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It’s been a busy week for Cardinals news with the trade chatter surrounding Patrick Peterson. So much so that it’s easy to forget that at this time last week the Cardinals finally fired Mike McCoy. (Better late than never Arizona Cardinals Womens Hoodie , I suppose.)That means new offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich has had a week to get his charges ready for this Sunday’s home game against the San Francisco 49ers. Leftwich was one of the few holdovers from the staff of Bruce Arians, who thought the former Jaguars QB was a potential future head coach.Well, consider the next nine games his official audition.We already know that the playbook won’t change, but the playcalling should be markedly different. So, what should Cardinals fans be hoping for from the team’s new OC? How much of BA’s influence will be felt on offense this Sunday? Let’s go position-by-position and try to figure it out.QuarterbackMake no mistake—the move from McCoy to Leftwich was all about Josh Rosen. Although the decision was obviously a long time in the making, last Thursday’s disastrous 5-turnover, 3.0 QBR performance was the final nail in McCoy’s (very plain and shoddily constructed) coffin. Rookies are going to struggle, but McCoy never gave Rosen a chance against Von Miller and Co.Leftwich would do well to make more use of Rosen’s athleticism rather than calling plays like an immobile QB like Peyton Manning or Philip Rivers is under center. Get him on the move with rollouts, waggles, maybe even a few RPO plays—whatever’s in the playbook. Enough of the “three-steps-and-fire-it-out” offense. Let the offense flow through Rosen rather than dictating when he should throw and to whom on every play.Oh, and you can bet Leftwich will call more deep shots than McCoy seemed to be comfortable with.Offensive LineThe O-line had mostly held up in pass protection the first few games, but the levee has officially broken with 10 sacks given up in the last two games. It’s clear these guys need help, especially tackles Andre Smith and D.J. Humphries, who were abused by Miller and Bradley Chubb last week. Hopefully Leftwich will keep TEs Ricky Seals-Jones and, especially, Jermaine Gresham in more to block, as well as use T John Wetzel as an extra TE in jumbo packages. That would also allow some max-protect deep shots off play-action.If he uses David Johnson in the running game like he should (see below), it’ll be up to Smith and Humphries (and the TEs as well) to set the edge in the run game and allow DJ to get outside. If they’re not up to the task, it might be time to plug Wetzel in (likely over Smith).Running BacksOther than Rosen, the biggest beneficiary of the change at OC should be DJ. We have griped endlessly about the misuse of DJ since the beginning of the season Womens Customized Arizona Cardinals Jerseys , but Week 8 might be the beginning of his 2018 coming-out party. Even more encouraging is that Leftwich has already said he hopes to use DJ like BA did.Hopefully that means we see him used as a WR—both in the slot and out wide—much more than the handful of times McCoy used him there. It should also mean fewer runs up the middle and more runs outside. Before the injury and McCoy sapped his effectiveness, DJ was one of the most dynamic talents in the league. If we can get that DJ back, we should at least be competitive on offense from here on out.If Leftwich can increase our pace of play a bit (it shouldn’t be hard—we’re dead last in plays run per game), that should mean more plays for guys like Chase Edmonds and, if he’s active, T.J. Logan. We have a lot of unused talent in this backfield. Hopefully Leftwich can take advantage.Wide Receivers/Tight EndsThis is the area where Leftwich might have the least impact—if only because of the sheer lack of talent. Larry Fitzgerald has been hobbled, but if/when he’s fully healthy, you’d figure Leftwich would funnel targets his way, rather than McCoy’s approach of throwing to the open guy, whomever it is. Christian Kirk has flashed big-play ability but has also made quite a few mental errors, but he should continue to be an integral part of this offense.Other than that, the cupboard is essentially bare. Chad Williams has done next to nothing, and I don’t see that changing. BA always had a soft spot for J.J. Nelson, so maybe Leftwich scripts a deep shot or two to him each game, but it’s hard to trust him. Perhaps it’s time to see what Trent Sherfield can do? Maybe that’s the way to shake up this WR corps.I’ll be interested to see how Leftwich handles the TE position—a position BA never had much use for. Seals-Jones has obvious ability as a pass catcher, but is inconsistent, error prone, and can’t block. Gresham is more well-rounded, but offers no explosive potential. I wonder if he’ll experiment with playing them both at the same time more. That would potentially help the run game and pass protection as well.Final ThoughtsLet’s be honest—there’s nowhere for this offense to go but up. At the same time, no one is expecting a monumental improvement right away. But I think it’s reasonable for Cardinals fans to expect the team to top 300 yards on offense for the first time all season. And given the 49ers soft defense www.cardinalscheapstore.com , 20+ points should be easily attainable.Let’s call it 24 points and 340 yards—with 125+ combined yards from DJ (a season high). There’s just too much talent on this offense to continue performing at historically inept levels.Right?What do you think, Redbirds fans? What kind of effect will Leftwich have on Sunday? Can the Cardinals set some season highs on offense? Let’s talk offense in the comments. With most teams having played 8 games (including the 2-6 Cardinals), we’re at about the halfway mark of the 2018 NFL season. That makes now a good time to check in on each of the rookie QB starters around the NFL—including our own Josh Rosen.We tracked each of these four rookie starting QBs—Rosen, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and Josh Allen—during the preseason. (Plus Lamar Jackson, but he’s not starting in Baltimore so we won’t include him here.) At the time, Mayfield was at the top of the class, which made sense given he was the #1 pick.Now, half a season into their careers, how do these young signal callers stack up? Let’s take a look at their team record, counting stats, efficiency stats, and ratings to compare their progress. Is Mayfield still ahead of the pack? How does Rosen compare to the rest—who were all drafted ahead of him? Let’s find out.Team RecordUnsurprisingly, these teams have all been pretty bad. That tends to happen when A) a team is bad enough to be able to draft a QB early, and B) starts said QB the next season. But these teams have all been competitive at times:Mayfield and the Browns have gone to overtime three times, with one win (over the Ravens)—and he beat Darnold head-to-head in his first start.Darnold led a rout of Detroit in Week 1, put up 34 on the Broncos defense in Week 5, and outdueled Andrew Luck in Week 6.Josh Allen was remarkably efficient in that Week 3 road win over the Vikings—still the most shocking upset of the season.Rosen has had the Redbirds in every game except the Thursday night blowout loss to the Broncos, and he led the team from down two scores to beat the 49ers in Week 8.It’s hard to say who stands out the most here. Interestingly Arizona Cardinals T-Shirt , Rosen has the best winning percentage of all four QBs—but it’s in the fewest games and both his wins have come over the lowly 49ers. Allen has the best win of the bunch, but it’s not like he carried the team on his shoulders that day (the Bills defense won that game). Mayfield has the Browns looking much improved, but they’ve fired their head coach amidst their 4-game losing streak. To me, Sam Darnold gets the edge here—he has the most team wins (remember that wins is a team stat, not a QB stat), and has led the team to 30+ points in each. (Although there were some defensive scores in there.) Like I said, these teams area all pretty bad, but Darnold has led his team to the best record of the four.Counting Stats* Allen also has 155 rushing yards and 3 TDs. The other QBs have negligible rushing stats.Since wins are really a team stat, let’s take a look at some of their individual stats. Allen has made some contributions with his legs, but he’s clearly well behind the other three as a passer (even though he probably has the most natural arm talent). Darnold has played the most (he’s the only one to start every game so far), so his leading yardage and TD totals aren’t surprising—but those 14 INTs stand out, especially off his 4-INT game against Miami last week. Mayfield is the only one with a positive TD:INT ratio, but he’s also taken the most sacks and fumbled the most. (Those numbers are close though.) Rosen’s numbers are鈥?pretty underwhelming overall.Hard to declare a winner here as well, but Baker Mayfield’s TD:INT ratio and strong yardage total are hard to argue against, even with his propensity for negative plays. (That INT total for Darnold leads the league by far, by the way.)Efficiency StatsCounting stats don’t tell the whole story though—that’s where efficiency stats come into play. And when you look at these stats, Baker Mayfield pretty clearly comes out on top again. He has the highest completion percentage, almost the highest YPA, and the best TD/INT percentages. Darnold and Rosen are very close here, with Darnold having the slightly higher YPA/TD% but Rosen with the higher completion % and lower INT%. Allen again lags here Arizona Cardinals Hats , with by far the lowest YPA and TD% and tied for the second-highest INT% (with Rosen). Allen doesn’t have a lot of help in Buffalo, but a YPA below 6.00 with an arm like his is alarming.RatingAnother category where Baker Mayfield is the clear winner—he has the highest rating in all three metrics, looking every bit the part of #1 overall pick. Holding second place in all three though is our very own Josh Rosen. He obviously hasn’t been great (these guys are all in the bottom 5 or so in these categories league-wide), but he’s made the most of an untenable situation with a fired OC, subpar offensive line, and nonexistent depth at WR/TE. Darnold has perhaps slightly less talent to work with at the skill positions but is a turnover machine, while Allen (who, yes, has almost nothing around him offensively) has just looked lost running an NFL offense.Final ThoughtsHere’s how I’d rank the four rookie QB starters thus far in 2018:Baker MayfieldJosh RosenSam DarnoldJosh AllenAfter 9 weeks, Baker Mayfield is still pretty clearly the best of the rookie QBs. He may not have started since Week 1 like Darnold or Allen, but he has a positive TD:INT ratio and grades out pretty well in efficiency stats and rating metrics. But of the rest, I think Josh Rosen has played the best—his numbers aren’t all that impressive (a lot of which can be blamed on Mike McCoy), but he’s been about as efficient as Darnold and has been rated slightly better. Plus he hasn’t thrown 14 interceptions. Allen is well behind all three—but even then, I’m sure Bills fans can’t wait for him to get healthy so they don’t have to watch Nathan Peterman anymore.So what do we think of these rookie QBs so far, Bird Gang? How would you rank them? How would you assess Rosen’s performance thus far? Let us know in the comments!