Moving through our NFC West teams we tun to the most injured team in the NFL this past season by Banged Up Score (B.U.S). If you have been following our B.U.S Trend and “Rough Draft” series, you know that we have been looking at teams’ health last season and comparing them to performance and then draft analysis for the upcoming 2023 NFL Draft. We have been through some of the bottom 5 healthiest teams last season already including the Rams, Chargers and Broncos but even those ended up healthier than our next team who finished dead last in the health rankings.
The Arizona Cardinals were annihilated by injuries last year. Finishing with 30 players on their injury report and a league low 38.3/100 in week 18. With no chance at making the playoffs some of those may have been just sitting out but many had legitimate season ending injuries and moreover they were banged up all season long not just the end. In fact, Arizona started the season week 1 as the 30th/32 healthiest teams with a 74.8 B.U.S and never recovered. The Cardinals were officially eliminated from playoff contention Week 15 after a loss to the Denver Broncos but after only winning 4 games up to that point it was apparent, they wouldn’t make the post season earlier than that.
Arizona finished the season with 7 losses in a row and a season record of 4-13. If you don’t think that health plays one of the most important roles on performance and team success by now…I’m not sure I can help you to be honest but let’s put this into perspective. The Cardinals had only 4 wins after starting as one of the unhealthiest teams this season, they only had 1 win against a battered Rams team after week 8. What else happened week 8 and on you ask? TE Zach Ertz tore his ACL/MCL effectively ending his season week 10. Kyler Murray was out with a hamstring injury week 10 & 11 and then tore his ACL week 15 and starting offensive linemen Justin Pugh had torn his ACL week 8 and was done for the season. That’s not all, Byron Murphy also had a back injury Week 11 that sent him to IR and WR Rondale Moore had a groin issue that sidelined him starting week 12.
The fact that they still had a team out there trying to compete was a miracle to be honest. Injuries tore the Cardinals apart this season and it showed. Not only was their overall B.U.S trend down but it was a steep decline starting week 14 which coincides close to when The Predictors really start seeing a spread in healthy teams and playoff runs and unhealthy teams getting eliminated.
The NFLPA does team report cards and this year 1300 players responded around the league. Arizona had some of the worst grades by players of all teams. When looking at health they finished however with a B+ in the training staff category and A- in strength staff. A relatively good score however as we all know player health is a combination of factors and they all need to work in parallel and unfortunately according to the survey Arizona finished with an F- in nutrition. Now in no way am I saying that is the only reason that all these injuries occurred but is one of a few factors that needs to be addressed by new Head Coach Jonathan Gannon along with health protocols, staff expertise and player compliance just to name a few.
If Arizona wants to come back next year as a new team and at a minimum be over .500 they have a lot of work to do but team health NEEDS to be a priority because you can’t win with your studs on the bench and that is exactly what they had this past year. As for adding to their team find out tomorrow as [The Ghost](https://twitter.com/Ryan Berger) goes into detail about exactly who they need to take the step in a better direction for the 2023 season.
