Clean it up! The critical changes Cardinals must make for final stretch

Losers of two straight, the Arizona Cardinals are running out of time as they fight to retake their place atop the NFC West.

Every game, especially this week’s tilt against the division-leading Seattle Seahawks, counts that much more.

But for the Cardinals to be successful across these next five games, they’ve got to get back to the basics and focus on the little things.

Sitting at the top of the list? All that yellow laundry that’s been on the field the past couple of weeks.

Entering play this week, the Cardinals offense still sits atop the NFL in fewest penalties with 61. Defensively, Arizona ranks second with 58.

But take peek at these past two losses, and the Cardinals have looked anything but what the stats say.

After committing a total of 14 penalties for 117 yards across their four-game win streak — with two efforts of three flags or fewer — the Cardinals have watched those numbers balloon to 15 and 156 the last two weeks combined.

And scoring’s taking a hit, especially when it matters most, because of the sloppiness.

“Haven’t really played like that all year. I want to say uncharacteristic, but they’ll beat you if you play bad football in the red zone,” quarterback Kyler Murray said after his team’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings. “You get up against a good team and a good defense, and that kills you.”

“We shot ourselves in the foot. I don’t think we really ran any plays. … I feel like every time we got down there, besides the touchdown to (Marvin Harrison Jr.) … we had penalties.”

As penalties have racked up, Arizona’s red zone efficiency has fallen off a cliff.

After being nearly automatic in goal-to-go situations through the first 10 weeks of the season — 16-for-17 — the Cardinals have gone 0-for-3 in those scenarios since.

The ineffectiveness doesn’t stop there, with Arizona going 1-for-8 in the red zone the past two weeks.

“When you put yourself behind the sticks really anywhere on the field but certainly in a shorter area of the field, I think it makes it hard,” offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said Tuesday.

As for how the Cardinals can remedy their penalty and red-zone issues? It starts with nailing down the game plan and airtight communication.

“The less they’re thinking at the line of scrimmage, the more confident we can make them in what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, the less they have to think about those things and they can lock in on the snap count and getting off on the right cadence and things like that,” Petzing said Tuesday.

But wait, there’s more fixes for the Arizona Cardinals!

You know what else could help the Cardinals snap their recent downward trend? Getting a little more aggressive.

I’m not saying go for every fourth-and-short inside their opponents’ 40-yard line, but as seen last week, more chances could have been taken, specifically toward the end.

With Sunday’s game hanging in the balance and needing four yards to pay dirt, the Cardinals opted for a Chad Ryland field goal to make it a six-point advantage with 3:23 to play instead of going for the knockout punch.

Sure, it was touchdown-or-bust for the Vikings with the decision. But it also put a Minnesota offense that started figuring things out late in win-now mode.

Eight plays and 70 yards later, it was the Vikings celebrating a game-winning drive, not the Cardinals.

At worse, a failed fourth-down try would have backed Minnesota up on their own four-yard line. It likely also would have put the Vikings in field-goal mode as opposed to aggressively looking for the touchdown.

As for the last critical change that needs to take place across these next four weeks?

Finding Trey McBride in the end zone!

McBride is well on his way to a career year behind 73 catches (92 targets) for 781 yards, both tops on the team.

The stat line is an impressive one, but there’s one glaring — and quite frankly odd — goose egg.

Despite logging a pair of touchdowns in 2024, neither came through the air. One was off a fumble. The other a designed run.

That trend has got to change.

Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray agrees with the rest of us:

Tight end Trey McBride not having a receiving touchdown 12 games in is a “weird stat.”

“That’s definitely gotta happen soon.” pic.twitter.com/0ufiBDRqGw

— Tyler Drake (@Tdrake4sports) December 4, 2024

“That’s a weird stat, a weird stat, because he’s going crazy,” Murray said Wednesday. “I know we’ve had a couple opportunities, haven’t connected, but that’s definitely gotta happen soon.”

Follow @Tdrake4sports