Not much went right for the Arizona Cardinals in their 31-21 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, and their disappointing 2022 season continues. Head coach Kliff Kingsbury continually has led this team down a losing path, and even with the amount of talent this roster has, not much has improved.
In a very tight NFC West divisional race, the Cardinals are still somewhat in the hunt, but they currently sit three wins behind the division-leading Seahawks, a deficit that seems pretty insurmountable after their performance in Week 9.
As a whole, this team certainly did not do enough to make this game go their way, but there are three members of the Arizona franchise most at fault for their sixth loss of the season.
3. Kyler Murray
It is hard to win in the current NFL when your quarterback struggles to throw for 200, yet Kyler Murray has failed to reach that number twice through nine games. On top of that, Murray has only eclipsed 250 passing yards in four games this year, showcasing how he has struggled this year so far.
On the flip side, Murray’s rushing stats have been fairly consistent so far this year, and Sunday’s rushing performance (8 carries for 60 yards) actually yielded the third-most carries and second-most rushing yards on the year. Ultimately, a 25-for-35, 175-yard performance with 2 passing TDs is not a terrible outcome for Murray, but he certainly needed to do more for a team that has struggled to move the ball more often than not this season.
2. Arizona Run Defense
While not as bad as the performance that the New Orleans Saints produced against Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore rushing attack, the Cardinals seemed generally uninterested in stopping Seattle’s running game on Sunday.
Rookie Kenneth Walker III looked solid yet again, averaging over four yards per carry on his way to a 20-carry, 100-yard performance with 2 scores. On the day, the Seahawks ran for 158 yards on 34 attempts, so they weren’t exactly trying to hide their intentions either.
Playing in a division with the run-heavy 49ers certainly does not bode well for the Cardinals, and if their run defense continues to lead like a screen door on a submarine, it will be hard for their offense to dictate the pace of any of their remaining games.
1. Kliff Kingsbury
It is the same story, just a different week for the Cardinals, and they can chalk their consistent losing ways mostly up to Kingsbury and his coaching ineptitudes. His inconsistent playcalling has helped bury this team and any chance they had of turning things around.
To start out a game that results in an opening-drive TD catch by DeAndre Hopkins means that he was regularly featured for the rest of the game, right? Right?
Wrong.
After catching two passes to start the contest, Hopkins only earned three more targets and two more receptions for the remainder of the game. You cannot expect to win a game when you can’t even gameplan your star wideout back into the passing game, even if players like Rondale Moore and Zach Ertz become more incorporated.
Kingsbury will likely survive the rest of the regular season, but barring a late-season miracle by this Cardinals team, this should be it for the Kingsbury experiment as Arizona’s head coach.
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