The Cardinals' Defense is Changing — Thanks to Mike LaFleur

GLENDALE — There's been so much talk around the Arizona Cardinals and what lies ahead on the offensive side of the ball.

The presence of new head coach Mike LaFleur and change at quarterback expectedly dominated headlines this offseason, and that won't change as training camp marches forward.

Yet the Cardinals will need their defense to shed its 2025 skin and emerge into a formidable unit if Arizona wants to make noise in LaFleur's first season. Captain of the ship in defensive coordinator Nick Rallis is back for a fourth season and is now without prior head coach Jonathan Gannon to help scheme and gameplan on his side of the ball.

That could be a positive, at least that's the hope. Rallis was once a potential head coach candidate before the end of 2024 and entire 2025 season saw Arizona's defensive output sink to the bottom of the league in numerous categories.

As for 2026, so far so good for Rallis and his crew.

"It's been good. Like you'd expect, there's things to correct, but I love the things that we can control. Which is our attitude, our energy, our effort, our focus levels," Rallis told reporters.

"Those have been on point, and they got to maintain that way, right? That's easy to do [in the] first couple days. You got to be consistent with that. But I've been pleased with that."

The Cardinals didn't make any massive upgrades to their defense this offseason, rather filling holes of departing veterans while hoping health and continuity can ultimately pay dividends.

Yet the lack of change when it comes to personnel leaves the door open for change in terms of structure and scheme for Rallis, a coordinator thought to be on the hot seat entering the regular season.

This time around, Rallis has one of the league's best up-and-coming offensive minds to help.

"Schematically I mean yes, every year there will be [change]. It's been really good to have Mike [LaFleur] and just getting his perspective. Not just from his brain, but also so many of our opponents in this division," Rallis said. LaFleur hails as one of the league's brightest up-and-coming offensive minds thanks to his experience under the likes of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan.

"He's been in those offenses, right? And so understanding where we can let go of certain things and really master other things, just make sure, like, 'hey, this is what we're going to do, and we're going to get really good at it.' So, are there changes? Yes. Is there a consistency? Yes. The biggest thing is: who are we? We're going to go through our camp and really figure that out because it can change. We have tools in our toolbox, but we might not use them all, right? And we're going to get good at the ones that we know are going to bring out the strengths of our players and the ones that we're going to need throughout the year.

"From my perspective, when you look back and assess yourself during training camp, you look at what did we rep a lot in training camp that we actually didn't pull out during the season, and you're like well, those are wasted reps schematically, where we could have put that somewhere else. And so I would say Mike's been a huge help in terms of really helping me figure out like, 'hey, what is the minimum you need?' and let's go to work from there. So that's probably the biggest thing is just letting our guys get really good at what we're going to do and go out there and play fast and execute at a high level."

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