Grading Cardinals Coaches After Week 6 Upset vs Rams

The dust is beginning to settle on the Arizona Cardinals' Week 6 upset over the Los Angeles Rams, a win that came down to the very last play at SoFi Stadium.

The Cardinals stunned the NFL world by upsetting Sean McVay and co. to improve to 2-4 on the season. The Rams now have far more questions than answers while Arizona's hoping to parlay this into more momentum.

Grading every coordinator/play-caller from Sunday, using C as an average benchmark:

Mike LaFleur: B-

The Cardinals continue to do the hard things on the offensive side of the ball.

Arizona pieced together four drives of ten or more plays in Los Angeles, all coming after the first quarter. With so much talk on how the Cardinals hit a wall after the opening script of plays, it was good to see sustained drives against one of the league's top defensive units.

The Cardinals got back to a successful running game with 120 yards on the day in spite of missing Jeremiyah Love and multiple starters along the offensive line.

Arizona's leading receiver (Trey McBride) had just 53 yards while Jacoby Brissett was efficient outside his horrid interception.

The Cardinals came to play between the 20s, though their notable red zone struggles continued. Entering the red zone five times and walking away without a single touchdown again showed that LaFleur has not mastered that part of play-calling just yet, and quite frankly it nearly cost Arizona their upset win.

It didn't, but maybe we'd be talking much higher on Arizona's offense if they found the end zone in any of their numerous trips. LaFleur earns a B- here because the Cardinals moved the ball well and did enough to win.

Nick Rallis: A-

Look, I have been hard on Rallis — perhaps more than anybody — but Sunday was undoubtedly his best performance to date.

The Cardinals, against one of the league's top offensive attacks, looked prepared for both the run and pass game at SoFi Stadium thanks to a mix of execution and aggressive play-calling from Rallis.

When you play the Rams, you really hope to just contain their offense rather than fully stopping it. Yes, Puka Nacua's going to get open and Stafford's going to toss a couple of touchdowns — though for the first time in a long time, it felt like Arizona had answers to the test and Sean McVay didn't.

Stafford was sacked three times with seven quarterback hits. Arizona forced a fumble and limited the Rams to just 4-10 on third downs and 0-2 on fourth down.

With Rallis' seat hotter than ever, he delivered. He gets an A- here because the Cardinals limited Los Angeles to few big plays and bailed out LaFleur's offense as it stalled near the goal line.

Michael Ghobrial: A

Chad Ryland booted home all six field goals he attempted to give the Cardinals a win. Blocking and execution were solid on all fronts there.

Their kickoff return actually created a domino effect for the rest of the game after return man Devin Duvernay lowered his shoulder into Rams kicker Blake Grupe, who was injured on the play and forced Los Angeles into much different decision-making without a kicker on the roster.

The Cardinals had a better net punting average (40 to 27.7) than the Rams while Los Angeles only had two punts returned for four total yards and 48 yards on their two kickoffs returned.

A very smooth day for Ghobrial's side, who ended up being the determining factor in Arizona's win. He gets an A due to special teams winning the game for the Cardinals with no downturns throughout the afternoon.