Remember that four-game winning streak? Remember how good the Arizona Cardinals looked on both sides of the ball in wins against the Chicago Bears and New York Jets? Remember debating the most favorable playoff matchups?
Yeah, me neither. It feels like a decade ago. Once the Cardinals went into the bye week, the offense decided to extend its vacation while the rest of the NFL was ramping it up a notch, as good teams do in December.
It’s never too early to start talking about the NFL Scouting Combine. In this case, it makes perfect sense.
The math may not say so quite yet. That’s the beauty of only playing 17 games in a parity riddled league. Twenty-six of the NFL’s 32 teams can still say they have a chance at the postseason through 14 weeks, but let’s be honest: The Cardinals’ playoff hopes are dead, just like the corpse of the team that took the field on Sunday in a 30-18 loss to the Seahawks at State Farm Stadium.
Arizona needed a win to revive its postseason hopes. Arizona needed a win to restore confidence that was badly shaken in two rough road losses in Seattle and Minneapolis. Arizona needed a win to retake the NFC West lead and prevent Seattle from opening what is essentially a three-game lead with four games to play — on a day when the Rams were beating Buffalo and the 49ers were beating the Bears.
Instead, Kyler Murray chose the biggest game of the season to have perhaps his worst performance of the season, throwing two ugly, first-quarter interceptions that turned into 14 Seattle points. Those plays gave the surging Seahawks all the momentum they needed to choke the life out of a crowd that was ready to celebrate after Michael Wilson’s 41-yard TD catch gave Arizona an early 7-0 lead.
“I feel like I let the team down today,” Murray said. “You throw two picks and put yourself behind the 8-ball in the NFL like that, it’s tough. It’s on me. Just put it on me.”
Murray’s interceptions absolutely set the tone in the game, but the offensive line got pushed around again by Seattle’s aggressive front. The Cardinals managed just 47 yards rushing in the first half and 23 of those came on one James Conner run. The rest of the time, he was bottled up until the Seahawks started playing soft against the run while protecting a lead.
And the defense, which hadn’t allowed a home touchdown since Sept. 29, allowed three in the first half — two of them on short fields thanks to those aforementioned Murray interceptions.
“Disappointing loss; didn’t play our best ball there,” said coach Jonathan Gannon, whose team has lost three straight games to fall below .500 at 6-7. “I’ve got to find some answers to get us going a little bit because we haven’t played great here the last couple of weeks.
“We’ve got to look at the tape and make sure we’re thinking critically about, ‘Are we putting our guys in the right positions to make plays?'”
(Getty Images)
Here’s what the math says. The Seahawks have defeated the Cardinals seven straight times, Seattle QB Geno Smith is 5-0 vs. Kyler Murray, and the Cardinals now have a paltry 11-percent chance of still making the playoffs. With one Seattle win in its final four games — the Seahawks have won four straight games — the NFC West is gone.
As far as wild card spots go, Minnesota (11-2) and Green Bay (9-4) have all but locked up two of them (both have wins against Arizona anyway) while Washington (8-5) essentially owns a three-game lead on Arizona by virtue of its blowout of the Cardinals back in September.
Arizona is now 0-6 against teams in the current NFC playoff field. It’s over. You can start researching potential first-round draft picks in the 11-20 range because the rebuild will stretch into Year 3, putting GM Monti Ossenfort and the coaching staff under enormous pressure to produce something meaningful in 2025. You don’t get three years to rebuild in the NFL because you don’t deserve three years. Plenty of teams engineer turnarounds in less time.
There will be time to dissect the challenges and the flawed thinking in believing you can just turn it on in Year 3, but none of that excuses a simple fact that Sunday’s loss revealed.
The Cardinals had an opportunity to put a stranglehold on the division coming out of the bye week. When the chips were down and the pressure mounted, they folded like a cheap house of cards.
Top photo via Getty Images: Seattle’s Zach Charbonnet runs away from Cardinals Sean Murphy-Bunting and Starling Thomas in the second quarter on Sunday.
