The Arizona Cardinals lost their fifth straight game on Sunday, this time in a 31-13 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. What caused yesterday's loss? Same shit, different day.
The Cards were bad on defense, the Cards were bad on offense -- they dropped passes, got too many penalties, and quarterback Derek Anderson missed his target almost every time he threw the ball. And now his receivers are paying the price.
Anderson's been missing receivers all season, so this is nothing new.
But now he's missing high -- as oppose to short, or long -- and
receivers are forced to go up in the air to make risky, circus catches.
For a receiver, up in the air is where you get crushed -- just ask Early
Doucet.
Doucet is showing symptoms of a concussion after leaving the ground to
catch a high pass from Anderson. He got crushed by two Kansas City
defenders before he even hit the ground.
Doucet wasn't the only Cardinals receiver to jeopardize the rest of
their career by going up to get one of Anderson's wild throws, Larry
Fitzgerald, and Anderson's go-to-guy, Steve Breaston, also took a
beating.
"Once again, this is getting old," Anderson said after the game. "We've just got to
find a way, dig deep, continue to keep working the way we have been
working."
The way the Cardinals "have been working" clearly isn't the best course of action, so
maybe it's time for Anderson to go back to the drawing board.
It wasn't just Anderson's wild throws that lost the game for the Cards
-- dropped passes and stupid penalties played an equal role in the loss.
The Cardinals had 11 penalties for 96 yards in the loss, and only
converted four of 15 third downs. Many of those failed third down tries
were caused by a bad pass or a dropped catch.
The defense was equally unimpressive.
The Cards D held the Chiefs to fewer total yards than the Cardinals
(382-352), but they were killed by penalties, and were unable to shut
down the Chiefs on all three of their red zone possessions.
"We are not really a confident team right now," Cards coach Ken Whisenhunt said after the game. "One of
the things we have always been able to feed on is certain individuals,
but I'm not specifying individuals, players making plays. We had our
chances to do that. We had more dropped balls today than I can remember
with this football team. That is not something that we have ever done
before."
The Cardinals host the San Francisco 49ers next week on Monday night.
The two teams are tied for last place in the NFC West right now, so get
ready for the battle of who could care less. Click here for more info.
