Stars shine after GM rips them

Money talks or money walks. Steve Keim laid it on the line a month ago when the Cardinals’ general manager went on the air during his weekly appearance with the team’s flagship radio station and said his star players simply weren’t getting it done.

“I’m very disappointed with the way we’ve played the last two weeks,” Keim said following back-to-back losses to the Lions and Panthers. “It comes down to making plays and executing and to be quite frank with you, we’ve got a lot of guys making a lot of money … and when you see players who are making an exorbitant amount of money, those guys have to be productive.

“In my opinion, our stars have not played like stars, so to speak.”

The Cardinals and their star players answered the challenge, regardless of how many of them may have heard it or not.

Arizona has won three straight

games since Keim’s public shaming, outscoring its opponents 105-54, moving into a tie for the third-best winning percentage (.714) in the NFC and becoming the league’s top-ranked overall offense (419.1 yards per game).

“Is that real?” quarterback Kyler Murray said to a team media relations manager when asked by a reporter what it feels like to lead the NFL’s No.1 offense. When the PR guy told him it was true, Murray immediately broke out in laughter, obviously not having known the fact.

That should tell you how dialed-in and laser-beamed focused Cardinals players have been since they let those two games slip away against Detroit and Carolina and got an earful from their GM. Entering Sunday’s home game at State Farm Stadium against the Dolphins, who have also won three straight games, Keim acknowledged his team obviously got the message.

“We’re all held accountable, from (Owner) Michael (Bidwill) to myself to (head coach) Kliff (Kingsbury) to the players,” Keim told Arizona Sports 98.7FM Friday on the “Doug & Wolf Show.” “It’s a business. That’s what it is. That’s the way we have to approach it. If guys aren’t getting the job done, we have to replace them. It’s a tough business. It’s not made for everybody.

“You pay players a lot of money and you have expectations. If they don’t meet those expectations, you have to figure out what the next step is. But I’m very proud of the way our guys have responded to adversity. Our guys are playing at a high level. Our stars, so to speak, are playing like stars.”

Edge rusher Chandler Jones, the Cardinals’ second highest-paid player with an average annual salary of $16.5 million, got hurt before he could help make a difference. He tore a biceps tendon in his right arm during Week 5’s 30-10 rout of the Jets and couldn’t improve on the one sack he registered in the season opener.

But everybody else has chipped in, from the highest-paid players on down.

Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who tops the Cardinals’ salary chart with an average of $27.25 million per year, continues to lead the NFL in receptions (57) and receiving yards (706) and his 36 catches for first downs are tied for the most in the league. With four receptions on Sunday, he would set a franchise record for most catches in the first eight games of a season.

Hopkins only has three touchdown receptions, but he’s more than lived up to expectations since being acquired in an offseason trade from the Texans in exchange for running back David Johnson, a second-round pick and a swap of fourth-round picks.

Free safety Budda Baker, who carries the team’s third-highest annual salary at $14.75 million, is earning every penny of his four-year, $59 million deal. His 59 total tackles are tied for the 10th-most in the league, he’s had two interceptions the past two weeks, won NFC Defensive Player of the Month for October and is a candidate for NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors.

“This is my first time in the NFL where this coaching staff has been here,” Baker, a second-round pick out of Washington in 2017, said. “The first three years, it’s been whole new coaching staffs, who new defenses and the positive thing about that is I was able to learn a bunch of different things.

“My rookie year, I was playing strong safety and a little bit of nickel (cornerback). My second year, I was playing nickel, WILL linebacker, free safety, strong safety. Third year, I was getting back to playing my natural position and now, stay at my natural position on top of learning that same defense over again. … Now, I’m just making plays.”

So is starting left tackle D.J. Humphries, even if fans don’t recognize it during the highlights. The team’s fourth highest-paid player at $14.58 million per year, Humphries was the NFL’s highest-graded offensive lineman during Weeks 5-7, according to the analytics website ProFootballFocus, and he’s a big reason why Murray has only been sacked nine times as opposed to 23 at this point last year.

The entire offensive line has produced, as has veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson. Arizona’s fifth highestpaid player at $14 million a season and in the final year of his contract, Peterson completely shut down Seattle’s DK Metcalf during the Cardinals’ 37-34 overtime victory over the Seahawks last time out.

Peterson shadowed Metcalf on 42 routes, according to NextGenStats, and allowed only one catch for six yards. Peterson, an eight-time Pro Bowl corner, also snared his second interception of the year in the game, giving him 27 in his career and tying him with Adrian Wilson for the sixth-most in club history.

“I definitely feel like I can get at least five more,” Peterson said. “I just have to continue to stay patient, staying in my game and when that play presents itself to me, I have to make the best of it. Hopefully, once I catch one this Sunday, I can take it to the house.”

No one has ever questioned veteran wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald or his importance to the franchise. He ranks sixth on the team’s pay scale at $11.5 million and he’s been delivering for 17 straight NFL seasons. Although there were major questions as to why he was only targeted 18 times through the first four weeks of the season, he caught all eight of his targets against the Seahawks for 62 yards and was hugely instrumental in the win.

Fitzgerald said he was unaware that Keim had called out the Cardinals’ star players, but added the team knew it had to come together and get better in a hurry.

“I just know we have a prideful group of men, guys who really care – not only about ball, but each other,” Fitzgerald said. “They’re dedicated to the cause and they desperately don’t want to let each other down. I think when you have guys who are like that, selfless and hungry and passionate about the way they go out there and work and the way they play on Sundays, that will eventually resonate.

“You’re not going to win every single game in the National Football League … but if you have guys who are committed, you’re going to win a good share of them and that puts you in position as we approach the tail end of the season.”

Winning is all that matters to Murray, the team’s ninth highest-paid player at $8.8 million, and he’s more than validated himself for being the No.1 overall pick in the draft a year ago. The reigning Rookie of the Year, he’s on pace to become the first player in NFL history to pass for more than 4,000 yards and rush for at least 1,000 more.

Murray initially didn’t want to comment on Keim’s call out, but he did. And his words were telling.

“This is the NFL. It’s not easy to win,” he said. “The past is the past. We felt like we let those two games slip away. We could be undefeated, but ‘should have, could have, would have,’ we are who we are. We are where we are in this moment, in a good position. .”

Roster moves

The Cardinals activated tight end Maxx Williams from the injured reserve/designated to return list, elevated running back D.J. Foster and cornerback Jace Whittaker to the active roster as COVID-19 replacements, and also elevated defensive lineman Michael Dogbe to the active roster from the practice squad as a standard elevation.

Additionally, the team released tight end Jordan Thomas.