Arizona Cardinals’ home frustrations boil over after close loss to Eagles

GLENDALE — So close, yet so far away.

The Arizona Cardinals were knocking on the door of their first home victory since Week 7 of last season in the team’s matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

Fighting back from down 14-0 at one point in the first half, Arizona put itself in a prime spot to best the last undefeated team in the NFL on its final drive of the afternoon. Or at the very least, kick a game-tying field goal and force overtime.

Instead, Arizona got neither, after a Matt Ammendola field goal missed wide right, sealing yet another consecutive loss 20-17 at home for the Cardinals.

The mood after the final whistle reflected as such, with offensive lineman Justin Pugh, tight end Zach Ertz, quarterback Kyler Murray and many others visibly upset with the game’s outcome.

“We’re not pleased at all,” Ertz said postgame. “We’re not happy. The mood is low, in particularly because we haven’t won at home in a while. I think we’re all frustrated. We’re here to get that solved and rectified and find a way to win a football game here in State Farm Stadium, but we just didn’t make enough plays obviously.”

While there were a handful of plays that could have changed the outcome of the afternoon — including the missed field goal at the end — two stick out when looking back at what transpired.

During the team’s final drive before halftime that resulted in an Ammendola field goal, when Murray and wide receiver Hollywood Brown had a real shot at razoring through the defense ahead of halftime.

After linking up for a 13-yard pass to move the chains, Murray went right back to Brown across the middle of the field. The wideout was all alone with nothing but green in front of him. But instead of turning the catch into points, Brown couldn’t come down with the football.

A potential three-point Cardinals lead ended up being a four-point Eagles lead at halftime.

The next play in question happened during the Cardinals’ final drive of the day.

Looking to convert on 2nd-and-8 on Arizona’s own 42-yard line and coming off a false start penalty, Murray turned Ertz’s way 27 yards down the field to get the offense back on track. But while the tight end had his man beat and then some, Murray was off the mark and instead sailed one over Ertz.

Now, the Cardinals managed to still move the chains on that final drive before Ammendola’s missed field goal attempt that would have forced overtime, but the what-if certainly looms large in what was a very winnable game against the best team in football record-wise.

But while the loss certainly stings with just how close the Cardinals (2-3) came to knocking off the last undefeated team, ending their home losing streak and securing a winning record for when wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins returns in Week 7, Murray and Co. can’t get caught looking at back at what could have been on Sunday.

“It’s one game. It hits everybody differently,” Murray said. “Am I taking it hard? Obviously. But at the end of the day, we have to keep pushing forward. Again, one game, we got a lot of season left, we got a great team, a great locker room.

“Confident in everybody in that locker room, we just got to get it together, put it together, because right now we’re not playing complementary football and that’s what it takes. Undefeated team, we lost by three points, could’ve easily won the game, but too many mistakes.”

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