Cardinals provide Packers with best chance to hit their offensive stride

We expected Jordan Love and the Green Bay offense to open the 2024 season like they closed 2023. They haven't yet, but Arizona's defense is the perfect patsy.

The Arizona Cardinals struggle to stop opposing offenses. They’re also not being particularly good against the run. Oh, and they cannot rush the passer … like at all.

When the 2024 season opened, the expectation of Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers offense was to hit the ground throwing, lighting up defenses the way we saw in the second half of last year. Injuries, drops, and penalties slowed the progression of this offense, but Sunday provides the Packers with the ideal opportunity to catch the rhythm they’ve yet to find.

Head coach Matt LaFleur’s magic and a stacked roster of offensive talent push the Packers to the top of the leaderboard in explosive plays this season, even with 2-of-5 starts coming from Malik Willis who looked like a non-NFL player the last we saw him in the regular season. Down to down though, the offense stalls too easily. A holding call ruins an explosive first-down run or a drop scuttles a third-down conversion. Love plays his role in this too, struggling with accuracy and decision-making in the intermediate part of the field to open the year.

There are get-right games and then there are get-right games. The Cardinals come to Lambeau Field on Sunday night ranked 32nd in dropback success rate. A reminder there are currently only 32 teams in the NFL.

And if there was hope of Arizona stopping the run to make it easier to defend the pass, the Cardinals stand 28th in rush success rate. They let offenses consistently stay on track whether they’re running or passing. The one thing the Packers haven’t been able to do this year is stay on track consistently.