Arizona Cardinals Offensive Metrics - Week One

This is the first of a weekly post in which I am going to look at the performance of our offense in terms of metrics; this will not encompass the QB, but will look at key aspects of offensive line performance and play from skill position players in the passing game. Here are some of the things I will be covering;

1.      Targets, how many times a receiver/tight end/back is thrown at by the QB

2.      Catches, self explanatory, how many catches a receiver/back/tight end had.

3.      Yards, again self explanatory, how many yards the catches produced

4.      YAC, yards after the catch, how many yards did the receiver make after they catch the football.

5.      TD's, how many Touchdowns did a player score

6.      Drops, how many drops did a player have.

7.      Sacks allowed, how many sacks were as a result of a poor block from a player

8.      Hits allowed, how many QB hits were as a result of a poor block from a player

9.      Hurries allowed, how many times the QB was flushed or forced to get rid of the ball before he wants to because of a poor block from a player.

10.  Stuffs allowed, how many times a run was stopped for no gain or a loss because of a poor block from a player.

Among these will be other things like Holding Penalties and False Start Penalties.

Hit to jump to see how the Cardinals shaped up week 1.

As most have seen and noted Levi Brown had a shocking day at the office week one, he was responsible for both sacks given up by the Cardinals, one to Greg Hardy and one to Charles Johnson, he was also a culprit in allowing pressure to hurry Kolb on four other occasions. His usually good run blocking was not on display either as he allowed one stuff and the Cardinals struggled to run the ball behind him.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Rex Hadnot, Hadnot played lights out in both the passing and running games, he blanked the stat sheet this week, that is just what you want to see from these numbers.

In the receiving game it should surprise nobody that Larry Fitzgerald led the team with 7 targets, the only surprise to come from Larry was that he actually dropped a pass. It was not a perfect throw from Kolb, but Larry got both hands on it and had to reel it in.

The big surprise to me is that Todd Heap was only targeted twice in the passing game, he had two 20 yard gains and was looking very good when he was involved, I expect the number of targets for Heap to rise as the season progresses and Kolb becomes more and more familiar with his Tight End.

That is all for now, hope you enjoyed this first installment (Which is shorter than what it will usually be), and tune in again next week for a by the numbers look at the game against Washington.

Note - I record in whole numbers, not half numbers, much easier to keep track of. If you think you see something terribly different, just tell me about it (Time of the game is helpful) and I can go back and look at it. If a play is completed but then negated by a penalty, I will record the metrics, players still go 100% even if there has been a flag thrown. These numbers may or may not match up with widely accepted statistical providers, most of the time they will differ, every person is likely to record a different meaning for a "hurry".