Feely: Blame what you want, Cardinals players need to make plays

Questionable play calling and a couple of missed field goals clouded what CBS football analyst and former Cardinal kicker Jay Feely saw as the demise of the Arizona Cardinals against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.

“Whether you blame coaches or schemes, offensive coordinators for not being creative, whatever, at the end of the day the players on the field have to go out there and make plays,” Feely said on the Doug & Wolf show on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station. “Catch balls, make the tackles, get a turnover, make a field goal; that’s really, at the end of the day, what needs to happen.”

To pull out of the 0-4 funk that the Cardinals have stumbled into in head coach Steve Wilks’ first year at the helm, Feely believes the whole collective team needs to play better.

“You have to be disciplined and you have to play assignment sound football,” Feely said.

“Guys have to make plays.”

One guy that made plays was quarterback Josh Rosen. He finished the game with 180 yards passing and a touchdown on 15-for-27 pass attempts with no interceptions.

“His teammates let him down, he didn’t let that team down in any way,” Feely said.

One player Feely expected more from was kicker Phil Dawson. The 43-year-old veteran made his first field goal attempt of the season, a 23 yarder. He then missed a 50-yard attempt as time expired at halftime, and a 45-yard attempt that would have given the Cardinals a lead with less than two minutes left in the game.

“The yardage doesn’t matter. Whether you have a 35-yarder or a 45-yarder, that makes no difference to a kicker in the NFL, especially to a guy that is 43 years old,” Feely said.

“The reason you go get a veteran kicker and pay him a lot of money is to make that kick right there. You have to come in and make that kick indoors where you don’t have any elements and he just didn’t do it.”

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