Opponent Breakdown: Arizona Cardinals

An insider's look at the Miami Dolphins' upcoming opponent.

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) throws a pass against the Miami Dolphins during the second quarter in Glendale, Ariz. November 8, 2020. / Michael Chow via Imagn Content Services, LLC

The Miami Dolphins will look to get back on the right track with Tua Tagovailoa back in the lineup when they face the Arizona Cardinals at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.

Longtime Cardinals reporter Howard Balzer of CardsWire and SiriusXM joined the All Dolphins Podcast this week to discuss everything related to the Cardinals, who are 3-4 after their Week 7 Monday night victory against the Los Angeles Chargers, and the matchup.

Here are excerpts from that interview. The full interview can be found below.

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STATE OF THE CARDINALS

At first glance, the Cardinals don't look overly impressive, yet they have wins now against the 49ers and the Chargers, who are supposedly gonna be better under Jim Harbaugh. So what do we make of this Cardinals team?

Balzer: It's hard really to make anything of them right now, because they are so Jekyll and Hyde. And that's just, that's kind of the way it's been. I mean, the first three games, they lost to Buffalo by six on the road. Then just dominated the Rams, division rival of course, then played a very tough game against the Lions and kept them from scoring in the second half and lost by a touchdown. Then they get blown out by Washington, turn around and beat San Francisco on a last-second field goal, then get blown out by Green Bay. Come back from that, we have the game (Monday) night where the one thing they really did, I think, was to keep everybody engaged defensively with stop the run, which had been a real problem since Week 3. They were able to do that, but again, bounce back from a bad loss. Offensively, it just seems disjointed. Kyler Murray can't get on the same page with Marvin Harrison Jr., but they have James Conner. I'm telling you, James Conner is just, if you were to look up warrior in the dictionary, that is James Conner. And the three games that they have won, he's had big games. Four games they've lost, not so much.

So basically with the Cardinals, it's been good, bad, good, bad, good, bad. So if Monday night they were good, that means they're due for a bad game against the Dolphins on Sunday, which is good news for the Dolphins because they could use the win. Plus it's a short week traveling from Arizona to South Florida.

Balzer: Interesting thing is we know how fan bases react in the most overreactive sport that there is in the land and I have a term that I like to use called “collective amnesia.” That everyone forgets what they said a few weeks ago, a few months ago, whatever it was. And when the schedule came out last May, everyone looked at it and said, boy, for a rebuilding team, the start of this schedule is brutal. There were five of the first six against playoff teams from last year and six of the first eight against playoff teams. Then it eases up. And yet when they're sitting there 2-4 after a bad one, everybody, oh, the rebuild isn't working, they need to make changes, and we know how the way fans react. But this was the beginning, against a tough team, yes, but not a great team, obviously. You know, 24 games of the Jonathan Gannon era, it's only been 24 games, but they've yet to win two games in a row. I don't think that's that surprising when you've only won seven in the last year and this year, but they haven't been able to win two in a row. Now they'll be looking at that. But knowing after a very physical game (Monday) night, obviously they're on a short week. They're gonna travel to South Florida on Friday. Normally when the Cardinals do that, when they're playing a team in the Eastern or Central time zone, because it's a 10 AM body clock game for the Cardinals. And so they'll travel Friday after a Monday night game. So we'll see how they're able to rebound from that.

THE CARDINALS ON OFFENSE AND DEFENSE

Where do you stand right now with Kyler Murray as a quarterback?

Balzer: Yeah, it's still a work in progress, even though he says this is the best I've felt, this is the best I feel about where my game is and the team around me since he's been in Arizona, which is interesting to hear from that after that 2021 season when they started out 7-0 and then lost a tough Thursday night game to the Packers and in which he got injured and so the biggest thing to me so far is that he played the final eight games last year and now the first seven games this year, so it's close to a full season and he hasn't been affected by injury. But overall, it's still a work in progress as he's now in his first full season with a new offense. And here's one of the things I think is that there were so high expectations with the arrival of Marvin Harrison Jr. that everybody thinks, oh, you just snap your finger, rookie is going to walk on the field and everything's going to be great. Well, sometimes it happens, more often than not, it does not, at least right out of the box. This is an inexperienced receiver corps. They're very young, inexperienced, and they're trying to find themselves right now. And I think, yes, Murray misses some throws. Somebody makes great ones, his legs, obviously. But for this team in terms of the offense playing together, is still trying to figure out a lot of teams, and especially with the way defenses are playing them. So we'll see if it improves down the stretch.

I look at Marvin Harrison Jr. and I don't know if it's because he wears 18 and the body type is kind of similar, but I kind of get like A.J. Green vibes. What has he done or not done as well as perhaps hoped?

Balzer: I think a certain amount of it is just getting on the same page with Murray. There's been some miscommunications. That's part of it. Jonathan Gannon said something interesting a week or so ago when he was asked about what's going on between Murray and him. And he talked about (they’ve) had to make some adjustments because of his stride length. And it's because of his body type. And so there has to be an adjustment there. Is he going to be where Kyler Murray expects him to be in the passing game? And so he said we've had to make some adjustments on that because he's not one of those, quote, quick twitch guys or a guy that just bursts off the line of scrimmage and gets into his route quickly. He's more of a smooth, efficient guy, but sometimes he's not getting open that quickly. And certainly we know that receivers coming into the league have the big adjustment going against the NFL defense at bats. That's a reality.

Yeah, the Cardinals did a good job (Monday) night on defense, but I look at that unit and I'm like, Budda Baker, Dennis Gardeck is a nice linebacker, but you want to talk about, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's because the Cardinals are playing in Arizona and they're not on national television often, but it's like a bunch of guys whose names few would recognize. Is there anybody there who stands out?

Balzer: There is Baker. The guy next to him at safety, Jalen Thompson, I think is one of the more underrated and overlooked safeties in the NFL. That's an excellent tandem. After that, it's mostly a lot of young guys. There's just a lot of youth throughout this roster. They don't have a top-notch edge rusher. And one of their better guys, Dennis Gardeck, got hurt (Monday) night. And on the defensive line, where they really tried to upgrade it in the offseason with two free agents, unrestricted free agents, Justin Jones and Bilal Nichols, who had been durable throughout their entire career, they're both on injury reserve and done for the season. Darius Robinson, their second first-round pick, hasn't played yet because of a calf injury. And so the defensive line is just a bunch of try-hard guys that had a little bit of an issue. But it was interesting to see the way they were able to stop the run (Monday) night. We know that the old cliche, all teams have injuries. But when you've lost your three defensive line starters by less than halfway through the season, and they're out, and you're playing with youth, you're going to have mistakes, you're going to have errors, you're going to have things go against you. I think they're on the right track, but certainly we know that health is paramount in the NFL for a lot of those things to happen.

I think the expectation from a Dolphins standpoint and from a Dolphins fan standpoint is obviously the offense is going to be a lot better with Tua on the lineup, even if there's some rust there because the backup quarterback play was, how can I say this politely, subpar. And based on what you're telling me, it seems to me that this is a very, very good spot for the Dolphins. Do you see the Cardinals as being a type of team that could give the Dolphins trouble here?

Balzer: It could be a good spot for the Dolphins, certainly. And as we saw last night's game, as I mentioned, the biggest thing is it was a grind-it-out game, but they didn't get into one of those games where the other team is just running the ball down your throat. And so, they really held JK Dobbins down, that forced them to pass a whole lot more, I'm sure, than they were hoping to and planned to. The Chargers only reached the red zone once. However, they were in Cardinals territory numerous times. But the five field goals was all they got, and those drives were stopped on third-down play. And so that could be the key, how efficient will Tua and the offense be on third down? And so that'll probably end up being a huge factor in the game, and whether the Dolphins can run it a little bit. I'd be a little surprised if they just come back and throw the ball over the yard. But Tua is obviously capable of that. But certainly I think if they can run the ball and control the clock, then that could keep the ball out of the Cardinals' hands for those times when they get something moving on offense.