If the Cardinals lose and the Rams win this weekend, L.A. will have clinched the NFC West title.
The Arizona Cardinals led the NFC West for basically the entire season until last week. After three straight losses and four Rams wins in a row, the Cardinals now trail by a game.
The Rams can actually clinch the division with a week left in the regular season.
They have two scenarios to clinch.
The Rams will win the NFC West if they beat the Baltimore Ravens this weekend and the Cardinals lose their game to the Dallas Cowboys or if the game ends in a tie.
The Rams also win if they tie with the Ravens and the Cardinals lose.
If the Rams lose and the Cardinals win, Arizona will actually retake the division lead. Both teams would be 11-5 but the Cardinals would hold the divisional tiebreak, leading to a season finale where the division is on the line.
The Cardinals have four players from the 53-man roster remaining on the COVID list heading into the weekend.
The Arizona Cardinals had five players get placed on the COVID list this week after testing positive for the virus. One of them is coming back.
The team announced that offensive lineman Sean Harlow was activated from the COVID list. That leaves four players still on it. He was placed on the list on Monday along with outside linebacker Markus Golden.
There is the chance that Golden could be activated and be able to play this week.
Harlow will help with the offensive line depth, although he doesn’t usually start unless there is an injury. The Cardinals will be down a starting offensive lineman because left tackle D.J. Humphries tested positive and was placed on the list on Thursday. He will not be able to play Sunday, meaning the team will have to shuffle things around on the offensive line. Center Rodney Hudson returned, so four of the five starters will be in the lineup.
Arizona’s four players remaining on the COVID list are Humphries, Golden, cornerback Breon Borders and linebacker Devon Kennard. Safety Javon Hagan is on the practice squad COVID list.
The Cardinals are down a pair of OLBs this week. DC Vance Joseph said Collins could have a role and that he has gotten work at OLB all year.
[jwplayer LkeHOXuZ-ThvAeFxT]
The Arizona Cardinals have lost two outside linebackers this week to the COVID list. Markus Golden is a starter and Devon Kennard is a rotational player. Both are important to the Arizona defense.
Their absence this weekend will change things. Chandler Jones will play, but they only have Dennis Gardeck and Victor Dimukeje at the position. Gardeck has only really played a specific role on defense in the Cardinals’ speed package with five linebackers on the field. Dimukeje is a rookie and has really only played on special teams.
This could give rookie Zaven Collins the opportunity to play.
Collins, an inside linebacker and the team’s top draft pick this year, has not played a single snap on defense in the last three games and has only three snaps in his last five games.
That could change. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said he could be used at outside linebacker.
“Zaven could have a role as an outside backer this week,” Joseph said Thursday. “We’ll see how the week goes. He’s worked there all year, so it won’t be a new role for him.”
Collins certainly has the size to play off the edge at 6-4 and 260 lbs. But we have not seen him yet in that role all season.
What is more likely is that Isaiah Simmons gets significant time at outside linebacker. If that is the case, then Collins could see time at inside linebacker at the “Mo” position where Simmons plays. It is also possible that Collins still rides the bench and Joe Walker plays in Simmons’ place inside.
“We’re going to continue to work him in at practice and develop him,” head coach Kliff Kingsbury said earlier in the week. “I expect that to happen at some point. He’s been studious, he’s worked at it, we just have some really good players in some of those positions.”
If Collins is going to get playing time, this week is as good an opportunity as any.
Check out the Cardinals’ second injury report of the week.
The Arizona Cardinals were back at practice on Thursday and released their second injury report of the week. There were several improvements, but they had five players still sit out of practice, including running back James Conner.
In all, five players did not practice, four were limited and two were upgraded to full participants.
Humphries is the fifth Cardinals player this week to be placed on the COVID list, leaving a void at left tackle.
The Arizona Cardinals will be without yet another starter this weekend when they face the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17. Left tackle D.J. Humphries became the fifth Cardinals player to be placed on the COVID list this week.
He was added to the list on Thursday. Even with new guidelines for return after testing positive for COVID-19, Humphries will be unable to get cleared before Sunday.
It will be his first game missed since 2018.
With Humphries out, the question is how they will shuffle the offensive line. They could move Kelvin Beachum from right tackle to left tackle, where he played his entire career before coming to Arizona. They could use Josh Jones, who played left tackle in college, or Josh Miles, who is the backup left tackle.
Humphries joins cornerback Briono Borders, offensive lineman Sean Harlow and outside linebackers Markus Golden and Devon Kennard on the COVID list.
The Cowboys use four different players — 2 QBs, a WR and a CB — to mimic Murray in their practices.
The Arizona Cardinals will face the Dallas Cowboys this weekend in Week 17. The Cowboys are a very talented team, but the Cardinals are, too. It can’t be easy for opponents to prepare for quarterback Kyler Murray.
In fact, the Cowboys don’t have a single player who can mimic what Murray is able to do.
So how do they prepare for him? According to ESPN’s Ed Werder, the Cowboys use four players in practice on their scout team to simulate Murray.
Kyler Murray is such a unique player that Mike McCarthy indicated the #Cowboys have used four different players to simulate the #Cardinals quarterback in practices: Ben DiNucci, Cooper Rush, CJ Goodwin and Cedric Wilson based on point of emphasis on the moment.
Chuck Harris takes a look at Kyler Murray’s stats in the first and second halves of the last two seasons.
In the midst of another December swoon, a lot of criticism has been heaped on Arizona Cardinals head coach, Kliff Kingsbury. And considering the track record of the teams he has coached, rightfully so.
It is well documented. Dating back to his time as the head coach of Texas Tech, Kingsbury’s teams have started strong but then faded down the stretch of a long football season.
But Kingsbury is not the only one deserving of scrutiny for his team’s second-half performances.
We saw this story play out last season. Star quarterback Kyler Murray, plays at an MVP-caliber level. He sustains an injury. Then, compared to how he played before the injury, he slumps.
This is not to say Kyler Murray has played horribly in the second half of seasons. He has not. But, he is nowhere near the MVP-caliber level he was playing at before. And, as his performance slides, so does that of his team. The data below was compiled from Pro Football Reference (PFR). Results were then averaged to compare Murray’s performances from 2020 and 2021. Averages were used for comparison purposes to account for the different number of games played in each season. Murray has only played 12 games in 2021 but played all 16 in 2020. Using an average would also provide a better per-game projection as well.
First, the basics. These are stats by which all quarterbacks are compared. The metrics are highlighted red for those categories below the first half output and green for those which surpass the first half.
In both 2020 and 2021, Murray’s lone green passing metric is interceptions per game. More on that later on.
The most important part of these metrics to point out is the quarterback rating. The rating is a measure of the performance of passers and has been used by the NFL since 1973 to determine its passing leader. A rating of 100 or better is considered to be good to great.
As the metric shows, Murray’s rating drops, on average, 10 or more points from the first half to the second half.
Here are the per-game ratings for Murray over the past two seasons.
In 2020, Murray recorded six games with a passer rating of 100 or better — Four games in the first half but only two in the second half. For 2021, Murray has recorded seven games with a rating higher than 100. Six came within the first half of the season. His lone second-half game over 100 was his first week back from injury, against Chicago.
PFR also provides Advanced Passing stats. Those stats dive a bit deeper into a player’s performance. Again, using averages for comparison purposes, these numbers show Murray drops off in the second half.
As previously mentioned, Murray’s interception average dropped in the second halves of both 2020 and 2021. Part of the argument here can be the lack of depth of his passes. Both of his intended yards per pass attempt and completed per pass attempt decrease. This can be an indication of fewer passes downfield. It shows there is a tendency for safer, check down-type of throws compared to those thrown in the first half. The metric also shows the protection provided by the offensive line. For 2021, his offensive line surrendered over one less sack and nearly half the number of pressures. This may be hard to believe when we see Murray scrambling more. In the first half this season, Murray scrambled a total of 14 times compared to 11 times in the four games since his return. Whether he simply does not trust his offensive line or he is protecting himself from further injury, what we are witnessing is Murray’s unwillingness to stay in the pocket as long as he did the first half of the season. His passes are not as sharp and he has missed open receivers. These are the same issues he had in the latter part of 2020.
And last, there is Pro Football Focus (PFF). A widely used system to grade and evaluate players. Although the grades are the subject of much debate, the sole purpose was to see if another source supported, or contradicted, the results from PFR.
PFF’s grading supports the metrics from PFR. Murray’s performance wanes in the latter half of the season.
Last season, ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss wrote an article that questioned whether the rest of the league had figured Murray out,written after the second half of the season. Much of it described how opponents were defending against Murray’s running ability. This season, it seems opponents have focused on his passing.
So, while Kliff Kingsbury is receiving the brunt of the criticism for the Cardinals’ recent slide, it can be argued that slide is due, in part, to not receiving the same level of performance from his two-time Pro Bowl quarterback.
The Cardinals will only go as far as Kyler Murray can take them. He is their savior, their cornerstone, and the linchpin of the entire offense. Starting Sunday, the hope is Murray can return to his pre-injured status and lead Arizona deep into the playoffs.
The Cardinals feel like they will be fine if they just stop hurting themselves in games.
The Arizona Cardinals have had their toughest stretch of the season. They have lost three games in a row and are 3-5 after a 7-0 start to the year.
They have clinched a playoff berth but lost their lead in the NFC West with two games remaining in the regular season.
Looking at social media and what Cardinals fans are saying and how they are reacting, one might think this was the 2018 season. Many are ready to fire everyone.
That, of course, is extreme, but there is certainly a panicked feeling among the fanbase after seeing 7-0 and Super Bowl aspirations turn into 10-5 and potentially seeing five straight losses to end the season and a sixth as they bumped from the playoffs in the wild card round.
However, the team is not panicking and they shouldn’t be.
The reality is they are a playoff team for the first time since 2015. They can still win the division and finish the regular season with as many as 12 wins, the second-most wins in a season in franchise history.
Quarterback Kyler Murray spoke about it on Wednesday.
“We’re 10-5, we’re in the playoffs, but the only thing that matters is this next game,” he said. “If you go back and look everybody has been through this. This is not something that teams that have won Super Bowls haven’t gone through. It’s the NFL.”
The rough patch has come because of mistakes mostly. They are getting penalized more than they have before. They are not scoring touchdowns in the red zone. The theme has consistently been that they are beating themselves.
“You lose when you don’t do things right,” he said. “If you make it hard on yourself, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, you’re going to get beat. When you’re playing well, and it feels like everything is going right for you, that’s just what happens.”
He isn’t worried and doesn’t think there is any real panic setting.
“Me personally, I’m not panicking. I don’t think anybody on this team is panicking,” he said, and noted they are far from the first team heading to the playoffs having suffered three straight losses. “Yes, we’ve lost three in a row. The Rams lost three in a row. Everybody was counting them out. It’s not a thing where it doesn’t happen. This is the NFL, it’s not easy.”
The Rams lost three in a row and figured things out. Now, they have won four in a row and suddenly look like they could roll all the way to the Super Bowl.
It starts this week against the Dallas Cowboys. They have to get back to not beating themselves.
“When you do things right and you don’t hurt yourself, you don’t beat yourself,” he said. “I like us in those situations if we just put our best foot forward and play clean football. If you play clean football, you have a chance at the end of the day.”
The Cardinals have won five of the last six games between the two teams. Here is a look back at those games.
The Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys have played each other 89 times in the regular season and once in the playoffs. The Cowboys have dominated the all-time series. They are 56-33-1 against the Cardinals all-time.
However, the Cardinals have won five of the last six matchups over the last 13 years.
Both teams have clinched a spot in the playoffs this year and face each other for the second straight year.
Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is 1-0 in his career against the Cowboys and has never lost a game he has played at AT&T Stadium.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is 1-0 against the Cardinals. He started in the Cowboys’ only win over the Cardinals since 2006.
The Cardinals have faced the Cowboys’ starting quarterback only three times in the last six matchups.
Let’s look back at the last six games between the two teams.
