Cardinals continue to find historic ways to lose in 2025

GLENDALE — The Jacksonville Jaguars’ calling card this season has centered around taking the ball from the other team.

But in Week 12, it was the Arizona Cardinals breaking out the turnover buffs early and often.

Too bad the end result looked much like Arizona’s season up to this point: A loss.

Despite racking up four turnovers across four quarters of work to the Jaguars’ zero, the Cardinals still couldn’t find a way to snap their losing streak on Sunday, falling 27-24 in overtime to Jacksonville.

After a historic five-game stretch of one-score losses, Arizona is once again on the wrong side of history in 2025.

Since 2021, teams were 50-0 when posting a +4 turnover margin before Sunday’s debacle. Arizona is to blame for the only stain on the record.

Only twice did the Cardinals see points from those four turnovers, too. Walter Nolen III did most of the work on his fumble recovery for a touchdown. And Budda Baker’s interception resulted in a Greg Dortch TD. Outside of that, nada.

With Sunday’s showing, the Cardinals are now 3-8 on the season and barreling even faster toward a top 10 pick and offseason changes. So much for those playoff aspirations in Year 3.

Among the biggest issues on Sunday was the inability to keep quarterback Jacoby Brissett upright behind six sacks and 15 QB hits.

Penalties were again an issue, too, with the Cardinals committing seven for 53 yards on Sunday.

But even with the issues along the offensive line and the extra laundry, Arizona still had chances to win the game.

Ultimately, it comes down to the decisions from the sideline.

Cardinals’ questionable playcalling down the stretch

Given one last shot to find the end zone to potentially end the game in regulation, the Cardinals were in prime territory after a massive catch by wide receiver Michael Wilson, who continues to look the part of WR1 in place of Marvin Harrison Jr.

With Wilson going down at Jacksonville’s 11-yard line with 28 seconds left to play — albeit after spinning the football in celebration — spiking the football could have given Arizona at least one more shot at finding the end zone.

Instead, the Cardinals went for the kill shot with the clock still running, and Brissett and Wilson were unable to link up.

Just like that, only six seconds remained, leaving a 29-yard field goal as the only realistic option to force overtime.

Sure, the move kept the Jaguars from changing personnel, but it also chewed up valuable clock and left the Cardinals starved for time because of it.

“At that point, we’re outside of the yard range where I feel comfortable getting a play off to the end zone because you’re out of timeouts. It can’t be in bounds, so you take a one-on-one shot,” Gannon said postgame.

“Typically, we would do that with six seconds but you’re cutting it tight. If it was a little closer where the ball can get up and down a little bit quicker, yes. At that point, I wanted to go to overtime.”

Then came the end of overtime for the Cardinals.

Needing to convert on fourth-and-4 to keep the game alive, Brissett took to the air for the 49th and final time in Sunday’s loss.

Instead of finding Wilson or tight end Trey McBride, two players who made up 197 of Brissett’s 317 passing yards on a combined 19 catches, it was wide receiver Xavier Weaver getting the last look of the night.

What a play by Andrew Wingard to win it pic.twitter.com/vJ2zTwoMbM

— NFL (@NFL) November 24, 2025

Originally getting a one-on-one look against cornerback Christian Braswell after the safety bit on McBride on the underneath route, Brissett uncorked it for the young wideout.

But as the ball was in the air, Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard came flying in from the backside for double coverage. That favorable one-on-one matchup suddenly morphed into a dead-to-rights overmatch.

“They played double-double. So, he threw it to the one-on-one,” Gannon said. “Love the decision. Go win the game.”

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