Football is a team sport.

Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves that 40-ish guys take to the field for every team each Sunday, and that any one player can only make as much of a positive impact as his teammates allow. Even when considering our USA Today, Arizona GM Steve Keim said of Washington's suspension, "It's completely unacceptable that Daryl has once again put us in this position." Keim is absolutely right. There's no excuse for one of the best linebackers in the game to hurt his team by being away from the field.

So just how much will the Cardinals miss Washington? A quick look at our metrics tells us almost everything we need to know.

For the next two tables, I'll be using Adjusted Defensive Advanced Football Analytics. According to their Expected Points Added per game metric, which measures the positive impact of a defensive player on a per-game basis, Washington finished 11th among linebackers. This is thanks to ranking high in both quarterback hits and passes defensed, meaning Washington was disrupting the passing attack of his opponents in multiple ways.

There's talent to be found in Arizona on defense, but a lot of it is in the back four, where lockdown corner Patrick Peterson and dynamic playmaker Tyrann Mathieu play. Washington and Calais Campbell represent the playmaking ability in the front seven, and without Washington there to fill gaps and blitz, Campbell is going to have to shoulder even more of the burden to get quarterbacks off their mark and frustrate offensive coordinators.

The Arizona defense was more than five expected points worse against the pass last season in every game where Daryl Washington wasn't in the lineup. And while one of the four games played without Washington was against Drew Brees and the Saints, the others were against Mike Glennon's awful Bucs' offense, Matt Stafford's Lions and the aforementioned Rams.

So it's a small sample size, yes. But the numbers show that, against some less-than-stellar opposition, the Cardinals showed a weakness against the pass without their best inside linebacker in the lineup. Going without him in 2014 will likely mean more of the same, which is disappointing for those of us with high hopes for what a full season would look like with the additions made in Arizona already this offseason.

Football is a team sport. But certain players rise above that, and change games on their own. Washington is one of those players, but his impact will only been seen and felt in omission this season. As Steve Keim said, it's unacceptable, and it's really disappointing.