Cardinals’ run game leaves much to be desired
Sep 11, 2012, 2:12 PM | Updated: 3:14 pm
There was a lot of excitement heading into 2012 about the Arizona Cardinals’ run game and the combination of running backs Beanie Wells and Ryan Williams. But the ground game output against the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s season opener left much to be desired.
Arizona had just 20 rushing attempts for a total of 43 yards and their leading rusher ended up being wide receiver Andre Roberts. Head coach Ken Whisenhunt addressed this issue during his Monday press conference.
“For us we’ve got to run the ball better than we did (Sunday). That’s what our focus has got to be.”
Whisenhunt also emphasized that Seattle was specifically playing them to stop the run.
“When you’re going against an eight-man front, there’s going to be some runs where you get one or two yards, then there’s gonna be some where you actually break through, increase them and get a couple others. We didn’t take advantage of our opportunities on those runs.”
He pointed to an example of Wells going for nine yards on a single play but clearly that’s not enough to be satisfied with the ground game. Whisenhunt made it clear that the running backs did what they could with what they had.
“It wasn’t as much the running backs as it was one or two guys breaking down, not finishing a block the right way. It’s a tight margin when you got eight guys up there playing it and there a good defense, they have good guys up front.”
The running backs ended up splitting the carries nearly right down the middle with Wells rushing for 14 yards on seven carries and Williams recorded nine yards on eight carries.
Whisenhunt said the plan was to go 50-50 with the running backs but he was hoping for more yards and more carries.
“We went into the game with the idea that we were going to have a rotation going and we were going to stick with that. We didn’t get enough runs and we weren’t successful enough running it so it really didn’t matter what the rotation was or what the plan was yesterday (Sunday).”
Arizona has less than a week to shore up their run game. Next up for the Cardinals is the New England Patriots on Sunday.
