapons around Murray have been added while some holes on the defense have been plugged.
Sure, doubts across the roster still exist. The Cardinals are still a fairly young team that’s still clearing the mess left by the previous regime of Kliff Kingsbury and Steve Keim. Arizona’s banking on a strong mix of recent draft picks and free agent additions to help raise the floor for 2024’s output.
Are the Cardinals a sleeper team?
“I’ve seen some buzz about the Cardinals being a sleeper team this year. I’m not saying that’s out of the question, but the schedule looks like it could be tougher than you might think (teams like the Commanders and Jets might be much better than their 2023 record would suggest). Seeing Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr. creating positive memories with an improved defense should be a realistic goal for this team,” wrote NFL.com’s Adam Rank.
While the Cardinals aren’t expected to make a deep postseason push, I assure you Arizona won’t settle for creating “positive memories”, and the defense last season was so dreadful at times nearly anything will be an improvement for 2024.
The Cardinals’ ability to surprise folks mostly rests in the health of Murray, who looked strong in his brief cameo last season. Arizona arguably should have finished with five or six wins if not for some odd late-game mishaps – and with an improved roster, some believe Jonathan Gannon’s roster could be sneaky playoff contenders.
The Green Bay Packers landed the NFC’s No. 7 seed last year with just nine wins – are the Cardinals prepared to double their four wins from last season with an additional game?
The postseason – as we previously said – isn’t quite the goal for fans in the desert. Improvement is the name of the game as we enter the second year of the rebuild, but what’s an actual improvement that would leave people satisfied when the dust settles?
We witnessed the Cardinals fight and claw their way through a 17 game schedule last season. If that mentality is matched with better on-field performance (the talent added this offseason gives hope that can be the case), it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Arizona in the mix later than some had initially thought.
The national media continues to sleep on the Cardinals. The building blocks are there for Arizona to burst on the scene – but that relies on everybody taking a step up from the coaching staff to the roster.
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