The Cardinals are ashamed of their loss to the Commanders

The Arizona Cardinals fell to 3-1 after a stunning 42-14 loss to the Washington Commanders on Sunday at State Farm Stadium.

Upon returning to Arizona as the Commanders’ offensive coordinator, Kliff Kingsbury and former Arizona State Sun Devil Jayden Daniels dismantled the Cardinals’ defense.

As a team, Washington racked up 449 yards of offense and scored on all but two drives throughout the afternoon.

Arizona Sports Hosts and reporters shared their key takeaways from the Cardinals’ loss:

Our reactions to the Cardinals’ loss to the Commanders in Week 4:

Vince Marotta, co-host of Bickley & Marotta Mornings: Looking back on the 2022 season, I have gone on record saying that I would like to see what Kyler Murray looked like in a Kingsbury offense without Kliff and what Kliff’s offense looked like with a different starting QB.

I got a really good look at both on Sunday, and I didn’t like what I saw through the Cardinals’ lens. Kingsbury’s Washington Commanders offense dominated the day with a 42-14 victory over the Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Once again, the Cardinals’ offense scored a touchdown on its first possession of the game – a smooth nine-play, 55-yard drive that ended with a strike from Murray to Marvin Harrison Jr. And that pretty much ended the highlights for the boys in red.

Washington responded with a nine-play, 70-yard touchdown drive of its own, putting the Cardinals’ defense in distress, but they never really found their balance after that. Back to Murray. The last two weeks have been enough to shake my confidence in him as the answer for this team at quarterback. Last week against Detroit, a resurgent defense gave Murray and the offense plenty of opportunities to make a play and win the game. He didn’t direct these plays.

While I don’t think Murray got any help from the sideline on Sunday in terms of play-calling or blocking passes through a porous offensive line, he didn’t do anything to suggest he could be a difference-maker. He was inaccurate, uncertain in the pocket and only ran the ball once. This was Murray’s 12th start in Drew Petzing’s offense, so forgive me if I get the “it’ll come in time” feeling. His counterpart, Jayden Daniels, was playing in his fourth NFL game under a brand new head coach and coordinator (Kingsbury), who was considered a fish out of water in the NFL. Still, Daniels was by far the best quarterback on the field.

We’re basically a quarter of the way through the season and Murray has put in a special performance. Quarterbacks who are brilliant 25 percent of the time don’t usually win Super Bowls.

Back to the game-winning aspect: Washington led 14-7 and with about nine minutes left in the second quarter, the Cardinals faced a 3rd-and-1 at their own 37-yard line. The running game, supported by James Conner, was averaging 5.8 yards per carry at this point. Petzing designed a passing play and Murray couldn’t reach Michael Wilson. They would hit the ball on fourth down. Washington didn’t score on the ensuing possession – Daniels’ only errant pass of the game was picked off by Garrett Williams on first down at midfield – but the Cardinals’ offense seemed out of sync for the rest of the game. This was an extremely discouraging performance in all phases from the Cardinals, who fell to 1-3, but mostly at the QB position.

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo: What would Kyler Murray be without Kliff Kingsbury? That was always going to be one of the great explorations of the 2024 season. How good can Murray be? How explosive and elite will the offense be? Our expectations were high and rose even higher after his “perfect” game against the Rams. Sunday turned the question on its head: What is Kliff without Kyler? And while a game proves nothing and doesn’t even come close to answering the question, I couldn’t get that thought out of my head.

Freed from the burden of being the leader of the entire operation and with a quarterback with similar but different skills, Kliff pulled out his new toy and let it eat. Sunday will long be remembered as the “Kliff” game. Jayden Daniels looked great, the offense was wrecking the Cardinals, and Kliff wore his defense like an expensive Swiss watch for the whole world to see. The Cardinals were a more than willing accomplice.

The defense was the embodiment of our worst fears. Third down conversions like clockwork. Marvin Harrison Jr. did long, confusing stretches without even seeing the ball. Murray had very little time to throw and outside of the first drive he hardly did anything that would be considered memorable. This game produced a rarity; For the first time in the Jonathan Gannon era, the Cardinals were embarrassed. Yes, there were losses, but not many of the kind that it shouldn’t happen like that. Now we learn what this coach/QB combination consists of and how it responds.

Tyler Drake, Cardinals reporter and co-host of the Cardinals corner Podcast: Yuck. That’s the best way to sum up the Cardinals’ terrible loss. Not only were they evicted from their own building, but also by Jayden Daniels and Kliff Kingsbury. Jonathan Gannon nailed it when talking about any positive aspects. There were too few of them to ever have a chance. This is a tremendous loss for Arizona as can be seen in the mirror. The Cardinals’ response will be crucial for the remainder of the season.

Kellan Olson, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: Several fears in the preseason outlook came true in this football game.

The first and most important concern is that the defense will be too poor for Arizona to have a competitive season. Jayden Daniels had all day to throw, and when his advances weren’t open, he still had enough room to slide around the pocket and rush for a few yards. The thing is, his progress has been open. A lot. Added to this is the poor performance of the run defense. This was an excellent opportunity against a rookie quarterback and the defense kept him comfortable all afternoon. Please come back next week, Darius Robinson.

The second concern is that this offense cannot be elite. While Kyler Murray had another poor performance on Sunday that we can all agree that mediocre performance isn’t good enough for him, his receivers regularly failed to create space. Additionally, Arizona’s offensive line was superior in pass protection and the running game was inconsistent. Trey McBride’s absence is obviously important, but certainly not that important.

Yes, in weeks 1 and 3 we played in promising fashion against two really good teams. But it’s also part of being a good team when you finish. Arizona must do this in a close game against quality competition while avoiding another underwhelming result like this to inspire confidence that a win total of more than six is ​​on the horizon.

Kevin Zimmerman, Editor-in-Chief of ArizonaSports.com: There were certainly game-changing questions asked by Arizona’s Drew Petzing. As he sat across from Kliff Kingsbury, the Cardinals’ former game manager, he looked through the lens of a third-grader intentionally turning the sunlight into a pretty garbage fire of a score.

But you know what? The Cardinals had no answers on either end, and at some point you have to wonder if this team is losing because it didn’t spend money and get too much back from last season’s four-win team. That’s the big question here. Do the Cardinals have top 20 talent? Top 25?

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