Cardinals eke out a win over Jaguars after wild 4th quarter
Cards survive wild 4th quarter to beat Jaguars on late field goal
For three quarters on Sunday, the Cardinals and Jaguars played football the way your pops bragged that he did back in the day when folks appreciated a good run game, well-placed punts and ball security.
Then an Arena League game broke out.
Three turnovers, a long kick return, three touchdowns, one questionable coaching decision and a field goal later, the Cardinals had won 27-24 at University of Phoenix Stadium.
It ended when kicker Phil Dawson, who had missed six field goals this year, made the longest field goal of his 19-year career to win it. The 57-yarder flew over the crossbar with 1 second remaining.
“I liked the way we responded at the end to win a really close game,” coach Bruce Arians said. “This team needed that.”
It was the first of three consecutive home games for the Cardinals (5-6), and they will have a chance to win the next two if they play as well as they did in the first three quarters on Sunday.
The fourth quarter? Not so much. They spent the quarter responding to adversity they helped create, but they didn’t wilt as they had so many times before this season.
It was a crazy quarter filled with brilliant plays, some bonehead ones and an entertaining quarterback battle between the Cardinals’ Blaine Gabbert and the Jaguars’ Blake Bortles. Really.
Here’s how it happened:
–The Cardinals led 16-10 entering the fourth quarter. Gabbert was playing efficiently against the team that drafted him 10th overall in 2011. The Cardinals hadn’t committed a turnover. The running game was working, and the defense was shutting down the Jaguars.
All that changed when Gabbert was hit by Yannick Ngakoue while trying to escape the pocket. He fumbled, and defensive end Calais Campbell, the former Cardinal, picked it up and ran 10 yards to the end zone.
That gave the Jaguars (7-4) their first lead of the day, 17-16.
Arians loves Gabbert’s running ability but said the quarterback “has to be more careful with that ball when he is getting out there.”
–Gabbert responded well to the adversity, which portends well for his future in Arizona. On the next possession, he made three big plays during a 75-yard touchdown drive. Twice he scrambled for first downs.
On the sixth play, he moved in the pocket to buy time and hit Jaron Brown for a 52-yard touchdown pass that gave the Cardinals a 22-17 lead.
“Some plays aren’t going to go your way, so you’ve got to do a good job of compartmentalizing those turnovers, those errors in judgment, just so you can go to the next play,” Gabbert said.
The Jaguars have one of the best secondaries in the NFL, but the Cardinals thought they would have a few chances to strike deep.
“J.B did a great job at the top of that route,” Gabbert said of Brown. “I just had to buy enough time to get that thing up.”
Gabbert threw to receiver Larry Fitzgerald for the conversion, and the Cardinals led by seven points. They ended up needing every one of them.
–Dawson’s first five kickoffs were touchbacks, but Corey Grant returned the sixth one 68 yards up the sideline. “I think we relaxed,” Arians said. The defense appeared to relax, too, because it took the Jaguars only four plays to score a touchdown. Bortles ran it in from 17 yards and finished with 62 yards on six carries.
“I thought we played well,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “There will be a lot of coaching points when we watch the film, but I think the one that sticks out the most is him keeping the ball three times for 60 yards. Those were the plays that really kept them in the game.”
–Gabbert made his biggest mistake on the next possession. He forced a pass intended for Chad Williams, but safety Barry Church read it and intercepted.
–It was the Cardinals defense’s turn to make a big play. On third down from the Cardinals’ 38, Bortles rolled right and threw a pass intended for receiver Dede Westbrook. Mathieu read the play, put his arms up and intercepted the ball.
“He was close to two more interceptions,” Arians said of Mathieu. “He’s been playing better and better. You can see his swagger coming out.”
–The Cardinals faced fourth and 1 at the 50 with less than two minutes remaining. Arians, Mr. No Risk It No Biscuit, decided to punt but was tempted to go for it.
“It was real hard not to,” he said. –The Jaguars had the ball at the 10 with 1:14 left and the Cardinals had one timeout. It appeared everyone would play for overtime. But on second down, the Jaguars attempted a pass that was broken up by Mathieu. The clock stopped.
“I ran the ball on first down and got greedy,” Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said. “I should have ran the ball and ran the clock out and gone to overtime. That’s my fault.”
That allowed the Cardinals to use their timeout after third down. After a punt and a 12-yard return by Patrick Peterson, the Cardinals had the ball at their 39, with no timeouts and 16 seconds left.
Arians decided to try and win it. –On first down, Gabbert hit running back Kerwynn Williams on the sideline for 10 yards to the Cardinals’ 49. That took five seconds.
On second down, Gabbert hit running back D.J. Foster, who made a brilliant catch with toes dragging inbounds. That gained 12 yards to the Jaguars’ 39. Eleven seconds left.
–In came Dawson for the 57-yard attempt. His career long was 56 yards. The snap, the hold and the kick were good.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I just tried to hit it smooth,’ ” Gabbert said. “It was smooth all right.”