It’s December 14th and the Arizona Cardinals have the 13th best (total) defense in football.
Wait, what?
It’s December 14th and the Arizona Cardinals are allowing 23.3 points per game, which also ranks 13th overall in the NFL.
How can this be?
Lets start by recognizing the fact that Cardinal defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has greatly outperformed expectations. An argument could also be made that, while head coach Kliff Kingsbury has struggled in recent weeks, Joseph has picked up the slack to keep this Cardinal team competitive.
And unlike Kingsbury’s offense, Joseph is doing this without a number of key defensive starters.