Arizona Cardinals 2026 Season Preview

A Fresh Start Worth Watching

Mike LaFleur inherits a roster that lost far more than 3-14 suggests. Arizona went 2-8 in games decided by one score, the kind of margin that tends to swing the other way. The offense also needed 15.6 yards for every point it scored, well off the league median, which points to a unit leaving points on the field rather than one that is actually broken. That bodes well for LaFleur even without touching the ledger of a 0-6 division record and a rank of 25th in power rating. Trey McBride, who finished second in the league with 126 catches, gives a rookie staff a proven centerpiece to build the offense around from day one.

Sacked by their own line

The gap between what Arizona's offense produced and what it allowed defines this section, not the 3-14 record. Trey McBride caught 126 passes, second-most in the league, while quarterback sacks piled up at a rate that ranked 28th in protection. That is the story of 2025 in miniature: a passing game that ranked 7th in yards per game getting undercut by a line that could not hold up and a run game that finished 31st. Jacoby Brissett, projected to start again after throwing for 3,366 yards and 23 touchdowns, returns to swing that math the other way if Mike LaFleur's staff shores up the protection. The offense also needed more yards than average to actually score, so points left on the field last year should be there for the taking in 2026.

Jacoby Brissett is the projected starter for Mike LaFleur's first season, coming off a year in which he threw for 3,366 yards and 23 touchdowns across 14 games. That production came behind an offense that still finished 23rd in points per game and 22nd in yards per play, so the passing volume never translated into scoreboard wins. Kyler Murray is gone, which removes the ceiling this offense once chased and hands the room to a steadier, more conservative operator in Brissett. Behind him, Gardner Minshew II and Kedon Slovis offer only thin 2025 samples, and the Cardinals used a third-round pick on Carson Beck as developmental insurance rather than an immediate threat to the job. Nothing about this group screams upgrade, but Brissett at least gives LaFleur a known commodity to build his first offense around.

Jeremiyah Love was the third overall pick, and Arizona is betting his explosiveness fixes a ground game that managed just 93 yards per game, 31st in the league. Bam Knight, who ran for 269 yards and 4 touchdowns while sharing the load, remains in the room, but the real infusion comes via Tyler Allgeier, who ran for 514 yards and 8 touchdowns in Atlanta last season. That signing matters because Michael Carter and Emari Demercado, who combined for real snaps behind Trey Benson and James Conner a year ago, are both gone. Evan Hull and Tre Stewart add depth without changing the hierarchy. Love's arrival reshapes the backfield's ceiling; how quickly Mike LaFleur hands him the workload will decide whether this offense escapes the bottom of the rushing rankings.

Michael Wilson quietly put up 1,006 yards and 7 touchdowns while Marvin Harrison Jr. missed five games and still caught 41 balls. That gap between Wilson's production and Harrison's name recognition is the real story here. Mike LaFleur brought in Kendrick Bourne, who caught 37 passes for 551 yards with the 49ers, to give this offense a reliable third option after the room lost Greg Dortch and Zay Jones among nine departures. Devin Duvernay and Ihmir Smith-Marsette add depth but neither is walking in to start over Wilson or Harrison. If Harrison stays healthy for a full slate opposite Wilson, a passing offense that already ranked 7th in yards per game has a real chance to climb.

Trey McBride is the rare piece of this roster that needs no fixing. His 126 catches and 1,239 yards last season were second-most among receivers in the league at any position, and Mike LaFleur inherits an offense that should keep feeding him early and often. The bigger question is everyone else in the room. Elijah Higgins and Tip Reiman return with modest production, and the club added Teagan Quitoriano from the Falcons, Baylor Cupp from the Ravens and Shawn Bowman from the Jaguars to replace departed contributors Josiah Deguara, Pharaoh Brown and Travis Vokolek. None of those additions arrive with a track record that threatens McBride's target share. This is McBride's room, full stop, and the offense's 20.9 points per game says the surrounding pieces still have work to do.

Fifty-nine sacks allowed and 93 rushing yards per game explain why Mike LaFleur inherited a line that had to change wholesale. Nine linemen left, including Jonah Williams and Will Hernandez, and the fixes came almost entirely through free agency. Isaac Seumalo arrives from the Steelers as the highest-paid addition in the room, joined by Elijah Wilkinson, Matt Pryor and Olisaemeka Udoh, while Chase Bisontis comes in as a rookie guard out of Texas A&M. Paris Johnson Jr., Isaiah Adams and Hjalte Froholdt are back, but there is no way to know which jobs they actually held last season. That uncertainty, more than the names themselves, makes this a rebuilt line rather than a returning strength.

Calais Campbell's 6.5 sacks walked out the door, and so did most of what made this front tolerable. Eight linemen departed in all, gutting a group that already ranked 28th in the league in sacks and let opponents run for 127 yards a game. Darius Robinson and Dante Stills stay as the returning anchors, but neither has shown the pass-rush juice to replace Campbell's production. Mike LaFleur answered with volume instead of a single fix, bringing in Roy Lopez, Andrew Billings and Jonah Williams to rebuild the interior and edge together. None of those additions changes the math much on paper. This is a patch job, not an upgrade, and until Walter Nolen III proves durable beyond six games, the run defense figures to look a lot like it did in 2025.

Josh Sweat's 12 sacks were the lone bright spot for a defense that finished 28th in sacks and 29th in points allowed per game. Arizona still has bodies here, with Cody Simon's 75 tackles and Zaven Collins anchoring the middle, but the group that surrounds them changed fast. Akeem Davis-Gaither and his 116 tackles are gone, and Jack Gibbens arrives from the Patriots off a 79-tackle season to help fill that void. Mack Wilson Sr. and Baron Browning both missed time in 2025, so durability matters as much as talent for Mike LaFleur's first defense. None of this fixes the run defense on its own, since 127 rushing yards allowed per game was already a problem before the shuffling started.

Denzel Burke's 3 interceptions and Will Johnson's presence give this secondary real corner talent, but the pass defense still ranked 24th in yards allowed per game. Jalen Thompson's 94 tackles are the hardest thing to replace, and Andrew Wingard, who logged 82 tackles for Jacksonville in 2025, arrives to pair with Budda Baker at safety. Baker remains the anchor at $16.2M, still the highest-paid piece in this room, while Dadrion Taylor-Demerson's 58 tackles and 2 picks make him a real complement rather than filler. Garrett Williams and Max Melton add competition on the outside, and Isaiah Oliver comes in off 55 tackles with the Jets. Mike LaFleur inherits a group with pieces, not a finished product, and 29th in points allowed says the whole defense needs to tighten up around it.

Chad Ryland stays put after connecting on 25 of 33 field goals, a modest number that still made him the steadiest hand in a chaotic 3-14 season. The bigger swing is at punter, where Matt Haack's 43.4-yard net average walks out the door and Blake Gillikin, who handled just 22 punts a year ago, becomes the primary leg. Casey Kreiter arrives from the Giants to snap for a new long snapper spot after Aaron Brewer's departure, a low-drama fix at a position nobody notices until it fails. Mike LaFleur inherits a group that finished 0-6 in NFC West play, and special teams rarely decides a season, but this club has little margin for a blocked kick or a shanked punt to tip a close division game.

Brissett Steadies the Rebuild

Kyler Murray is gone, and Jacoby Brissett, who threw for 3,366 yards and 23 touchdowns while starting 14 games last year, is the man taking the offense over in 2026. That is not a downgrade so much as a stabilizing move for a team whose 3-14 record buried a genuinely competitive roster underneath it. The defense got real reinforcements up front and at the second level, with Jack Gibbens and Andrew Wingard joining a group that includes Roy Lopez, Andrew Billings and Jonah Williams along the line. Losing Calais Campbell's 6.5 sacks and Akeem Davis-Gaither's 116 tackles stings, but this is less a rebuild than a retooling around Brissett and Trey McBride, who ranked 2nd in the league in receptions. Mike LaFleur inherits a roster that was closer to the playoff picture than its record showed, and the additions suggest a front office trying to close that gap fast rather than start over.

Brissett Inherits a Loaded Room

Jacoby Brissett threw for 3,366 yards and 23 touchdowns filling in for Kyler Murray, and Arizona simply handed him the job outright. That is the swing factor. He now gets a full offseason with Trey McBride, Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. already in place, plus Tyler Allgeier added at running back. Brissett was efficient last year, but the 2025 offense still needed more yards than most teams to score, and closing that gap falls on him. If he plays like the 14-game version fans already saw, this offense stops leaving points on the field.

LaFleur Inherits a Road Bargain

Arizona bettors have learned to distrust the desert. As a road underdog this group covers at a 58% clip, and the full road mark of 44-36-3 dwarfs a home record that sits at just 35-45-1. Backing a 12-24 mark as home favorites has been especially brutal. None of that is really about talent so much as buried value: this team's full-season yardage margin implied a much healthier win rate than the 3-14 record produced, and a 2-8 mark in one-score games points the same direction, toward better days ahead. Mike LaFleur takes over a roster still featuring Trey McBride, who finished 2nd in the league with 126 catches, and the market has not caught up to how much this defense's cheap-to-score problem, 12.5 yards allowed per point against a 14.4 median, is fixable rather than fated.