Three X-Factors for Arizona Cardinals vs. Kansas City Chiefs

In order to pull off a week one victory and upset over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Arizona Cardinals need these three guys to step up.

Author:
Richie Bradshaw
Publish date:
Sep 10, 2022 12:36 PM EDT

In this story:

Arizona Cardinals

Kansas City Chiefs

The Arizona Cardinals have quite the task at hand.

The Cardinals welcome the Kansas City Chiefs to State Farm Stadium for Week 1 of the regular season, and as it stands, Arizona faces an uphill battle with injuries and the obvious talent Kansas City possesses on the offensive side of the ball.

There's no denying players such as Kyler Murray and Budda Baker will need to be at their best in order for the Cardinals to prevent themselves from stumbling out of the gates.

Yet other players will need to step up. Here's three x-factors the Cardinals will need to rely on come Sunday:

Marquise Brown

When the Arizona Cardinals traded for Marquise Brown, better known as "Hollywood," back during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, it became an expectation that he was going to play the best football of his career for a new team, but a familiar quarterback.

Arizona will be hoping to see a return on its investment sooner rather than later.

Brown is familiar with the Chiefs, playing against them three times during his three seasons with the Baltimore Ravens. In those games, Brown has 10 receptions for 175-yards and a touchdown. Underwhelming numbers? Absolutely, however last season he caught six of those receptions for 113-yards and a score, so maybe he will pick up where he left off.

With his familiarity with Kyler Murray, there is reason to believe that Brown can retain the consistent threat that he was developing into during his time in Baltimore. If he can build off his recent success, Brown will be a problem for the Chiefs and, more importantly, can become a massive X-factor for this Cardinals offense.

Markus Golden

Markus Golden is coming off an 11-sack campaign and signed a one-year extension with the Cardinals on Friday, September 9th. Going into week one of the 2022 season, Arizona will be betting on Golden to get back to his old habits of sacking the quarterback.

If ever there was a time for the Cardinals' pass rush to come to life, it would be against the Kansas City Chiefs. The only logical way to even slow down Patrick Mahomes is to generate a good enough pass rush to keep the MVP quarterback off balance. It will also be telling to see how quickly Mahomes becomes accustomed to his new weapons after watching his team trade away multi-time All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hill.

Bringing down Mahomes will instantly give the Cardinals a much better chance to walk out of their stadium Sunday in the win column. Golden needs to deliver on a banged-up pass rush to make sure that that happens.

Isaiah Simmons

To this point in his career, Isaiah Simmons has been underwhelming. The third-year linebacker struggled as a rookie before putting together a rock-solid season in 2021. However, it's put up or shut up time for the former eighth overall selection.

When Simmons was made a top-10 selection back in 2020, Arizona believed it was getting a freak athlete who would transcend into one of the league's premier linebackers in a short time. Simmons absolutely has a chance to do that this year, but week one will give him a test, unlike anything he's seen before.

Simmons has played against some great tight ends, including in-division rival George Kittle twice a year, but Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce is an all-time great and slam dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer. There is no chance Simmons can eliminate Kelce from the game, but containing the seven-time Pro Bowler could result in a surprise Cardinals win.

Considering the turnover the Chiefs are facing in their wide receiving core, expect Kelce to be heavily involved in the offense's game plan. There will be a lot of pressure for Simmons to step up and play his best football.

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