Cardinals Stun the Chargers 26-14, and Mike LaFleur Becomes the First Arizona Coach to Win His Debut Since 1973
Arizona was nobody's pick against Jim Harbaugh's Chargers. Fifty-three years after Don Coryell, the Cardinals have a head coach who won his first game.
The biggest upset of Week 1 did not come from a trick play or a last-second field goal. Arizona beat the Los Angeles Chargers 26-14 on Sunday, and it beat them the boring way: by being better for most of the afternoon. Jim Harbaugh's Chargers had been a fashionable pick to go a long way this season. The Cardinals were a fashionable pick to be patient with. Neither of those descriptions survived the afternoon intact, which is the sort of thing that happens in September and then gets quietly forgotten by November if the team in question does not back it up.
Useful next steps
For Mike LaFleur it was a debut win, and a historically overdue one for the franchise. The last Arizona head coach to win his first game was Don Coryell, in 1973 — a 53-year gap that spanned most of the modern history of the sport. LaFleur was not interested in dwelling there. He had spent the days before the game, by his own account, in a state of mild misery: "The wait. The last few days have been miserable." That is a more honest thing for a first-time head coach to admit than most of what gets said into a microphone in September.
Humility is a day away in this league.— Mike LaFleur, Arizona Cardinals head coach
That line is the whole temperament of the win in nine words, and LaFleur repeated the sentiment when describing what he had told the team. "We peaked for this moment today," he said. "I had been thinking over the last 48 hours of how it goes, either way we had to go back to work." The players were more willing to enjoy it. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett gave the credit where the game had actually been decided: "The defense played a hell of a game," he said, before adding the flattest possible summary of a twelve-point win — "We did enough to win the game." Safety Andrew Wingard was less flat about it, pointing out that the unit had spent the offseason being written off by everyone with an opinion.
Arizona's upset in context
Arizona 26, Los Angeles 14.
Mike LaFleur is the first Cardinals head coach to win his debut since Don Coryell in 1973.
The Chargers, under Jim Harbaugh, had been a popular pick to contend.
Quarterback Jacoby Brissett credited the defense for the win.
Arizona's win was widely treated as Week 1's biggest surprise.
The reason this result matters more than a typical Week 1 upset is the direction it points. A team that loses games like this one gets described as rebuilding for another year; a team that wins it has to be taken at least somewhat seriously by the people setting the lines. But LaFleur's instinct to refuse the moment is the correct one, and not just as press-conference modesty. Arizona did not win because of a scheme nobody had seen. It won because a defense that had been dismissed played well on a day when a good opponent did not. Repeating that is a different and much harder project than achieving it once.
Fifty-three years is a long time to wait for a debut win, and precisely one week is how long Arizona has to prove it meant something.
What Week 1 Actually Told Us
The defense. The unit everyone spent the summer dismissing is the reason this game was not close in the second half.
Any conclusion about the Chargers' ceiling. One bad September afternoon against a motivated underdog is the least predictive result in football.
Whether LaFleur's refusal to celebrate translates into a second week of the same performance. His own phrase — humility is a day away — is the standard to hold him to.
Around the site
Sources: AZCardinals.com — LaFleur wins his debut, NFL.com — Five storylines from Week 1, NFL.com — What We Learned from Sunday's games