The Arizona Cardinals suffered a horrific 42-14 loss to the Washington Commanders. It was a brutal defeat in which the Cardinals could not get off the field defensively enough and committed a lot of self-inflicted mistakes that put them in tough spots all day long.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“When you get beat like that, we didn’t coach good enough, and we didn’t play good enough all three phases,” said Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon in his postgame presser, streamed to the Cardinals YouTube channel. “We got to get back at it, we got to adapt a little bit. That starts with me, we can’t look like that because we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win that game.”
The biggest issue for the Cardinals was their inability to stop the run on early downs. They allowed 216 yards on 37 carries (5.8 ypc) on the day and four of Washington’s five touchdowns on the day. Brian Robinson Jr., Jeremy McNichols, and Jayden Daniels each had at least one rushing touchdown.
“We haven’t done a good enough job of stopping the run, so we’re playing behind the 8-ball on defense all day and it’s a hard way to go. Give those guys credit, that’s a good offense, they’re well-coached, and they made a bunch of plays. We got to tweak some things in the run game and make sure we do a better job. We have to do the little easy things better. Set edges, tackle, get off blocks, be in the right spot. I know we’ll be able to fix those things.”
With Washington’s offense able to stay ahead of the chains, they consistently outmaneuvered an overmatched Cardinals defense. While they got a takeaway and forced the Commanders’ offense to punt for the first time since Week 1, there wasn’t much resistance. That created extra pressure on the offense to execute, which broke down in the second half due to their inability to put themselves in favorable situations. As a result, they were unable to stop any of Washington’s momentum from building throughout the game.
The biggest momentum flip came in the final minute of the first half. With the Cardinals trailing by seven, and in field goal range, the offense went for converting a 4th & 1 instead of trying a long field goal. Kyler Murray was sacked on the play, turning the ball over to the Commanders, who converted for three points on their own end. After a long pass interference penalty, Daniels scored to put Washington up 17 in the third quarter.
There are some positives to take away from this game, albeit very few. The Cardinals marched down the field on their opening drive, with Kyler Murray dropping a perfect throw to Marvin Harrison Jr. for a touchdown.
“We got a couple stops on defense, we scored some points on offense on those two drives. This league’s very humbling and we got humbled today. We’ll get back to it. The positive will be what we get out of this tape tomorrow, the adjustments that we make, the corrections that we make, and we’ll get better from it.”
They’ll get ready for a road matchup against their division rivals the San Francisco 49ers. It will be a critical test to see how tough the Cardinals are against a team that has Super Bowl aspirations this season.
Cardinals demolished by Commanders 42-14 for 2nd-straight loss
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arizona Cardinals, and more for Burn City Sports.
