Sunday was the first time the Air Raid had been formally used in anger in the NFL. Prior to this however, there can be little doubt it has inspired or prompted an array of offensive play designs, most notably those of the Super Bowl winning Eagles and the New England Patriots.

Resultantly, many Air Raid concepts and ideas will not be new to the Cardinals’ opponents. They will certainly not have been new to former New England defensive co-ordinator and Detroit Head Coach Matt Patricia. He coached in practice against an offense that utilised many Air Raid principles and designs as well as coaching in a Super Bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles. Nevertheless, Kingsbury was able to design and call a host of plays that out-leveraged Patricia’s defense.

This was exactly why he was hired. Kingsbury wasn’t hired to bring something completely new to the NFL field. He was hired because he was seen as someone capable of harnessing concepts the NFL largely already knew and spinning them into something uniquely threatening. He was seen as someone who could call and design plays that beat NFL defenses; someone whose play-calling and designs could deliver wins in the NFL.

Whilst he was unable to achieve the latter, he has already shown he can do the former. Furthermore, the Cardinals offense already looks like it will be uniquely threatening in its personnel groupings compared to its fellow NFL offenses.

In 82 plays, 55 of them featured the Cardinals in 10 personnel (1 running back, 4 wide receivers). This was a feature of Kingsbury’s offense at Texas Tech. The rest of the NFL only called 99 plays in 10 personnel in week 1.

This grouping put Detroit in a bind and often resulted in the Lions choosing to cover Larry Fitzgerald with a safety. Fitzgerald’s usage as a pseudo-tight end in Kingsbury’s concepts will be fascinating to follow and potentially promises even greater longevity for the Cardinals’ greatest ever player.

For much of the game, even if the passes were not completed or even attempted, the Cardinals had open receivers. This extended to the Cardinals’ negative plays. Kingbury’s ability to scheme horizontal stretches as well as simply hi-lo reads was on show repeatedly and promises much if his team can start executing more successfully.