The Arizona Cardinals made a blockbuster move in acquiring superstar wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, and they’re taking strides to make major impovements on the offensive side of the ball going forward.
To do that, though, they’ll need to move their chess pieces around and adjust their personnel packages to fit Hopkins into the offense. There are a lot of cooks in that kitchen, with future Hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk, Kenyan Drake and Maxx Williams.
That’s a good “problem” to have, so head coach Kliff Kingsbury and his staff have been meeting to revamp their offensive scheme a bit. And even though there’s been a lot of talk predicting they’ll play a lot of four wide-receiver sets, don’t expect it to happen, despite Kingsbury’s “Air Raid” roots.
“I’ll always love 10 personnel, but we felt like as the season went on, we were able to do some different things and be in some different packages that played into our strengths,” Kingsbury said, via the team’s official website. “I felt like in the back half of last year, we figured out what our identity is, who we can be, the different things we can do.
“I’m hoping that continues through training camp and we have a good feel for it going into Week 1.”
Protection likely plays a role here, as the team’s offensive line has struggled giving up sacks over the past few years. They ranked 26th in sacks per game allowed last season, and they clearly don’t want to jeopardize the health of franchise quarterback Kyler Murray by him getting hit early and often.
