Rapid reactions: Demonstrative win over Bears showed Cardinals on right track

The Cardinals’ 29-9 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday at State Farm Stadium signaled a lot about the direction Arizona is headed.

It kept the Cardinals in the drivers’ seat for the NFC West, and it also was another instance of Arizona playing much more mistake-free than its opponents.

Arizona has also shown an ability to win different ways. On Sunday, the passing game wasn’t working as well, so the Cardinals just scored three touchdowns — from three different rushers — on the ground instead.

Plus, Chad Ryland kept his hot streak going with field goals knocked through from 55 and 29 yards before the defense got on the board with a safety.

So what did our Arizona Sports show hosts and writers think about the performance?

Our reactions to Cardinals’ win over Bears:

Vince Marotta, co-host of Bickley & Marotta Mornings: Sunday offered a rare, almost nitpick-free win by the Cardinals as they took apart the Chicago Bears 29-9.

This win was all about defense and running the football.

Defensively, the Cardinals made life miserable on rookie QB Caleb Williams, sacking him six times — tying the most in a single game in the Jonathan Gannon era. Arizona’s young cornerbacks (Starling Thomas, Max Melton, Garrett Williams) held a very formidable Chicago receiving corps in check. Yes, Rome Odunze had a 44-yard catch in the first half on a busted coverage, but nothing else came easy. The Cardinals’ defensive plan took Bears tight end Cole Kmet completely out of the game. Kmet wasn’t targeted once.

The Cardinals’ running game was punishing all day long. James Conner was his beastly self, gaining 107 yards on 18 carries. Emari Demercado’s 53-yard touchdown run in the late stages of the second quarter was the biggest single play of the game. Trey Benson showed some flash and hey, Drew Petzing even threw in a wrinkle to get tight end Trey McBride a rushing touchdown — the first time a Cardinals TE has had a running score since Hall of Famer Jackie Smith in 1968.

Kyler Murray was fine as a game manager, because that’s what Sunday called for. He didn’t do anything spectacular. He didn’t have to. But he was the better of the two quarterbacks on the day.

Here’s the nitpicky stuff. First, it was another tough day for Marvin Harrison Jr., who had a fumble after making one of his two catches on the day.

And in a 7-6 game in the second quarter, the Cardinals ran the football right down the throats of the Bears and then Drew Petzing tried to dial up the red zone passing game. The drive stalled and ended in a Chad Ryland field goal. Of course, that was taken off the board when Chicago’s Gervon Dexter was called for leverage. Trey Benson later punched it in from a yard to make it 14-7.

But the Cardinals won by 20. They’ve won three in a row, they’re above .500 and they’ve kept two of their last three opponents out of the end zone.

The Cardinals are sitting on top of the less-than-rugged NFC West, but on Sunday, they played like a first-place team.

Luke Lapinski, co-host of Wolf & Luke: Those wins over teams like the 49ers and Rams don’t mean quite as much if you don’t follow them up with wins over the teams you should beat. The Cardinals are finally checking both boxes now.

That’s not to say the Bears are a bad team. They’re not. But there’s clearly something going on with them right now. Maybe there’s a rift after the way their gut-wrenching loss to Washington played out last week, maybe they just really miss Montez Sweat and Jaquan Brisker or maybe it’s something else entirely. Either way, it’s not Arizona’s problem.

The Cardinals did what they were supposed to do. They jumped on Chicago in the first half and never let them back in this game. Honestly the second half was probably pretty anticlimactic for anyone watching that wasn’t a Cardinals fan. Again though, that’s not Arizona’s problem.

And they did it without Kyler Murray throwing a single touchdown. Or Marvin Harrison Jr. doing much of anything. Kyler still had his fingerprints all over the win, but Marv’s going to be battling the inconsistency label for another week. The running game stepped in and took the reins on offense though. And the defense was borderline dominant, racking up nearly as many sacks (six) as total points allowed (nine).

That’s complimentary football at its finest, and suddenly the Cardinals are above .500 for the first time in three years. They’re also on their first three-game winning streak in three years. And now they’re all alone atop the NFC West, with their four losses coming against some of the best teams in the entire NFL. Those teams have a combined record of 27-8 to be exact.

About midway through the first quarter, the realization hit me that the Cardinals, Sun Devils and Suns all went into their games this weekend with a pretty distinct advantage in the coaching department. I could get used to this. I’m guessing the rest of the Valley could too.

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo: The Cardinals are in the middle of a potentially season-defining stretch in Year 2 under Jonathan Gannon.

Two winnable games at home against teams that look like imposters. A looming bye week. An impending trade deadline. Two key players potentially returning from injury. Successfully navigate these next two weeks or so and you set yourself up for the most compelling two months of football we’ve had in three years.

So far so good.

In the end, the Cardinals took all those Bears fans and thinned them out like they were planting a winter lawn. When it was all over, in front of a bunch of empty seats, the Cardinals battered the Bears and exposed them as frauds. In the process they likely put the Bears’ coach on the hottest of seats. And they did it in a manner that showed off their offensive versatility. Last week the run game was stifled so Kyler Murray and his receivers went to work. This week the Cards used just about every running back on the roster to pound through and fly by every Bears defender on the field. The receivers were almost an afterthought; Trey McBride’s first touchdown on the season came as a running back. But the other half of the story is perhaps more important.

The Cardinals defense, unable to get to the quarterback for most of the season, re-wrote their own script and made life hell on Caleb Williams. Did it provide a moment of clarity for Monti Ossenfort? Maybe he feels like he doesn’t need to make a move, but the hope here is that this week bought him a little more time and a little less desperation on Tuesday. This team is better than most thought and an upgrade has been earned.

John Gambadoro, co-host of Burns & Gambo: This game was over when the Cardinals took over on their own 30-yard line with 26 seconds left in the half while nursing a 14-9 lead.

In the matter of 22 seconds the Cardinals demoralized the Bears team and all of its fans in attendance by going 70 yards in 4 plays capped by a tremendous 53-yard touchdown run by Emari Demercado that put Arizona ahead 21-9 and for all intent and purposes took the life out of the visiting team.

The play, to me, was just a notch below the devastating Hail Mary Chicago lost on last week to the Commanders. Chicago had just kicked a field goal to close within 14-9 and they were getting the ball back to start the second half. But instead of going into halftime with some momentum they were completely deflated.

They were down two scores and it was only a matter of time before the Cardinals put this thing on ice, and it didn’t take long as the Bears went three-and-out to open the second half and Arizona went 13 plays to get a field goal to go up 24-9. The Bears then turned it over on downs and Arizona got another field goal to go up 27-9.

Arizona didn’t play a great game offensively (Murray had no touchdown passes, just 154 passing yards) but they didn’t have to. Chicago was a mess missing many key players on both sides of the ball. But they had no real fight and once Arizona punched them in the mouth with the Demercado score they couldn’t respond.

James Conner was in typical beast mode with over 100 yards rushing and the Cardinals defense sacked Caleb Williams behind a makeshift offensive line 6 times!

Kellan Olson, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: We are so used to watching the Cardinals do what the Bears did in this game that it took this elongated glance at the other side to realize this is no longer like looking in a mirror. The Cardinals are undoubtedly flawed, and I’ve made the case there is plenty of good fortune mixed into three of their four wins coming into this weekend. But for all the inconsistencies at this point, they’ve got a handful of positive attributes that keep helping them win football games.

The defense is going to give up chunks of yards at a time and make glaring mistakes. It also has an uncanny quality now to stick by the old football adage of “bend don’t break.” Continuously doing that in close games despite an extreme lack of talent is impressive and credit is deserved for both the coaches and players. Nick Rallis dialed up the blitzes in this one and it worked to perfection.

While we still haven’t witnessed an offensive performance that is both the passing and running game firing on all cylinders at the same time, one of those two elements has been at a high level in all of these wins. It was the ground game on Sunday and we go into these contests knowing the upside for either part of the offense to explode.

Chicago was awful in this game. Caleb Williams badly missed on a handful of throws that looked like him going for the perfect one, and he couldn’t handle the blitz again. His offensive line is either brilliant or horrid on a possession-to-possession basis. Back-breaking errors like the penalties on 3rd and 4th down, the Emari Demercado TD or drop on a can of corn by Keenan Allen were all on brand.

But the Cardinals were not making those. Marvin Harrison Jr.’s fumble was the only blemish. The defense avoided penalties to give the Bears additional opportunities. Kyler Murray hardly had to anything at all. And with how light the rest of this schedule is, if Arizona can replicate this, it will be in the playoffs.

Mitch Vareldzis, co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: Kellan Olson and I have a recurring segment on our show called “The Chain.” It essentially creates a path to victory by linking together three important aspects.

To get a win against the Bears it required three things: (1) Contain D’Andre Swift, (2) pressure Caleb Williams and (3) whatever works for you offensively, keep doing it. The Cardinals successfully completed the chain in the first half!

Swift was a non-factor for most of the game, Williams was harassed on several occasions in the backfield and more importantly, the Cardinals ABUSED the Bears with their rushing attack.

It’s not often that three separate ball carriers find the end zone, but Trey McBride (!!), Trey Benson and Emari Demercado did just that as part of a beatdown at State Farm Stadium.

I still had minor gripes, like the defense struggling to get off the field on third and long and Kyler Murray missing a wide open Trey McBride on a beautifully designed jumbo goal line play, but they won the game anyway because they played a complete game.

So, here’s what needs to get done now… Monti Ossenfort needs to pick up the phone and acquire some help for his dark horse division winner.

I will be fine with one defensive line addition and overjoyed with two defensive upgrades, but I will be unforgiving if the deadline passes Tuesday and the Cardinals fail to add anyone to this now 5-4 team that leads the division.

I apologize if I am not seeing their bigger picture, but what I see is a team with a chance to accelerate its rebuild right now and be better off for it next year as well. There is TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS OF CAP SPACE available for the rest of this season. Use it or lose it.

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