The Arizona Cardinals picked up a critical win on Sunday in Week 15, a 33-26 of the Philadelphia Eagles. They had big contributions from a number of players.
Quarterback Kyler Murray threw for a career-high 406 yards, had three touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown. DeAndre Hopkins caught nine passes for 169 yards and a score. Defensive lineman Zach Allen had 11 tackles, a sack and a pass breakup. Ezekiel Turner blocked a punt and caught a 26-yard pass on fourth down on a fake punt, perfectly thrown by punter Andy Lee.
But according to Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar, the Cardinals also had some of the secret superstars of Week 15. It wasn’t just one player. It was a trio of players — outside linebackers Haason Reddick, Markus Golden and Dennis Gardeck.
One week after Cardinals edge-rusher Haason Reddick had five sacks against the Giants, Arizona went after the opposing quarterback again at a very high rate, and it wasn’t just Reddick. Against Jalen Hurts and the Eagles, Reddick had a sack, a quarterback hit, and eight quarterback hurries. Dennis Gardeck had two sacks and three quarterback hurries, and Markus Golden had a quarterback hit and two quarterback hurries. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph wants his rushers to attack with speed and aggressiveness, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. In a 33-26 win over the Eagles, the Cardinals forced Hurts to throw under pressure on 22 of his 55 dropbacks with six total sacks.
An impressive performance from a group capable of making any quarterback’s life pretty miserable at this point. The Cardinals are doing a lot with front diversity and protection confusion, and this is often the result.
“It is a challenge,” Eagles head coach Doug Pederson said last week of those pressure packages. “It’s a unique defensive call by them. They put all linebackers on the field with their defensive back guys and it’s all speed rush. They don’t bring them all every time. They drop guys out. They present eight-man pressure looks, seven-man pressure looks, and six-man pressure looks.
“It can be a little bit challenging, and it is challenging to try to decipher the code, but we do the best we can. We go in with the protection plan we have and execute it and try to eliminate as much confusion as possible.”
Hurts played very well, but it was a problem on Sunday.
The play of these three has been huge the last two weeks. Reddick is on a tear after a five-week lull of no sacks. Getting back some defensive linemen healthy has clearly made a difference for him. He has had six sacks and five forced fumbles in the last two games. Gardeck has seven sacks in only 93 defensive snaps this season.
While the Cardinals obviously miss Chandler Jones, they have picked up the slack in the pass-rushing department in his absence. Arizona is only two sacks off of the league lead with 43 sacks. They have had 14 in the last two games.
The Cardinals might need to win their final two games to get into the postseason. If they are going to do that, then their trio of edge rushers will have to continue to play at a high level.
[vertical-gallery id=447418]
Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
Latest show:
Previous shows:
and