We should see some Arizona Cardinals practice reports in a couple of hours and we'll have injury updates on guys like Chike Okeafor, Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, Steve Breaston and many others. For now though we'll just dive into some random stats, rankings and whatever else we can find that's half-way interesting.
According to Football Outsiders (DVOA, Rank):
Arizona Offense: 2.5% (18th) - How bad was the Cards offense in week one? They were ranked 28th after week one but a rebound performance against the Jaguars jumped up the squad a whole ten spots. The pass offense ranks 10th (39.5%) while the rushing attack still leaves something to be desired at 30th (-31.1%)
Arizona Defense: -24.6% (4th) - Not bad for a defense that really struggled at times last year and they held the exact same ranking after week one. The pass defense is barely in the top ten at 9th (-6.7%) but the run defense is 2nd (-52.5%), only to the Titans.
Kurt Warner: 34.6% (6th) - What do you get when you have a terrible week one and record breaking week two? Well you get ranked sixth in just about every category that FO has to offer, including DVOA, DYAR and YAR. Not bad for a guy that they predicted to crumble into little pieces during the off season.
Larry Fitzgerald: 13.8% (24th) - Fitz is right around the 20's mark in their three categories (19th in DYAR, 19 in YAR and 24th in DVOA). You can expect all of those rankings to rise as the season goes on, although these stats tend to favor the deep threats over possession receivers so he won't really jump up the ranking until the Cards start stretching the field.
Anquan Boldin: -24.9 (62nd) - Remember what I said about possession receivers vs. deep threats, but don't get too bent out of shape because Boldin always ends up in the top 10 or 15.
Steve Breaston: Breaston is one catch shy of qualifying for the rankings but according to the stats he'd be ranked just ahead of Fitz in terms of DYAR and YAR but his DVOA ranking (86.1%) would in the top three. See I wasn't lying about deep threats. If anyone is wondering, Jerheme Urban is in the lower 30's in all three rankings.
Tim Hightower: -17.5% (34) - Hightower is ranked 34th across the board and that's pretty close to what he was ranked last year (slightly below replacement level). His lack of touchdowns so far and low 'success rate' have kept him down thus far. Beanie Wells would be about five or six spots under Hightower if he had enough carries to qualify and his biggest problem is the two fumbles (they grade a recovered fumble and lost fumble equally).
Drive Stats: This is one of my favorite stats from FO, even though they don't use any of their fancy metrics. They're just straight stats but they're presented in a way that we don't normally see. The offense is ranked in the upper teens in just about every category, including points per drive, TDs per drive, turnovers per drive, interceptions per drive and drive success rate. The offense is slightly lower in yards per drive (22nd) but slightly better in punts per drive (13th) and starting field position (14th). The defense is pretty much all over the board with rankings as high as 2nd in fumbles per drive and 26th, interceptions per drive. The most promising numbers though is stellar success rate (4th) and 7th ranking in yards allowed per drive.
Playoff Odds: For anything who's already thinking playoffs, the FO still aren't too high on the Cards. They still rank us third in the West with a 15% chance of making the post season with just a 10.5% chance of winning the division. If you're looking for a silver lining though, their percentage actually jumped 12% from last week.
Standard Stats and Ranks (ie according to NFL.com):
Arizona Offense: In yards per game the Arizona offense is 15th with 341 yards per game and 9th with 23.5 points per game. Since this is always a hot topic, they currently rank 2nd in penalties and third in penalty yardage. One concerning stat so far has been the Cardinals 3rd down conversion rate (26%) which currently ranks 31st . The passing game is 7th in the league with 262 yards per game while the rushing game is 25th with 79 yards per game.
Arizona Defense: The defense is 6th in the league with 287.5 yards per game and the 18.5 points allowed per game ranks 13th. The defense is also allowing opposing offenses to convert third downs at a rate of 38% which is 14th in the NFL.