Cardinals' defense outshines offense in loss

The Arizona Cardinals fell to 1-2 after a grueling loss to the Detroit Lions at State Farm Stadium on Sunday.

Kyler Murray and the Cardinals offense started fast, scoring on their first possession for the third consecutive week, the longest such streak in team history to begin a season.

But while the defense stepped up in the second half, the offense could muster only three points in the final 30 minutes.

Arizona Sports hosts and reporters gave their biggest takeaways from the Cardinals’ loss:

Our reactions to Cardinals falling flat against the Lions in Week 2:

Vince Marotta, co-host of Bickley & Marotta Mornings: The Cardinals basically got a 60-minute look at what they aspire to be in a 20-13 loss to the Detroit Lions.

The visitors in Honolulu blue and silver were the more physical, aggressive team on both offense and defense. Detroit pounded the running game with David Montgomery (who was the best player on the field Sunday) and Jahmyr Gibbs, who combined for 189 yards on 39 carries.

The Detroit defense absolutely stifled the Arizona run game, holding James Conner to just 17 yards on nine carries. None of the three Cardinals running backs who got carries had a run longer than seven yards.

That forced the Arizona offense to become one-dimensional and throw more in the second half. Unfortunately the cool, comfortable and dynamic Kyler Murray we saw last Sunday against the Rams wasn’t present. Murray completed 21-of-34 passes for 207 yards and a touchdown, but he also threw his first interception of the season on an ill-advised deep shot to a well-covered Marvin Harrison Jr. Too many of Murray’s throws looked more like desperation heaves, and he didn’t connect on anything down the field.

The Lions left the door wide open for the Cardinals to walk throw, but they couldn’t. Kudos to the defense, who pitched a second-half shutout, but this all just added up to another frustrating loss. That’s two of those this season by my count.

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo: 32. The number of the day is 32. It’s the number of rushing yards accounted for by Cardinals running backs James Conner, Emari Demercado and Trey Benson. Kyler Murry thinks they’re versatile enough to win a game when that happens. I believe the Cardinals are capable of many things this year; beating a team as good as the Lions when their rushing attack is snuffed out like that is not one of them.

Kyler Murray — forced to throw and often forced to throw quickly — attempted more deep shots than expected with less-than-stellar results. The lack of a running game gummed everything up. A physical Lions team and playing behind a fourth right tackle in three games certainly accelerated the problem.

Because of this, the head coach and star quarterback weren’t ready to completely denounce the day. Jonathan Gannon thought his team matched the physicality of the Lions throughout the game and later told Paul Calvisi that he was enthused by the effort, the violence and the finish. Murray more than once praised the Lions as a good team and was even asked the dreaded “moral victory” question without completely dismissing it. Truthfully, the Lions were likely one of the three best teams they’ll play this year; a win here was always going to be a tough ask. The next time it happens, if the Cardinals are able to lean into their strength a little bit more, the victory won’t just be a moral one.

John Gambadoro, co-host of Burns & Gambo: I get there are no moral victories, but damn the defensive performance in the second half of this one gives me reason to believe this team is getting closer.

That Lions team is a beast with some of the most dynamic weapons in the game today — Amon-Ra St. Brown, David Montgomery, Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta — and Arizona held them scoreless in the second half, and to a total of 20 points. Detroit had the ball seven times in the second half and could not put points on the board. Arizona forced four punts, had an interception, a big fourth-and-one stop by Dante Stills on Montgomery and the Lions ran the clock out on the final possession. That is a pretty damn good defensive performance.

The defense gave the offense every opportunity to win this game, but they could not do it. After having a perfect passer rating last week, Kyler Murray had a very subpar performance at home in this one. He threw for just 207 yards on 21-of-34 passing. He missed receivers with underthrown passes, overthrown passes and never really got into a rhythm. He had one touchdown pass and one interception. In the second half, Arizona’s possessions went: end zone interception, punt, turnover on downs, punt, turnover on downs, punt, field goal. So seven possessions resulted in three points with three punts.

Can’t say Arizona didn’t have their chances, but we can be encouraged by the defense and how they kept this team in the game. Arizona is now 0-2 in games decided by one score or less. They will be a contending playoff team when they start winning more of those games than they lose.

Kellan Olson, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: The Arizona Cardinals are going to learn there are levels to this. There is a lot to like about not just the long-term outlook but even the short term as well. With that said, they are not sneaking up on anyone anymore. All those big wins against marquee competition last year were at the same time meaningful and also occurred in a totally different context compared to this year.

Games like Sunday will come down to just a few plays, as it is in any sport with two good teams facing off. The two-minute warning fiasco, Kyler Murray’s underthrow on his interception, the overturned successful fourth-down conversion and Murray’s missed throw high to Marvin Harrison Jr. on third down come to mind. To be fair, and the reason to be optimistic coming out of this loss, is that Arizona had its own plays like this too. Dennis Gardeck’s interception and its own fourth-down stop to answer the previous stop was big-time stuff from the defense.

Two teams mirroring identities in a lot of ways ultimately was swung by the other having the experience edge. Detroit started the game with a 13 personnel package that set the tone for who was going to be the more physical squad winning the game up front, where we all knew this one would be determined.

James Conner had one carry for at least five yards while the Lions’ two-headed monster in the backfield had FOURTEEN. Arizona’s passing attack is built off establishing the run. 50% of the Cardinals’ pass attempts in Week 2 were off play action. Can’t get to step two without step one. And that means Murray has to be pretty darn good to overcome that. He was not.

The other bright light here was the defense, especially the secondary against its first real test of talented skill players. While Sam LaPorta did deal with injuries, this was not an unstoppable day for Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Jameson Williams had just one catch. And as a total unit, Detroit should have put this game away at some point around late in the third quarter because of the Cardinals’ ineptitude offensively, but the defense gave them more than enough chances to make it a game again.

It was just a really good football team that played solid enough to win on the road. Nothing hurt. Take care of business against the Commanders, and a 2-2 start is more than OK.

Mitch Vareldzis, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: The magic of the win over the Rams appears to have disappeared. It’s difficult to replicate the success of a 40+ point performance, or a 30+ point performance for that matter. The Saints made an example of that today. There were things I liked, though they didn’t lead to a win.

Kyler Murray looked patient in the pocket and went through his progressions before deciding to scramble and bail. The defense held firm after back-to-back touchdown drives for the Lions. And if not for a bizarre ruling by the referees, they would have had multiple takeaways and a score.

What I did not like, however, was that the running game was limited to “Murray Magic,” which is not a winning formula. James Conner was doing so poorly they tried to lead a drive with Trey Benson to some moderate success before switching to a full pass attack.

That’s two or three games now where the running game was subpar. To use a Wolf-ism, “One is a point, two is a trend, three is a pattern.” I anticipate a bounce-back next week against the Commanders, whose defense is one of the worst in the league, especially with them on a short week. Plus, it’s an opportunity to exploit the Kliff Kingsbury offense for what it is and further defend the decision to fire him one year into a five-year contract extension.

So if you take any consolation from today’s loss, the Cardinals didn’t embarrass themselves, and the black helmets continue to look beautiful.

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