Thrills, chills
Cards’ roller coaster season leaves players, fans winded
Budda Baker described the 2020 Cardinals season as kind of a roller coaster — no, OK, definitely a roller coaster — the ups, the downs, the stomach drops.
It is unlikely that anyone reading this is hearing that phrase for the first time, as accurate as it may be for the 8-8 Cardinals. It is a phrase that is used for games and teams and seasons and relationships and even just some Twitter threads.
But for as many scenarios as “it was a roller coaster“can apply to, the course of the coasters themselves varies widely. Some start with the biggest drop at the beginning. Others build and build and build to the nosedive. Some go backwards before they go forward before they reverse again. Some make people throw up, though that probably wasn’t the exact intent.
But one thing that generally holds true across all coasters is where they place the camera for the souvenir photos. It captures riders at their most expressive, whether that is laughing or screaming or throwing their hands in the air or covering their eyes, gripping for dear life, or in very rare cases, proposing.
To capture the cars speeding past, the shutter speed is just a fraction of a second, and not an accurate reflection of the full ride or the full range of emotions. But people probably wouldn’t buy a photo of brace of the uphill climb, would they?
“I’ll tell you one thing. The two last-minute, game-winning touchdowns that I’ve been a part of, from the Miami Miracle to the Hail Murray, the thing that I got from those experiences was that the next few games, we didn’t come out and play our best football.”
Kenyan Drake Cardinals running back
When the Cardinals jumped out to a 1-0 start, notching a signature win over the defending NFC champions, they already felt like a bit of a different team. Then they made it to 2-0, a modest record on paper that felt like a milestone after what the last two season looked like.
Ahead of the final game of the season, quarterback Kyler Murray said that 2420 opening win best epitomized who this team was and what they could be.
“The first game of the season probably for me,” he said. “I liked that game.”
Connecting quickly with Murray, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins tallied 14 catches, his career high, and 151 yards in his Cardinals debut. The offense was as exciting as it was tantalizing.
The Cardinals scored as many as 38. They were held to as few as 7. They were more confusing than consistent, with second-year coach Kliff Kingsbury still trying to define the offense midway through the season. Part of that came from a fractured offseason, but part of that came from fragmented drives every Sunday.
They went into the bye at 5-2. By the time they finished at an even-record, a lot of season felt like whiplash.
“It’s definitely not how you want to end at all, being so hot early on and simmering out,” left tackle D.J. Humphries said on Monday. “It’s definitely not how you want to end.”
Hail Murray, followed by a drop
Between the high speeds they reach and the energy they need, roller coasters are also usually short in terms of how long the thrill ride lasts. Right before a roller coaster returns to its station, it’s slowed down by a brake run, riders often lurching forward against whatever holds them in, before snapping back again. But a break run can come at any point in the track.
After the Hail Murray, most Cardinals — including Murray, Hopkins and Kingsbury — said they had never been a part of a play quite like that. But running back Kenyan Drake had. Back when he was a Dolphin, and back when he was facing the Patriots late in the season.
In Miami in 2018, it was Drake who was the one to actually score on the famed Miami Miracle — the first walk-off touchdown in league history that involved multiple lateral passes — an electric sequenced birthed from desperation to seal the 34-33 win over a divisional rival in a game that saw eight lead changes. The play was a coaster inside a coaster.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Drake said, “the two last-minute, game-winning touchdowns that I’ve been a part of, from the Miami Miracle to the Hail Murray, the thing that I got from those experiences was that the next few games, we didn’t come out and play our best football.”
He was speaking on Dec. 18, back when the Cardinals’ playoffs hopes were still real and still attainable. The twoyear anniversary of the Miami Miracle had passed just nine days earlier.
It briefly catapulted them back into the playoff race. It was named the play of the year at the league’s NFL Honors Award Show. It was the souvenir photo of the Dolphins’ year.
And then came the drop. The Dolphins lost the next three straight. The Miami Miracle was the last win of their season. The Patriots, meanwhile, went on to win the Super Bowl.
“In my honest opinion, it was all for nothing,” Drake said. “Obviously, it was a great moment, but the ultimate goal is get to the playoffs and play meaningful football at the end of the year. And we didn’t do that.”
Still, the image of Hopkins launching up above three Bills defenders will be shown again and again and again. It will be the most memorable moment of the season, and rightfully so, even if it doesn’t quite reflect the other 16 hours, 9 minutes and 36 seconds of game clock. The seven other wins, or the eight losses. The 410 points for, and the 367 against. It was nine seconds, 43 yards, six points and one moment of the season-long roller coaster.
“When you have such a big moment, you can’t overshadow moving forward into the next game,” Drake said on that day in December.
The Cardinals were 1-4 over that postbye stretch, the Hail Murray’s brief redemption the only thing stopping them from a five-game skid. A pair of NFC East matchups got them back into contention (Arizona was 4-0 against that blighted division), but the final two losses, both to backup quarterbacks, cemented their fate.
After the game, Murray took a wideangled view of the season.
“It still goes back to winning the games you’re supposed to win and you’re not putting yourself in this position,” Murray said.
A season to build from
Still, other Cardinals and Kingsbury pointed to the fact that to still be in contention in Week 17 was huge. They won’t hang a banner for that, but publicly, it’s the first thing Kingsbury points to.
“You definitely have that balance that you go through, but I think it’s just about staying the moment,” Kingsbury said the Friday before what would become the season finale. “We’ve wanted to progress, and go from Year 1 to Year 2 and make big strides, and I think we have in a lot of areas. We’d love to have more wins, and felt like we had some opportunities to do that. But we have progressed.
“And we’re gonna continue to try to progress, but I think for a team who’s trying to build a special group, to have a
must-win game at the end of the year is exciting. And it’s something that I think this organization can build off of.”
There is a certain truth to that. Progress was indeed made. The Cardinals have gone from three wins to five to eight. They improved statistically on both sides of the ball. They shows flashes of excellence. And even some of their dismal moments, they were able to reclaim — the low of losing Chandler Jones begot the high of seeing Haason Reddick finally break through.
Players called it all progress as well, and Kingsbury cited “learning experiences” multiple times in his year-end look-back. He thinks they’re on the right track. Those aren’t quotes that fans enjoy, not after the acceleration of 6-3 and not after feeling they’ve already waited so long.
So the Cardinals enter the offseason, after an peculiar year for the whole league, with more time to digest both the highs and the lows. The only thing about the season that felt even was their record.
“That’s definitely the toughest part of the season — being optimistic and excited because you see growth, but being frustrated because you know how close you were, and how hard it is to get to that to that tournament,” Humphries said.
When Humphries was a rookie, the Cardinals’ first-round pick in 2015, thenquarterback Carson Palmer tried to explain that to him. Of course Humphries knew the importance of the playoffs. But as the 13-3 team cruised to the postseason his first year in the league, it hadn’t crystallized yet how difficult a feat that is. He wasn’t thinking about the line to get in when he was already on the ride.
There are a few ways to get to the entrance, and by extension, to get to the roller coasters at the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida. One of those ways is to take the monorail, which can be viewed as a ride itself or as strictly a means of transportation, depending on your sense of urgency.
It doesn’t have any drops or loops or thrilling high speeds. Guests don’t hop off and race back around to the start of the line to ride it again and again and again. There is no souvenir photo spot to capture the big moment, because there’s not exactly a big moment. It’s not a roller coaster.
But what the monorail does is gets guests to the next destination. It gets them to the rides that really matter.