Arizona Cardinals need to run the football to get back in win column
Dec 4, 2014, 4:03 PM | Updated: 4:03 pm
If you follow the Arizona Cardinals, you may think the sky is falling.
The team has lost two games in a row. In Week 12, the Cardinals’ offense struggled to get anything going in a 19-3 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Last week, it was a full team breakdown in a 29-18 defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Falcons.
The rule of thumb in the NFL is quarterbacks get too much credit when teams win and too much blame in a loss.
That’s certainly been the case with Arizona signal caller Drew Stanton in 2014.
Stanton has been admittedly up and down in his two stints as Arizona’s starter this year. Since the Cardinals have dropped two straight, much of the criticism gets pushed toward Stanton.
But any quarterback needs help. The help Stanton needs is from the running game, which has been non-existent for the Cardinals this season.
Yes, things would be so much easier for the Cardinals if they could just run the football.
In Stanton’s first three starts of the year, the running game certainly wasn’t prolific. It was simply good enough. In the last three games, it’s been absent.
Cardinals’ running game with Stanton (RB numbers only)
| ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stanton’s first three starts (NYG, SF, Den) | 54 | 228 | 4.2 | 2 |
| Stanton’s last three starts (Det, Sea, Atl) | 48 | 119 | 2.5 | 0 |
Is it a running back problem? The Cardinals have four running backs who have 10 or more carries this season. None of them are averaging more than 3.3 yards per attempt.
“Our running back position itself is fine,” head coach Bruce Arians told Bickley and Marotta this week on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. “Andre (Ellington) and Marion (Grice) and Stepfan (Taylor) have struggled because of everybody in front of them.”
You might look at the rush defense statistics of Sunday’s opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs and believe that the Cardinals will have a great opportunity to right the ship on the ground.
The Chiefs rank 30th in the league against the run, yielding an average of 136.4 yards per game and a whopping 4.9 yards per attempt — the worst mark in the league.
They’ve also allowed five different 100-yard rushers this season, including one in three straight games.
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Ellington, the team’s leading rusher, has not practiced this week and starting offensive linemen Jared Veldheer and Paul Fanaika are battling ankle injuries and aren’t sure bets to go Sunday.
There is some good news, though. Veteran back Michael Bush, who was signed two weeks ago could get some action for the Cardinals this weekend. The 6-foot-2, 243-pound Bush has run for 3,250 yards and 29 touchdowns on 809 carries (4.0 average) in his six-year career.
“Fresh legs, man,” Bush said this week. “I’m just glad I can be here to help.”
How bad has it been for the Cardinals? Here are some not-so-great facts about Arizona’s ground game.
• Arizona is one of only five teams that haven’t had a runner gain 100 or more yards in a game this season. Buffalo, Detroit, Indianapolis and Tennessee are the others.
• The Cardinals are dead last in yards per carry in the NFL, at 3.1 yards per pop.
• Only 34 percent of the Cardinals’ first downs have come via the run. They rank 31st in the NFL in rushing first downs per game.
• The Cardinals have only 22 rushing plays that have covered 10 or more yards this season. That is the third-worst total in the league. Last season, Arizona ranked 11th in the league 20th in the league in that category with 42 such runs.
• Arizona’s longest run from scrimmage this season is 22 yards (Andre Ellington – Week 2 vs. New York Giants). It’s the shortest long run of any team this season.
• Four of the Cardinals’ runs of 10 yards or more have been on scrambles by quarterbacks.
• Ellington has only four runs of 20 or more yards this season. He had eight last season in only 118 carries, which was tied for third-most in the league.
• Ellington has gone 61 carries without having a run of 20 or more yards and 32 carries without a run of 10 yards or more.
• Arizona ranks 30th in the league by having 11.7 percent (34-of-291) of their rushing attempts stopped for no gain or a loss. That figure was 9.2 percent last season (15th in the NFL).
• In six of 12 games this year, Ellington’s first carry of the game has gone for no gain or a loss.
• Ellington’s 5-yard touchdown run against Denver in Week 5 is the longest scoring run for the Cardinals this year.
