Cardinals belly flop on big ‘splash’ plays
The Cardinals aren’t making much of a splash this season. In fact, they’ve made next to no splashes whatsoever. Maybe a big collective belly flop?
The lack of big plays, more commonly known as “splash” plays, have been painfully obvious. In the NFL, the odds say your team usually wins when it makes anywhere from three to five splash plays per game. But the Cardinals haven’t had three to five of those combined through any of their first five games of 2017.
“No. No, we haven’t,” coach Bruce Arians said Monday, a day after the Cardinals’ 34-7 loss at the Eagles. “There was only one game where we met our ‘explosives.’ We had some to make, we just didn’t make them.
“We either can’t protect long enough or we don’t make the throw.
Right before the half (on Sunday), Jaron (Brown) is five yards behind the guy, Carson (Palmer) slides and doesn’t get enough on it, it’s 21-14. Those are plays we’ve made in the past. They’re on tape to make, we’re just not making them right now.”
Nothing really has gone right for the Cardinals (2-3), who will meet the Buccaneers (2-2) this Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium.
The offensive line is in shambles. No quarterback has been sacked (19 times) or hit (50 times) more than Palmer. The running game ranks last in the league overall, averaging just 51.8 yards per game. That’s 113.4 yards less than the Jaguars, who lead the NFL with an average of 165.2 rushing yards per game.
Defensively, only five teams have surrendered more points than the Cardinals (125). They’re tied for third with the fewest takeaways in the league (four). They’ve allowed the third-most thirddown conversions (32). And we haven’t even mentioned all the problems on special teams, which have been rampant.
Penalties, meanwhile, have also been a colossal issue. The Cardinals have been flagged 45 times for 419 yards. Only the lowly Browns have been penalized more times (48) for more yards (433). For a team that prides itself on its “football IQ,” that’s a flunking disappointment.
“We’ve tried to really improve football IQ with our players because that’s one of the issues we've had in the past,” General Manager Steve Keim said Monday during his weekly appearance with Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7FM. “Once I think we can get some of that cleaned up and guys play a little smarter, you’ll start to see some improvement.
“Again though, week after week, if the same mistakes keep happening … we need to continue to rotate players in and out of here and find players who can help us. If a guy continually makes the same mistakes and he’s not going to fix it, we’ll go ahead and make the decision and look at the ready list and bring in some guys – which we are this week – and make some changes.”
As bad as it all sounds, there is still plenty of time to turn things around. And one very quick way to do that would be if the Cardinals can string together some splash plays on both sides of the ball.
There hasn’t been one of those on defense since early in the first quarter of Arizona’s season-opening loss at Detroit, when Justin Bethel intercepted a Matthew Stafford pass and returned it 82 yards for a touchdown. That’s unlike this Cardinals defense, which has scored 19 defensive touchdowns since 2013, the second-most in the NFL over that span.
Offensively, Palmer and the Cardinals have had 22 pass plays of 20 or more yards. That’s second only to Tom Brady and the Patriots, who have had 24 such plays. The Cardinals, though, only have two passing touchdowns of 20 or more yards – a 45-yarder from Palmer to J.J. Nelson in an overtime win at the Colts and a 25-yard strike from Palmer to Brown in a Monday night loss to the Cowboys.
Palmer has only five completions of 40 or more yards, tied for the secondfewest with the winless Giants and Browns.
It’s hard to generate those type of plays, of course, when your quarterback has no time to throw. So can the Cardinals even expect to generate any splash plays?
“No,” Arians said. “Larry (Fitzgerald) almost popped a screen. Andre (Ellington) almost popped a screen. We have guys, if we can get them in space, that can get us 15 or 20 (yards). But to get over the top of a defense you have to protect for at least three (seconds).”
Doesn’t that drastically change this offense and the whole “no risk it, no biscuit” philosophy?
“Oh yeah,” Arians said.
If he plans on asking his running backs for help, Arians can forget it. The Cardinals haven’t had a single play this season where anyone has rushed for 20 or more yards.