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# Opponents are Carving Up the Arizona Cardinals Defense on Short Passes
- URL: https://www.statsdigest.com/arizona-short-pass-defense-2026-weeks-1-3/
- Published: 2026-10-02T13:47:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T13:47:53.000Z
- Description: Arizona's short-pass defense has tripled its EPA allowed, while deep coverage and pass rush look normal.
- Author: Bill Seifert
- Tags: Arizona Cardinals, Pass Defense, EPA, NFL analytics, Jonathan Gannon, defense

Through three games of 2026, opposing offenses have averaged **+0.398 EPA per dropback** against the Cardinals across 84 dropbacks (pass attempts plus sacks). That same number was **+0.063** across 581 dropbacks in 2024 and **+0.150** across 603 dropbacks in 2025\. Different sample sizes, obviously — three games is a fraction of a season — but the direction isn't subtle, and the mechanism is weirder than "the deep ball blew up."

## Table of Contents

- Where the leak is
- What the small sample does and doesn't say

## Where the leak is

Break 2026 down by target depth and the biggest swing from Arizona's own two-year baseline isn't on 20-yard bombs — it's on throws at or inside 10 air yards.

**2026, three games:**

- Short (0–10 air yards): 34 attempts, 24 completions, **+0.702 EPA/play**, 23.9 total EPA
- Intermediate (11–20 air yards): 29 attempts, +0.343 EPA/play, 10.0 total EPA
- Deep (21+ air yards): 8 attempts, +0.837 EPA/play, 6.7 total EPA
- Behind the line of scrimmage: 9 attempts, −0.126 EPA/play
- Sacks: 4, −1.49 EPA each, −6.0 total

Compare that short-pass number to where Arizona lived for two full seasons under Jonathan Gannon: **+0.167 EPA/play** on 304 short attempts in 2024, **+0.198 EPA/play** on 323 attempts in 2025 (218 and 233 completions, respectively — right around a 72% completion rate both years). Through three games of 2026 the completion rate is similar, 24 of 34 (70.6%), but the EPA damage per play has more than tripled.

That shows up in the yardage, too. Yards per completion on short throws have gone from **8.48** (2024) and **8.12** (2025) to **13.08** so far in 2026\. And the share of those completions going for 20-plus yards — a rough proxy for "turned into a chunk play after the catch" — has moved from **4.6%** (2024) and **3.0%** (2025) to **8.3%** in 2026\. On a 24-completion sample, that last swing is roughly two plays; call it a flag, not a trend.

The other buckets don't tell the same story. The deep-ball number is the loudest on paper — +0.837 EPA/play — but it's on just 8 attempts, and Arizona's deep coverage was already shaky in 2025 (+0.722 on 54 attempts), so this isn't new, it's a continuation on a tiny sample. The intermediate bucket is actually *better* than either of the last two years (+0.343 in 2026 vs. +0.372 in 2025 and +0.583 in 2024). And the pass rush — the usual first culprit when a defense slips — is in the same neighborhood as last year or better: a **4.8%** sack rate on 84 dropbacks in 2026, against **5.0%** in 2025 and **7.1%** in 2024.

Put together: the deep ball was already a known issue, the middle of the field has quietly improved, and the pass rush hasn't collapsed. The one number that's moved clearly outside its normal range is the short stuff — exactly the area a defense is supposed to control with leverage and tackling, not scheme exotics.

## What the small sample does and doesn't say

Three games, 34 short attempts, 24 short completions. A dropped slant or a missed tackle in week 4 will move these rates more than a quarter-season of normal football would. This is a flag, not a trend, and nobody should be writing Arizona's defensive obituary off of it.

But it's a specific flag with a specific shape. Short-pass EPA allowed sat in the +0.17-to-+0.20 range for two full seasons under this coaching staff, and it's at +0.70 through three games — a jump the deep-ball and pass-rush numbers can't explain, because those are either normal or already a known issue. If this holds up, it reads less like a scheme failure and more like something that shows up on film as missed tackles and soft leverage underneath — fixable game-to-game, not a four-year rebuild. Whether that's the real story or just three weeks of bad tackling luck is the thing worth watching before anyone calls it a trend.