Panic Meter: Should Cardinals Worry About Marvin Harrison Jr.?

Discussing a variety of topics in this week's panic meter for the Arizona Cardinals.

Aug 10, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. (18) against the New Orleans Saints during a preseason NFL game at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

One week into the 2024 season and it's time to panic about these Arizona Cardinals, right?!

Well, maybe in some areas, but we also need to remember it's a 17-game season and the Cards can easily rebound from what was, to be frank, a concerning Week 1 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

Look, I'm not here to be all doom and gloom, but I am here to look at the biggest areas that Cardinals fans are expressing concern and even panic for and whether it's justifiable or not.

To me, some are overreactions but may have some truth to them. There is one, however, that I am going to DEFCON 1.

Let's discuss...

Marvin Harrison Jr's slow start

MHJ didn't quite have the NFL debut we hoped for, and he certainly fell short of my insane predictions (I'm sorry...). However, there's almost no reason to hit the panic button over Harrison's dud to begin his NFL career.

The Cardinals' offense had a really up and down day and lacked consistency on a drive-to-drive basis. The Bills also put Harrison in bracket coverage to slow him down, so there's that factor as well.

The bottom line is Harrison was in a tough spot to start the year and his almost zero impact is no reason to panic... unless you own him in fantasy football!!

Panic Meter: 2/10

Cardinals pass rush... or lack thereof

Arizona's pass rushing rate against Buffalo was around just 3%... which in case you're wondering is beyond words atrocious.

Entering the season, there were already tons of concerns with B.J. Ojulari out for the year and Darius Robinson missing at least the first quarter of the season. Even still, we couldn't imagine this level of, well, bad play.

This was already an area to panic over, but we could see a historically bad season from the Cardinals' pass rush.

Panic meter: 12/10

Cardinals offensive line woes

The offensive line is already banged up and allowed four sacks of Kyler Murray and around 3.4 YPC if you subtract Murray's rushing yards. Against a good Bills defense, it's understandable. However, it doesn't exactly instill hope moving forward.

The schedule doesn't get easier with opposing pass rushes with the Rams and Lions coming to town the next two weeks. The Cards will have a chance to redeem themselves against LA's young pass rush, but that will be far from easy.

Panic meter: 8/10

The schedule...

How many wins do the Cardinals have on their schedule? We believed they would come into this season and be competitive and while we don't have reason to disprove that just yet, the defense showed they're as bad as we thought... and that will force the Cardinals into boat races.

Again, this isn't anything we didn't see coming, but this could be more challenging than we originally thought. It really only feels like Arizona will be favored in a few games this year and I'm not sure they have a win until week four against the visiting Commanders, which is no walk in the park.

The defense can't get much worse than they were against Buffalo, and there were still some good things to build off of. But they will need to make a significant step up or the Cardinals are going to lose a lot more games than we'd like this season.

Panic meter: 7/10