Arizona Cardinals QBs avoid turnovers when throwing to Larry Fitzgerald (and in general) in 2014

Pro Football Focus shared a tweet that Darren Urban blogged about on AZCardinals.com. It was about how the Arizona Cardinals quarterbacks did not throw a single interception when targeting Larry Fitzgerald.

Urban found out from PFF that number was much higher in 2013 -- seven -- when Carson Palmer was the only quarterback to take a snap.

The obvious observation is there was significant progress on offense by Arizona in their second year with Bruce Arians as head coach and play caller.

In 2013, there were a number of issues. Palmer was not as comfortable with the offense and sometimes would try to force feed Fitz, which got him into trouble. Fitz himself struggled learning multiple receiver positions for the first time in his career and the intricacies involved in Arians' offense. All the receivers struggled.

In 2014, both Palmer and Fitz knew the offense better. They were more on the same page. Palmer was more careful with the ball overall -- 22 interceptions in 2013 to only three in six games in 2014.

Pass protection was better in 2014 than 2013.

As for the other quarterbacks, Drew Stanton knew the offense even better than Palmer, having been in the system a season longer. He would know where to throw the ball.

Ryan Lindley and Logan Thomas? Well, Thomas didn't throw an interception. Lindley got to play instead of Thomas after Stanton injured his knee -- mainly because of his knowledge of the offense.

Naturally, there has to be some level of good luck to contribute to the stat, but you can see progress in the passing game overall.

As noted previously, Palmer was picked off 22 times in 2013. In 2014, four quarterbacks combined for 12 picks. That is pretty amazing. Remember the four-QB disaster of 2012? 21 picks.

Perhaps the Cards were just lucky there were no interceptions targeting Fitz. What is clear is how much better the Cardinals were even with a disaster of a situation at the QB position. As bad as things were, it clearly could have been worse.