Cardinals plan to keep working, get out of slump after loss to Rams

By way of a 17-13 loss to the Rams on Sunday, the Cardinals find themselves with a 1-3 record and tied for last place in the NFC West.

BY ADAM GREEN

Oct 2, 2016, 6:59 PM Updated: Oct 3, 2016, 11:24 am

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Los Angeles Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson (22) intercepts a pass intended for Arizona Cardinals wide receiver John Brown after an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz. The Rams won 17-13. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

(AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — By way of a 17-13 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals find themselves with a 1-3 record and tied for last place in the NFC West.

Given that three of their first four games were played at University of Phoenix Stadium, their standing comes as quite a surprise.

“We know we had great expectations coming into the season,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said, describing the mood in the locker room one of anger. “We have a talented roster, both sides of the ball and 1-3 is not what we all envisioned.”

The team’s next game is coming Thursday night. Because of that, the Cardinals do not have much time to wallow in their latest defeat or dwell on what went wrong, Mathieu said.

After all, that could take a while.

The Cardinals turned the ball over five times, scored touchdowns on just one of three trips inside the red zone and had costly penalties at the most inopportune times.

For much of the afternoon, it seemed as though the Cardinals were on the verge of breaking out, yet every time they took a couple steps forward, they seemed to then take one or two back.

“Those are self-inflicted,” head coach Bruce Arians said. “Those were the things that were disappointing because we were playing so hard. But those things added up.”

In the first quarter, a promising drive that reached the Rams’ 32-yard line ended with a punt after a sack took the Cardinals out of field goal range. That drive was followed by an L.A. touchdown that would not have happened had Patrick Peterson not been flagged for a defensive hold when it looked like the defense got a stop.

In the second quarter, a holding call on Jermaine Gresham nullified a Chris Johnson run that was either a touchdown or set to be placed inside the 1-yard line, and a few plays later the Cardinals settled for a field goal.

There was also an interception in the end zone where Palmer threw a jump ball to John Brown in the second quarter, a Palmer fumble in the third quarter with Arizona on the L.A. 26 and a wasted opportunity when the Cardinals settled for a field goal after having first-and-goal from the Rams four.

And on their first drive of the fourth quarter, holding a three-point lead, the Cardinals reached the L.A. 42 before David Johnson coughed the ball up.

As safety Tony Jefferson put it, it was “just Cardinals beating Cardinals for the most part.”

Which mistake was the killer? Pick whichever one you’d like and no one would argue.

“They happen,” Arians said of self-inflicted wounds, before adding he would like to get another look at the Gresham holding penalty. “I can’t think of a whole lot of them, other than D.J. (Humphries) jumping offsides down there one time, but he’s playing his tail off.

“Turnovers will happen at times, but these were costly ones.”

The magic the Cardinals had the last couple years, with a knack for coming up with the big play at the right time, has not been there in 2016. People will say the difference between winning and losing is usually just a handful of plays, and thus far, they have not gone the Cardinals’ way.

“We’ve won a lot of close games, and we have not won them this year,” Arians conceded. “We made a living winning close games for a long time, and this year, right now, we are not making the plays to win them, and that is the difference in the season.”

Bad luck? Maybe, though most will say a team creates its own good luck. Arians said the way to pull out of a stretch like this is to come to work with the right frame of mind, and after talking with every player in the locker room, he is confident they will do just that.

“We just keep working, we just keep working,” receiver Larry Fitzgerald said. “The formula, the way we’ve done it here, it works, we understand that. We’ve just got to play better when the lights come on, it’s as simple as that.

“We have not played up to par. Preparation has been good, things like that have been done well. We’re just not playing up to par on Sundays.”

To say the Cardinals expected to be in this position would be inaccurate, though that does not change the fact that they are. There are 12 games remaining and they would not be the first team to rebound following a rough start, though at some point they need to provide reason to believe they can.

The 2015 season has never seemed so distant.

“Last year was last year,” Mathieu said. “We have different guys in this locker room. As a leader, we just have to continue to challenge ourselves individually and then challenge the people next to us, and I think that’s all we can really do. Still a long season ahead of us.”

The safety added there were some positives in Sunday’s loss but said at the end of the day the Cardinals have to get better. For a team that entered the year with Super Bowl expectations, there is no other choice.

“Absolutely,” Fitzgerald answered when asked if the team is confident things will change. “There is nobody in here saying the season is over. That is not going to be our mentality, ever. That will never be said in this locker room.

“We are going to continue to play.”

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