Murray, Cards ruin Jones’ return, end win streak
New York QB fumbles twice, is sacked 6 times coming back after injury
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — There’s more to the Arizona Cardinals than Kyler Murray, DeAndre Hopkins and a potent offense.
Kliff Kingsbury and the Cardinals are back in a playoff spot with three weeks left in the regular season because of a franchise-record performance by linebacker Haason Reddick and the play of his buddies on the defense.
Reddick, who played at Temple University, had a franchise-record five sacks and three forced fumbles as the Cardinals ended a three-game skid and spoiled the return of Giants quarterback Daniel Jones with a 26-7 victory over New York on Sunday.
“Hopefully it sparks something,” said Reddick, who broke the team record of 4½ sacks set by Curtis Greer in 1983 against the Eagles. “When you looked at us in practice, the energy was different. The intensity was crazy. I felt like everybody knew this was a game that we needed. The fact that we came out here, played hard and got the Wis hopefully a spark for us, and it pushes us for the rest of the season so we can we can continue to the goal we set out, to get into the playoffs”
After opening the season 6-2, the Cardinals lost four of five to fall out of a playoff spot. Coupled with Tampa Bay’s 26-14 win over Minnesota (6-7), the Cardinals are back in a wild-card berth.
Murray, who went 24 of 35 for 244 yards and a touchdown, said safety Budda Baker talked to the team this week, saying to look at themselves if they want to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
“At this point. wehave to go out there and execute,” said Murray, who ran 10 times for 47 yards. “Every game for the
rest of the season matters for us. Weknowwhatwe’re striving for. We’ve got to keep grinding, work hard, practice hard and translate that to the game.”
The loss ended a four-game winning streak for the Giants (5-8), who were coming off a win over Seattle that was their best performance of the season.
“I don’t think wehave any kind of a hangover from going out to Seattle last week,” Giants coach Joe Judge said. “I don’t think that’s a cause of it right here. And again, you know, this game was completely independent of anything that happened before. We simply didn’t come out today and we didn’t, you know, coach one off. We didn’t play well. And that’s just the hard truth of it.”
MikeNugentcameoffthepractice squad and added his first four field goals in morethanayear, and Kenyan Drake scored on a 1-yard dive as Arizona won for only the second time in six games.
Hopkins finished with nine catches for 136 yards as the offense rolled up 390 total yards. The defense and special teams mademajorcontributions, setting up the first 13 points for Arizona. The D limited New York to 159 yards in making Jones’ return from a one-game absence with a hamstring injury miserable.
Jones finished 11 of 21 for 127 yards and two fumbles, including one lost on the opening series. He was sacked six times before leaving late for Colt McCoy.
NewYork’s only score came on a 1-yard run by Dion Lewis on its opening possession of the second half, cutting the deficit to 20-7. A 39-yard pass fromJonesto Golden Tate set up the TD.
Murray threw a 7-yard pass to Dan Arnold to cap a 21-yard possession set up by a lost fumble by Lewis on a kickoff return.
Nugent, subbing for the injured Zane Gonzalez, kicked field goals of 34 and 37 earlier. The first one was set up by a 24-yard punt return by Christian Kirk to the Giants 38.
Drake scored to extend the lead to 20-0ontheopeningdrive of the second half.
Veteran Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald was back after missing two games with COVID19. He had two catches to extend his streak of consecutive games with a catch to 254.
Up next
Cardinals: head back to Arizona and will play the Eagles.
Giants: stay home and play host to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday night in a flexed game.