Drew Petzing's Impact On The Arizona Cardinals' Offense
How the new offensive coordinator will likely flip the typical modus operandi we saw under Kliff Kingsbury.
Remember when we all tried to talk ourselves into Kliff Kingsbury being the next NFL coaching wunderkind, and turning the Arizona Cardinals into the next great offensive juggernaut since he resided in the same solar system as Sean McVay?
Those were fun times, weren’t they?
Kingsbury, with his 28–37–1 record and one playoff appearance in Arizona, has gone back to the college game. And thanks to the “assistance” of former General Manager Steve Keim, he left, in his wake, an offense without its franchise quarterback (since Kyler Murray will very likely miss the majority—if not entirety—of the 2023 season while rehabbing from his torn ACL), a neglected offensive line that remained in shambles, and a top 10 wide receiver1 whom nobody—including Arizona themselves—wanted because of his recent injury history and hefty contractual obligations.
But here’s where things get really interesting: new head coach Jonathan Gannon has charged Drew Petzing—a first time offensive coordinator who will be the youngest person in the NFL in said role—to resurrect the offense out of the shambles left behind by Kingsbury and Keim. That seems like a lot to ask of a guy who has all of four years of experience as a full-fledged position coach in the NFL. And it’s not like Petzing will be the “OC in name only” under a head coach who’ll also oversee the offense. Gannon is obviously a defensive-minded coach—meaning he’s likely giving full responsibility of the offense to someone who’s never actually called plays before.
To borrow a legendary movie quotation here: “It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em.”
In Gannon’s defense, it’s not like he and General Manager Monti Ossenfort hired some random dude from the local watering hole to run Arizona’s offense. Though Petzing and Gannon first might’ve gotten to know each other while working as assistant coaches for the Minnesota Vikings from 2014-2017, the former would eventually become a valued lieutenant to Kevin Stefanski; Stefanski elevated Petzing to wide receivers coach when the former became the full-time offensive coordinator of the Vikings in 2018, and then brought Petzing along as his tight ends coach when he became head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2020.
Before the start of the 2022 season, Stefanski elevated Petzing to Quarterbacks coach with the confidence that Petzing would be able to guide the position through the looming uncertainty of Deshaun Watson's suspension and subsequent midseason integration into the offense. Though Watson’s performances were shaky at best when he returned, Petzing was widely credited and praised for how well Jacoby Brissett played in the interim.
If you haven’t gathered by now: the subtext here is that Gannon, Ossenfort, and the rest of the Cardinals organization will be hoping that Petzing can translate his success in Cleveland into fully “unlocking” all the talents possessed by Murray2. Unfortunately, if not unsurprisingly, that’s pretty much bullet point number one in Petzing’s job description—something of which Petzing is fully aware, and for which he’s expressed excitement.
But there’s a subplot here which nobody really seems to be talking about: thinking this offense will fully revolve around Murray not only feels shortsighted (isn’t that how Arizona found themselves in this mess in the first place?3), but simply doesn’t jive with the body of work presented in Petzing’s résumé.
Yes, Petzing stated that his offense "will be structured around the quarterback position to maximize his skillset." But I don’t think that translates into a redux of the “let’s send four receivers out into passing routes and hope Murray does some cool shit out there” philosophy of his predecessor.
Ironically, I kinda think it means the opposite; as in, I would expect the Arizona offense to run the ball a lot this season.
Remember, Petzing spent the last three seasons in Cleveland, during which time the Browns ranked among the top 10 teams in the NFL in rushing attempts each season. Since 2020, the Browns’ offense averaged over 30 rushing attempts per game; by contrast, the Cardinals averaged less than 22 rushing attempts per game in 20224.
Unsurprisingly, that difference bore out in the net effectiveness of each team’s rushing attack. Cleveland averaged 146.5 rushing yards per game last season (6th-best in the NFL) compared to Arizona’s 110.2 rushing yards per game (22nd in the NFL). And the advanced analytics only further highlight the difference between the two teams. Arizona not only ranked in the bottom quarter of the league (24th overall) in rushing offense DVOA last season, but if you adjusted their performance for the opponents they played, their ranking actually drops to 27th. By contrast, the Browns ranked #10 overall in rushing offense DVOA last season, with their ranking actually climbing to #6 overall when you factor in quality of opponents.5
Point being: expect Petzing to do more for Kyler Murray by making the offense less about Kyler Murray, and providing a much heavier emphasis on the running game—an area that Kingsbury all but treated as an afterthought. The fact that Arizona used two of it’s first five picks on a plug-and-play left tackle prospect, and a guy whom they’re hoping can step in at center on day one, only reinforces their commitment to improving their rushing attack. And it’s hard to see Gannon not thinking the same way, considering he came from a team which saw its top three running backs combine for over 360 carries last season6.
And none of this even touches on the fact that Murray will miss a significant portion of the 2022 season—meaning there’s very little to behoove the Cardinals into letting Colt McCoy drop back and throw the ball 35+ times per game. Even though everyone knows the Arizona Cardinals are embarking on something of a “reset” season this fall, they can’t even pretend to be competitive if they’re making a journeyman backup quarterback the centerpiece of their offense.
Nobody has, or likely will, associate the Cardinals’ offense with being a team known for running the football. But until the team bring some stability to the current and long-term status of the quarterback position7, and rebuilds much of the supporting cast around their quarterback of choice, given the background(s) of the new guys in charge of this team, expect a steady regimen of the proverbial meat-and-potatoes from Arizona’s offense—or, at least a stark departure from their all-sizzle-and-no-steak approach of late. ■
I’m working on my own rankings of the top 25-ish receivers in the NFL… and DeAndre Hopkins remains among my top 10. I don’t care what anyone else says/thinks.
I mean, it’s not like the Cardinals chose to pair Murray with Kingsbury because the former succeeded in great measure while playing in a variant of the Air Raid offense while at the University of Oklahoma, so the Arizona brain trust — an oxymoron in hindsight — decided that putting Murray back into an Air Raid-based offense, like the one that would be implemented by Kingbury, would make for a seamless transition to the NFL.
It's hard not to think that Kingsbury and Keim thought they could get by exclusively on Murray’s talents and Kingsbury’s scheme alone if they just added a couple of expensive and shiny things to the mix, instead of building things with any modicum of a plan. Put more bluntly: it was slapdick roster construction and game planning at its finest.
If you remove the scrambles and designated runs by/from Murray
Yes, I fully recognize that a team that has Nick Chubb — arguably the best running back in the NFL on a per-play basis in 2022 — is going to be good at running the football. But even though I’ve never really been a huge fan of the guy, James Conner played at an above-average level for Arizona last year. Though I was rather surprised that they didn’t further bolster their running back room this offseason, the Cardinals do have a guy to whom they can steadily hand the football and reasonably expect a level of success. Plus, running back is clearly proving to be an increasingly fungible position — as in, they can easily find somebody off waivers/in free agency in July or August — like maybe Kareem Hunt?— and plug them in rather seamlessly. Oh, and yes, I did use the word “fungible” in something other than the context of a fictional internet token.
And that’s not even counting the 165 rushing attempts by Jalen Hurts.
The obvious presumption is that if Arizona truly tanks this season, they put themselves in position to draft a stud quarterback prospect like Caleb Williams from USC or Drake Maye from North Carolina. But herein lies the rub: given Kyler Murray’s recent contract extension, the earliest Arizona could release him—without setting fire to their entire salary cap, anyway—would be after the 2024 season. Meaning there isn’t a clear road for the Cardinals to take a guy in next year’s Draft and hand him the reigns … unless they do so with Murray looking on from the bench.