September 24, 2025 • 47 mins
With the Cardinals' 16-15 last-second loss to the 49ers in Week 3, Jess and Seth react to the play on offense and defense, looking at both the good and the bad they saw, and they talk about the impact of the season-ending injury to James Conner.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Zo.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yes, this is the Rise Up Sea Red podcast all
about the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and
outsider perspectives. Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals Talk on
(00:23):
the Web. Now Here are your hosts, Jess Root.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And Seth Cox, Lover's Cardinals fans, and welcome to the
latest edition of the rest of Secret podcast, the bestar
Cardinals Talk on the Web. I'm your host, Jess Root
from Cardswire dot com us. Hey, today's NFL Wire side
the covers of course you're Arizona Cardinals and with me
for episode seven oh one. Joining me back again with
(00:48):
after our last show last week with Kyle Posey was
number seven hundred. Seth Cox from eSPI Enations Revenge of
the Birds the Espianation Aarzona Cardinals site and sadly, Seth,
we don't get to talk about a three and zero
Cardinals team. And isn't it feel like after two, you know,
(01:10):
non convincing wins over lesser teams that now with the
loss of the forty nine ers they suffered from sixteen
to fifteen. Last second lost to the forty nine ers
after Eddie Pinero had a thirty five yard field goal
as time expired to beat the Cardinals in Santa Clara.
Both teams banged up, Cardinals lost James Conn and a
(01:33):
number of things. But does it feel like the panic
button has been hit kind of early on this season?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah. I mean this is a situation where you kind
of saw the writing on the wall of like, they're
not gonna Like we asked the question last week, like
are they going to play the same way against top teams?
And the answer was apparently yes, and so you kind
(02:05):
of got the result that we expected, and so that's
you know, I don't think it's a panic button in
the sense of like, oh, they're doomed. I think it's
a panic button in the sense of, if this is
how they want to go about things, every week is
going to be a heart attack and it's going to
be really hard to beat good teams. And so I
(02:26):
think that's a fair I don't want to say panic button,
but you know, question to have with the results that
we saw. But sure, there's no reason to panic. I
mean two and one.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Lost the road Division game, which is usually supposed to
be I mean, don't get me wrong, you and I
both have said, like that was a game that you
needed to win.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
No no George Kittle, no Rock Party, no Juwan Jennings,
Like that's a game that you would like to see
this team. When that being said, right, like you you
knew that this was going to be a dogfight because
it is San Francisco. Their coached extremely well, and we've
talked before it seems like Kyle Shanahan does his best
(03:14):
work when his back's against the wall, right as opposed
to when he's got all his all his powers and
all his weapons, and he's kind of, you know, kind
of can get a little squirrely with things, and so
the the overall product, you know, there there are question
marks and something new, some things you and I will
(03:35):
talk about, uh today specifically, but I think I think
there are some clear things that we've found about this team.
I think there are some concerns about players that maybe
we had thought weren't going to be problems. And I
(03:56):
think that there are some real bright spots despite the
you know, the start not being exactly what we had
hoped it would be.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Right, and so let's start with the offensive side of
the ball, because that really has been the talk of
the Bird Gang since Sunday afternoon. It was for the
third concepts of Through three games, the Cardinals have yet
to reach three hundred yards of offense. They've been bad
on third down, they have and while they had one
(04:30):
hundred and six rushing yards their running game, while they've
had some explode. They had the twenty nine yard run
from Trade Benson against the forty nine ers. They had
a fifty two yard or against against the pant Against
the Saints, the run game has been incredibly inefficient and
the offense has been slow and plotty, and that I
(04:54):
know that since it's very concerning because this was a
top twelve in scoring, top eleven in yards, and top
ten in efficiency last year, and they felt good about
their offense that they just brought everybody back. Really, the
(05:15):
only change that was made was that Isaiah Adams replaced
an injured Will Hernandez right guard, and largely everything else
personnel wise is the same, and at minimum you should
be at least what you were a year ago. Plus
supposedly Marvin Harrison is going to be better this year.
You get Jay Jones for an entire season, and the
(05:38):
offense has been remarkably plotty and very just struggling. And
the thing that it's done best the last two years,
which has run the ball very efficiently. They simply have
they have not been a good running team this year
so far.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, they haven't, just and that's kind of what the
concern is. Something that you know, you and I text about.
I made a post today, you know, on on Revenge
of the Birds, and and you know, as much as
it pains people, and and you know, as much as
people want to be upset, the passing game is virtually
(06:18):
the same as last year. I know, the stats are
down slightly, but the efficiency expected points of her are
virtually the same. The issues have common to the fact
that the running game went from the fifth you know,
best in in EPA to twelfth.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
And so that and even that is largely because of Kyler,
isn't it right?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And so that's the thing. So you went from a
team that was extremely efficient running the football, that had
explosives in the run game, and you were like, oh,
we need to to get the passing game better to
the passing game has unfortunately stayed stagnant, but now the
(07:09):
run game is considerably worse. And so that makes things,
you know, very very difficult to kind of reconcile as
a as a fan base and as a franchise, because
you look at it and you go, well, why is
it worse? Like this doesn't make any sense at worse?
It should be the same, right, Like what you're the
(07:32):
results you're seeing from the passing game are frustrating, but
shouldn't be overly unexpected, right, But the results in the
run game? I mean, how are you worse in the
run game? And you know, that's a hard thing to
reconcile when you're discussing these things, because the reality becomes
that you know it was it Clayton Adams. I don't know.
(07:56):
I mean, here's my take, and I'm just a guy
on the internet and everything, but here's my take. If
you don't block, well, I don't think it matters who
your O line coaches. And you can say, well, that's
byproduct of not having Clayton Adams. Still maybe, I mean
genuinely maybe, But I mean, did did Jonah?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
How do you go from basically the same personnel to be.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Right? That's what I'm saying. Did Jonah Williams yell the
fro holt Evan Brown? And I know he didn't play
this week? Press Johnson Jr. Really just forget how to
block like, and so they're like, oh, Justin Frye is
teaching us differently, so we don't know what we're doing. No,
that's not how it works. So so like there's got
(08:50):
to be a larger aspect to this, right, Like there's
got to be something else that's happening. And so that's
kind of where we as fans need to sit back
and go, Okay, what's what's the cause? Like, what is
the cause of this situation? Because to depend it all
on Justin fry just doesn't make sense to say, well,
(09:13):
they're missing Clayton Adams. I mean maybe, I mean, maybe
they are missing Clayton Adams, but to the extent that
they're just not able to run the ball consistently with
their running backs like that, that doesn't track, you know,
and you look at it. The Cowboys are eleventh in yardage,
(09:34):
They're they're second in yards per attempt. So maybe Adams
does have a huge, huge ass, you know, hand in that,
but the Cowboys are also you know, fourth and overall
offensive stats, they're they're tenth in scoring and they're one
(09:57):
and two.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
So I mean, well, you look at this, it could
it be as simple as two things Isaiah Adams is
not nearly as good. Well, I guess it would be
three things. That Isaiah Adams is a clear step down
from a healthy Will Hernandez. One, two Evan Brown isn't
(10:19):
as good as he was last year, and three James
Connor is not as good as he was.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And you know these are always at age thirty. He
is age thirty now.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And we'll sending all.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Off season that they were purposely managing him and his
reps more than they ever have in the past.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, and these are always hard conversations to have after
the fact of like this dude's now likely done for
his career. I mean, let's be honest, like you said,
thirty years old. I mean, if anybody's going to come
back from it, right, it's James Connor. Yeah, but likely
that that's a career ending type of injury for him,
(11:08):
you know, and which you know is heartbreaking and everything.
He's been the heart and soul of this team and
especially like you said, the running game and all of that.
But also you look at it and you go, you know, this,
this team, this group they need they needed something more explosive.
I mean, he's he's getting some tough yards. He was
(11:34):
getting some tough yards, but he wasn't getting the tough
yards that he was consistently in years previous. And like
you said, uh age thirty right, Like that's that's always
a big bugaboo. I mean, his his long rushing this
year was twelve yards. And I get it, small sample size,
only thirty two rushing attempts, but I mean we're talking.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Just as it and probably it could be the blocking
is that you haven't It hasn't looked as good, and
that viably could be because the run blocking up front
is more populay. But but you were saying before this
could be that interior defensive run play on the defense
(12:19):
is improving this year, that there's something different, because there's
a lot more, but it's just it's going from being
dominant in the run game to now that the Cardinals
have always struggled a little bit, even with James Connor
on like third and one and fourth and one scenarios
where you get that first down, but this year it's
been so so markedly so and and and as we
(12:45):
as we're becoming starting to note is that the offense
is predicated on an efficient run game that without it,
it's really hard to do anything because they build their
offensive packages over twelve and thirteen personnel, and twelve thirteen
personnel is not a good passing set unless there's the
(13:06):
threat of a running If there's an efficient run game,
then you're going to get good passing sets out of that.
But if the bulk of your if you're not getting
the run game, then spreading the receivers out is become
something that you need to do. And that's not something
that has drew Petsing has not shown very much that
(13:28):
he's good at that, that there's creative work from traditional sets,
which I guess for me sets him apart in his
West Coast background is that he's not efficiently doing that
eleven personnel.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
No, and that's what the hard part is, right. So
you know, we talked about this last week. You can't
run the ball to set up the pass as you
have in the past, and now of a sudden you
so you can't throw the ball. I mean, you look
at it. They have two games under two hundred yards
passing this year. They have two you know you mentioned it,
all three games under three hundred yards of total offense.
(14:11):
I mean they're not turning the ball over but they're
just not doing much on the offensive side of the ball.
You know, something I've talked about is that they just
they don't run a lot of plays, right Like they're
they're twenty five plays less than their opponents. Their opponents
have one hundred and or sorry almost three or sorry,
(14:33):
almost two hundred yards of offense more offense, and their
their opponents are averaging more yards per play than them.
And so that's a really hard thing. And you know,
I don't want to take away from what the defense
is doing. Fifth in points per game. They're they're doing
a nice job. But here's a couple of things. One,
(15:00):
they face the most past attempts in the league. You know,
that's not shocking because they've been leading most of the
of the season, right and they they faced the the
fourth fewest rushing attempts in the league. The issues have
(15:22):
become that there been. But don't break style works extremely
well when you're up by more than a field goal
at the end of the game. Right Like, if if
you're ben but don't break and you don't allow a
lot of touchdowns, which they don't, you're in a good spot.
(15:44):
But if you're excuse me, m but if you're ben,
but don't break and the other team just needs a
field goal to win. That's a that puts you in
a bad spot. And that was the first time.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
We'll get to when we get to the defensive side
of the ball, for sure, just the the philosophy that
you're doing. But but you.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You look at this offense right and and I text
you this on Sunday, especially after Gannon's comments and things
of that nature. This is a defensive coaches mindset. I
don't want my offense to put me in a bad position.
I trust my defense to win games. We're seeing the
(16:31):
results of that, like like it or not happy with
it or not. I mean, this team has one turnover
in three games. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
This lead time of possession.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, they they're out possessing their opponent by over forty
seconds per drive. But there's a couple of things in
that they've had three less drives than their opponents, so
one drive per game, the opponent gets an extra drive somehow,
(17:08):
and their opponents, like I said, they average almost they average.
I have to play more per drive. So the Cardinals
run six point seven plays per drive while their opponents
run seven point two plays per drive. They give up
more yards per drive, which isn't shocking with more plays, right,
(17:30):
I mean not shocking, but they hold their opponents to
less points per drive. And so that's that's what the
key really is, right. And so the offense in turn
is kind of doing what the defense, specifically the head
coach wants, right, like, hey, don't screw this up. That's it,
(17:54):
that's that's literally it, like, hey, don't screw this up
because I trust my defense to win this this game.
And so the offense is conservative. I mean, I talk
to you about this off off air off you know,
you and I just in our you know, just our
text and the the thing that kills me, and we
(18:17):
can have a long conversation about Kyler and this and
that and the other stuff, right, but the thing that
kills me more than anything is that they basically handcuff
him all game and then they go, hey, we're down,
(18:40):
can you make a play for us? And they and
he does, and then they go okay, back to handle
the ball off. Think about this, Jess. When they're tied
or leading with under four minutes in the game, they've
got they literally have or drop back passes they did. It's
(19:06):
crazy they don't try to throw the ball like they're
basically like, we're not gonna throw the ball here, like
not not gonna happen. And so you're you're basically going, Okay,
we don't want to throw the ball when we're leading,
we're gonna run. We're gonna run the ball, play conservative,
(19:27):
not put ourselves in a position to turn the ball
over at run clock and then punt and play defense. Again.
We can, we can lament the offense all we want.
Do they need to convert some of these absolutely at
at so freaking lutely they have to start converting these.
But when the unequivocal best playmaker on the team is
(19:53):
still the quarterback, I mean, the argument can be for
trade McBride, but that's literally the only other guys right
right now, And you're saying, don't throw the ball, Like
Tyler has one less rushing attempt, then he does dropbacks
in that span, so they're literally just handing the ball off.
(20:16):
They're like, we'll run the ball. Well, if we'll run clock,
we'll punt. So that's the thing there are they like,
that's my question, and obviously we're never gonna en again,
But why why handcuff a guy that just got you
a lead, right, Why handcuff a guy that efficiently and
(20:39):
quickly went down and scored to regain that lead, and
then say, okay, but now now just go back to
handing the ball off. Okay, it's third and seven. We
need to play, right, Like that's all the that's all
the crazy stuff to me that they're doing that I
would love to know.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
That is is he able? Does he have the freedom
to check out a place? Or is it just is
he now running whatever play that Petsing gives him?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Right? And so you look at it and you say,
is this is this an edict from the top. Is
this Jonathan Gannon saying this is how I want to play?
Or is this Drew Petsing Drew Petsing style again and
(21:32):
as a obviously as a defensive guys like I appreciate it.
Or is this a bigger controversy, you know, conspiracy of
like we don't trust Kyler, so we don't want to
leave the game in his hands. Those are all legitimate
questions that I that is to me, what the panic
(21:53):
button is. It's not it's not that is this team
good or bad? Because I think that we found that
they're actually good. They're frustrating, but they're good.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
The question and we look at the drops. My goodness,
my goodness, the drops. And when when when you're not
doing much else offensively and you add drops onto that.
I mean, it really was. It really came down that
the if you had to point to anything offensively, the
drops cost him the game. He had the de Marcado
drop that would have been a walk in touchdown that
(22:25):
cost him four points. They lost by one. The Zay
Jones drop, I'm going to call it a drop because
let's let's face it. I didn't see upon Stout get
his hand on the ball at all, and Zay Jones
had the ball in his hands, he corralled it and
then as he went to the ground lost it. He
makes that catch. It's a first down.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And it's a ball game.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It's pretty much ballgame. Pretty much ballgame right there. And
you know, Marv had a terrible drop. There was the
one where there was a pass interference in the end
zone and I'm I'm convinced that Marv stole that ball,
and I believe that the throw was intended for z Jones,
but that Marv saw it coming and nearly hauled it in,
(23:09):
but it was kind of a drop in the end zone.
But if it matter because two plays later they scored
a touchdown to Train McBride, which we got that out
of the way. But like, how concerned are we with
the fact that are the not only are they not
running the ball, but then they're dropping passes. Is it just?
Is it just one of those things where everything's going
bad all at once and then it'll eventually click. Although
(23:31):
I do sit, I will say this, three of the
first four games the Cardinals had last year, they didn't
get to three hundred yards and they ended up averaging
overthrow almost three hundred and sixty yards per game. So
maybe that there's just something to a slow start because
of offense around the league. Now, I've noticed that offensive
(23:52):
like by and large, team yardage feels like it's lower
across the board to start the season.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And there's some things to that. I mean. The first
thing is obviously that you have the reality of the
kickoffs and things of that nature, right starting at the
thirty times, you know, so you look at it and
you look at the names underneath the Cardinals, right, the Eagles,
the Vikings, the Texans, the Steelers, the Bengals, and people
(24:25):
might say, well, Joe Burrow is hurt, okay, But and
Joe Burrow's game he played, he had seven yards of
offense in the second half. They had one hundred and
forty one total yards of offense in the one game
he played. And I get it. The Browns are a
great defense, don't get me wrong, but like that's a
(24:47):
it's not ideal. You know, the Vikings same. You know,
everybody's quick to annoint guys JJ McCarthy. It's like they
had to lie about an injury because he was so
bad that they had to put Carson went and to
make the offense look good. Allegedly, allegedly the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Philadelphia Eagles have a worse offense than the Arizona
(25:09):
Cardinals through three games. That's crazy. They're three and now,
uh you know the the Houston Texans now they're oh
and three and they and and and CJ. Shrouds about
to get Dimiko Ryans fired. Uh So, and remember these
are all guys that were, you know, clearly superior and
(25:33):
why you move on from Kyler and and we've said
all along like maybe but maybe not right like because
and that's what the offensive conundrum comes from is is
is this a is is it easier to find a
guy that's better than Kyler or is it easier to
(25:54):
find a guy that can take the offense to the
next level from a play calling and scheming standpoint, And
I think the latter is easier because as we're seeing,
you know, the scheme matters. Look at Daniel Jones in
in Indianapolis, right, and I know they really haven't played
(26:16):
anybody great, but you know, look at look at Marcus
Mariota in Washington, right, like that made a huge difference.
Look at getting Shane Waldron out of Chicago, Like all
of those guys are are having all You know this,
(26:37):
the Seahawks got rid of Gino Smith and moved on
to the Sam Darnold because they they thought he was
a better fit for what they wanted to do. And
and so all of those things are are making a difference.
And and it's not necessarily player driven. It's scheme driven,
(26:59):
it's play calling driven. And so you know that's the
question mark. But but to your point, Jess, I mean,
Kansas City's barely above Arizona in terms of like productive offense. Denver,
remember last year boat Nicks was the truth and now
he's terrible. Like that's the thing, is I just I
(27:23):
my genuine question is is this the scheme that's being
kind of handed down of, like, this is how we're
going to do things because we're not worried about we're
not worried about scoring thirty points, and so these games
are all going to be tight and then once they
(27:45):
get blown out maybe things will change. Right. But but
two Gannon and Petsing's thought processes, like you said, like,
man if we catch one pass out of you know,
three different attempts, we win that game fairly easily. Man
If we if we block up do a one time correctly,
(28:09):
we spring a little bit. So those are all things
to look at and understand that. Yeah, it's super frustrating
and and if they continue to play close games and
win games this way, then it's going to continue this
way whether we like it or not. And it's it's ugly,
annoying football. But it's also I mean, you look at
(28:34):
it that they've allowed the fourth least amount of points
on the season. Their point differential is right in the
middle of the pack. Like everything they're wanting to do,
they're doing. I don't necessarily know if I love it.
But you can only do and and you know, you
(28:56):
can only do what or play who's in front of you,
and you can only deal with what is in front
of you. And right now they're you know, they're doing
I guess well enough again frustratingly, but well enough to
(29:17):
not feel like they need to make any wholesale changes.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And mix of the resis Hered podcast The Best Oarf
Cardinals talking about let's move on to the defensive sign
of the ball, the good of the bad there that's
coming next to resus Read. We're back on the resis
he Read podcast, The Best Star Cardinals talk on the web.
The defense really has been pretty impressive so far. Yardage wise.
They are bend but break, and they came up with
the big plays that the problem was here, here's the
(29:42):
thing with that game, and and the defense people talk
about how how the defense kind of say they did
they did, but at the same time they also let
Mac Jones run dink dunk, just take them down the
field and kick Kim winning field goal. And my question
is for me, my one criticism of all that is
(30:02):
that what are you doing playing prevent defense when the
opponent only needs a field goal, and the guy that's
playing quarterback is mac Jones, and he's got a banged
up knee, And how does mac Jones play when he's
under pressure?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right, we've already seen it all day, right, like when
when they bring heat, when they get into him, he's
a different quarterback. But all of a sudden, you're a
conservative and you're kind of letting it go. That's been
the frustrating drive.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Made no sense defensively to me at all. It's different
if you've got a touchdown lead right when they were
doing out against the Panthers, and you do that against
the against the Saints. But when you've got a one
point lead and all you need is a field goal,
like that means you only have to like a team
only has to go thirty yards and they can win
the game. That was like mac Jones shouldn't beating you.
(30:57):
Mac Jones shouldn't be beating you. And on a game drive,
and when you've dominated the whole game. They did really
well against christ McCaffrey. They had him bottled. My goodness,
Quinn McCaffrey. That I don't know if it was just
the in the water on Sunday, but the drops on
both sides of the ball. My heavens, what was happened
at the Christian McCaffrey with the drops, and you know
(31:20):
they did a good job against the run and Josh
what got the sack, But again the Cardinals don't. They
came when it came down to it what they were
able to get, and it looked like they got it
with with Kalais Campbell on the ended up being the safety.
But at the end of the game, the Cardinals have
(31:41):
had to rely on their best players making big plays
at the right moments, and they got no plays made
in that final drive. They kind of ran out of them.
And in that sense, like you can't expect your defense
to stop everyone every time. But isn't this like the
last two years, like the defense needs to make a stop,
they have a lead and they need to make a
(32:02):
stop and they can't at the end of the game.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's right, good And you look at just the last
two sequences right in how they all came about, and
and the Cardinals get the ball back with three to
ten left in the game. They run a play for
nine yards and San Francisco smartly goes, Okay, they're probably
gonna get a first down, so we're just gonna let
(32:26):
this play. And then they hit They finally hit a
decent run five yards and call time out. Then they
the one kind of my biggest question mark play call
of the day was, you know, they ran the exact
same play the other way that they ran the first
play and they gained one yard, so San Francisco is
(32:47):
able to bang a time out, and then you know,
obviously they run the next play no game to set
themselves up in third and nine coming out of two
minute warning. And then obviously we know, like you talked
about the Zay Jones drop not drop, but Jay Jones
doesn't make a play on the ball. And then Blake
(33:07):
kill Can finally hits a terrible punt, right and so
and so that that gives you Mac Jones at the
twenty burst down. You get Mac Jones trying to force
the ball to Ricky Pearsol You're ready for it looks good.
And then listen to who beats you? Right, you talk
about Mac Jones, Jake Tongus eleven yards, sky more ten yards,
(33:30):
Jake Tongus again, and they get the penalty on Denzel Burke.
I hate that they're not showing the penalties anymore, by
the way, like at least let us see that it
was a terrible call before you don't show us anything, right,
Uh then then Kendrick Bourne, then Kendrick Bourne, then finally
(33:53):
Christian McCaffrey on the screen pass. But before that it
was like they they they had five plays were you
know what's the equivalent Tip Ryman makes a catch? Uh,
you know, not even like probably Exavier Weaver is where
(34:14):
Sky Moore is right, like in the system, you know,
Zay Jones makes two more cats Like the Niners, guys
that nobody counts on that nobody is worried about, made
plays and and your guys didn't. To your point, you
(34:35):
look at who they attacked. They attacked the safeties, uh,
Dadrian or a rabbit on one play, Buddha on a play,
Jayleen Thompson on two plays, and then the screen right
because they knew they were gonna pin theirs back try
to get sacked. It's just a great play called by
Kyle Shanahan. And and you go to yourself like, how
(34:58):
are we not ready for this? Like to your point,
like where why are we not ready for this? And
you know this is where the defense, Like you said,
giving up those nickel and dimes, those death by a
thousand cuts. That's where it hurts you because this was
the first game that they weren't playing for the win
with the touchdowns. They just needed a field goal, and
(35:20):
we saw the result. It was kind of effortless, right,
like they have no timeouts or no they they did
have a timeout. Sorry, they had one time out and
they didn't even need to take it. Jess like, well,
here's the other thing.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Why do you not force Eddy Pinero to think about
it for one more time? When they call the time
out right before the game winning field goal? You don't
need to try and ice it. So he kicks it
once call the time out. You've got him, Like, what
do you what are you going to do with those?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
You get? You get actually one next game, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Or does he does he get a does he get
does he get a cast? Those in for for an
extra lunch or a butt or.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Bid? Was like, you didn't use all your time outs
in this game, so here's.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
A hundred bucks, oh man, But yeah, I mean it
was good to see that, honestly, to see that the
cornerbacks held up that backs melt was able to play
the entire game. Uh that the that the the blend
of Denzel Burke and Key Troll Clark held up, Josh
Sweat adding pressure again, he's been good. Mac Wilson had
(36:35):
himself one heck of a game. And but so there's
lots of things to like there. But let's move on
to the other part that's not so great. Coming to
next and the Rise of Here podcasts are Cardinal's Talk
on the Web. Let's move on and discuss the next part,
which is injuries, James Connor and perhaps more that's coming
next Rise up.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
He read.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Back on the Rise of Here Podcasts are Cardinals Talk
on the Web. This the most important injury that happened
was James Conner season ending foot injury, which they said
was an ankle, but it turned out to be a foot. Apparently.
What do you think this does? What sort of impact
does it have? Do you think that maybe by giving
(37:18):
Trey Benson the bulk of things now, that there's the
possibility that the run game will become slightly more explosive
and that perhaps Benson will be a better runner, right,
And that's.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Kind of what you have to hope, And that's not
a shot at James Connor, but like, you know, you
have to look at it and be realistic. He had
been you know, unfortunately not James Connor through the through
the first couple of games. It's really hard to look
(37:55):
at how they have played and and and not think
that this could potentially help the explosiveness of the run game.
That being said, there's an emotional aspect of it that
(38:17):
is tough to overcome because he's so much more than
just you know, your lead running back. He's a captain
of the team. He's kind of that emotional support guy.
You saw the devastation on the field and then postgame, right,
I mean, the amount of outpouring from his teammates and
(38:40):
from those in the NFL community. I mean that just
kind of speaks to who James Connor is and everything
he's done. So that's that's more the question, like how
how are you gonna not to be cheesy, but you know,
rise up and kind of step up and show what
(39:00):
you're doing and what you have when you lose such
an important piece of your team and of your franchise.
So we'll see how that all kind of turns out.
Because you know, right now, that's kind of a big
question overall when you say, like who is this team
(39:24):
and what's their identity, because we haven't really seen anything
that that tells us that they're I don't want to
say that they care, because that's you know, that's that's disrespectful,
but they just they seem to follow Gannon's lead of
kind of serial killer ice cold, like no emotion in
(39:45):
situations like hey, we're just onto the next one, like
we gotta, we gotta get better, and we gottah, we gotta,
you know, fix the the issues that we have.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
And and.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
That works to Dent at times.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You know what I wonder, you know, Gray has not.
Benson has not been Like early last year, he wasn't
a very decisive runner, then kind of got better as
the year went on. So far this year, he hasn't
been great about hitting holes. He's been trying to bounce
(40:24):
things more, and he does have the only two explosive
runs that the running backs have. But at the same time,
he was also playing in a role that was new
to him because he was in that third down role.
Now he was getting some like some spell carries, but
he was playing it in Marty Mercado's role, and I wonder.
I wonder, not to say that, I wonder if things
(40:47):
will settle down a little bit for him when he
gets that, because he's he's gonna be Trey's gonna be
the James Connor now. He's gonna be the James Connor now.
And perhaps being in that role as runner runner will
help him be better at the efficiency where he knows
(41:08):
he has to go. He's got to take the two
three yards and then he's gonna bust with here and there.
And then putting Demarcado back in that third down role.
Granted he did have the drop, but then you get
Demarcado in there for those draw plays that turn into
big games, because that's the type of runner he is.
He's better in pass pro. He's got pretty good hands.
(41:29):
If that will settle things a little bit more than
Trey being in that new role, which oddly enough, we
never saw him do in the preseason, right see Trey
doing that role then, so they upped his usage, but
put him in a new role that he probably wasn't
(41:51):
as familiar with doing, put him in that starting role.
I'm not saying that suddenly the running game is going
to be fixed, but perhaps by putting him in what
is probably a more familiar role for himself, putting de
Mercado back in a role that is familiar for him
and then mix it in a little bit of Bam
Knight to perhaps I don't know if if if the
(42:13):
de Mercado will by default now do the full Tray
Benson role, or if they'll sprinkle a little bit of
a bit a little bit of Bam, then you've got
you've got a different look to that running attack. And
that's kind of what I'm hoping to see. But James
Connor getting you know, boss for the season. That that's tragic.
That's one of the guys that you really hoped that
(42:34):
you you that didn't happen to. Now there's another injury
on the offense. There's another injury that you have to
concern be concerned yourself of, and that's because the Cardinals
signed Demontri Jacobs from the practice squad, a guy probably
not most of you haven't heard of. He's He's a
twenty twenty four undrafted rookie guy tackle and they signed
(42:55):
him to the roster. Paris Johnson has the knee. Apparently
Kelvin Beacham's got a knee problem. You know what it
kind of sounds like, and we'll talk more about that
in our preview show. Josh Fryer's looks like he's going
to get a start if they signed Now how they
have ten offensive linemen on the if they signed Jacobs
to the active roster, you have to wonder about, at
(43:17):
least for this week, the availability of both Paris and Beacham.
And you might be facing the Seahawks either with an
undrafted rookie at left ticker tackle and Josh Fryer, or
they moved Jonah Williams over for a game to left
tackle and let Friar plays more natural position at right tackle.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, I mean, isn't that the meme?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The dog sitting in the fire. This is fine, So.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Against the team. Now, we're got to talk Seahawks because
the Seahawks have been they've been they've been good. But
we'll talk about that on the next show. Anything else
of notes other than my goodness, the forty nine ers?
What did they do to like, what are they what
debt are they paying? Where they have all these injuries?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I mean it's not for one in a Super Bowl,
that's for sure, So I mean it makes it tough man,
I mean this is a this is a you know,
a violent game. We talked about it the week before
and and now you've you've had a game where the
Cardinals lose, you know, a very talented piece and very
(44:36):
important player on their roster, and James Connor and the
forty nine ers somehow counter that and lose their best
or second best defense. I mean like, well, I mean you.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Could whether he's your best with Fred Warner, he might
be probably the most important.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well that's what I was gonna say. It's almost like
it's almost to the extent if the Cardinals lost Tyler
Trey McBride, right, like, you lose one of those two,
you go, well, hats off, gigs, right, like, we'll see
you in uh, we'll see you in January and start
doing draft breakdown stuff. So that sounds that that's the
(45:16):
hard part, but I mean that that'll be the thing
is is how I mean they drafted mikel Williams. He
had a decent showing against the Cardinals. Uh yeah, got hurt.
But you know, overall, this is just this is a
game that it was, It was emotionally draining, and then
(45:37):
the fallout is even worse, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
And then they have to play on a short week.
We'll talk more about that on our next show. So
with that, we'll wrap up this edition of the Rise
of Here podcast, Best our Cardinals talk on the web
on this short week. We still have two more shows.
I've got Cole Muskrove coming on from Seahawks Wire and
Seth and I will do a preview show. We're gonna
get this all packed in into days. Is the Cardinals
will play the Seattle Seahawks Thursday night, which gives us
(46:04):
insinceias he was playing on Friday night. This gives me
kind of a a no stress football weekend. I can
still watch football, but it's there's no investment in the
in the weekend of football because I will have overly
invested Thursday and Friday night.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
And with that, so that that's Sefcox. I'm just rude.
Thanks for listening. As always, we'll be back again, Sued.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Thanks for listening to the latest edition of the Rise
Up Sea Red podcast. Listen to previous episodes and subscribe
to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitch your Radio, Audio, Boom,
or many other podcast platforms so shows are delivered directly
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(46:49):
We'll be back soon for the best hour of Cardinals
talk on the web, Rise up Red Sea, b red
Sea Red, and of course Rise up Sea Red.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Ves it lives, It.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Lives, it
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Lives it
Zo.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yes, this is the Rise Up Sea Red podcast all
about the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and
outsider perspectives. Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals Talk on
(00:23):
the Web. Now Here are your hosts, Jess Root.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And Seth Cox, Lover's Cardinals fans, and welcome to the
latest edition of the rest of Secret podcast, the bestar
Cardinals Talk on the Web. I'm your host, Jess Root
from Cardswire dot com us. Hey, today's NFL Wire side
the covers of course you're Arizona Cardinals and with me
for episode seven oh one. Joining me back again with
(00:48):
after our last show last week with Kyle Posey was
number seven hundred. Seth Cox from eSPI Enations Revenge of
the Birds the Espianation Aarzona Cardinals site and sadly, Seth,
we don't get to talk about a three and zero
Cardinals team. And isn't it feel like after two, you know,
(01:10):
non convincing wins over lesser teams that now with the
loss of the forty nine ers they suffered from sixteen
to fifteen. Last second lost to the forty nine ers
after Eddie Pinero had a thirty five yard field goal
as time expired to beat the Cardinals in Santa Clara.
Both teams banged up, Cardinals lost James Conn and a
(01:33):
number of things. But does it feel like the panic
button has been hit kind of early on this season?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah. I mean this is a situation where you kind
of saw the writing on the wall of like, they're
not gonna Like we asked the question last week, like
are they going to play the same way against top teams?
And the answer was apparently yes, and so you kind
(02:05):
of got the result that we expected, and so that's
you know, I don't think it's a panic button in
the sense of like, oh, they're doomed. I think it's
a panic button in the sense of, if this is
how they want to go about things, every week is
going to be a heart attack and it's going to
be really hard to beat good teams. And so I
(02:26):
think that's a fair I don't want to say panic button,
but you know, question to have with the results that
we saw. But sure, there's no reason to panic. I
mean two and one.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Lost the road Division game, which is usually supposed to
be I mean, don't get me wrong, you and I
both have said, like that was a game that you
needed to win.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
No no George Kittle, no Rock Party, no Juwan Jennings,
Like that's a game that you would like to see
this team. When that being said, right, like you you
knew that this was going to be a dogfight because
it is San Francisco. Their coached extremely well, and we've
talked before it seems like Kyle Shanahan does his best
(03:14):
work when his back's against the wall, right as opposed
to when he's got all his all his powers and
all his weapons, and he's kind of, you know, kind
of can get a little squirrely with things, and so
the the overall product, you know, there there are question
marks and something new, some things you and I will
(03:35):
talk about, uh today specifically, but I think I think
there are some clear things that we've found about this team.
I think there are some concerns about players that maybe
we had thought weren't going to be problems. And I
(03:56):
think that there are some real bright spots despite the
you know, the start not being exactly what we had
hoped it would be.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Right, and so let's start with the offensive side of
the ball, because that really has been the talk of
the Bird Gang since Sunday afternoon. It was for the
third concepts of Through three games, the Cardinals have yet
to reach three hundred yards of offense. They've been bad
on third down, they have and while they had one
(04:30):
hundred and six rushing yards their running game, while they've
had some explode. They had the twenty nine yard run
from Trade Benson against the forty nine ers. They had
a fifty two yard or against against the pant Against
the Saints, the run game has been incredibly inefficient and
the offense has been slow and plotty, and that I
(04:54):
know that since it's very concerning because this was a
top twelve in scoring, top eleven in yards, and top
ten in efficiency last year, and they felt good about
their offense that they just brought everybody back. Really, the
(05:15):
only change that was made was that Isaiah Adams replaced
an injured Will Hernandez right guard, and largely everything else
personnel wise is the same, and at minimum you should
be at least what you were a year ago. Plus
supposedly Marvin Harrison is going to be better this year.
You get Jay Jones for an entire season, and the
(05:38):
offense has been remarkably plotty and very just struggling. And
the thing that it's done best the last two years,
which has run the ball very efficiently. They simply have
they have not been a good running team this year
so far.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, they haven't, just and that's kind of what the
concern is. Something that you know, you and I text about.
I made a post today, you know, on on Revenge
of the Birds, and and you know, as much as
it pains people, and and you know, as much as
people want to be upset, the passing game is virtually
(06:18):
the same as last year. I know, the stats are
down slightly, but the efficiency expected points of her are
virtually the same. The issues have common to the fact
that the running game went from the fifth you know,
best in in EPA to twelfth.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
And so that and even that is largely because of Kyler,
isn't it right?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And so that's the thing. So you went from a
team that was extremely efficient running the football, that had
explosives in the run game, and you were like, oh,
we need to to get the passing game better to
the passing game has unfortunately stayed stagnant, but now the
(07:09):
run game is considerably worse. And so that makes things,
you know, very very difficult to kind of reconcile as
a as a fan base and as a franchise, because
you look at it and you go, well, why is
it worse? Like this doesn't make any sense at worse?
It should be the same, right, Like what you're the
(07:32):
results you're seeing from the passing game are frustrating, but
shouldn't be overly unexpected, right, But the results in the
run game? I mean, how are you worse in the
run game? And you know, that's a hard thing to
reconcile when you're discussing these things, because the reality becomes
that you know it was it Clayton Adams. I don't know.
(07:56):
I mean, here's my take, and I'm just a guy
on the internet and everything, but here's my take. If
you don't block, well, I don't think it matters who
your O line coaches. And you can say, well, that's
byproduct of not having Clayton Adams. Still maybe, I mean
genuinely maybe, But I mean, did did Jonah?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
How do you go from basically the same personnel to be.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Right? That's what I'm saying. Did Jonah Williams yell the
fro holt Evan Brown? And I know he didn't play
this week? Press Johnson Jr. Really just forget how to
block like, and so they're like, oh, Justin Frye is
teaching us differently, so we don't know what we're doing. No,
that's not how it works. So so like there's got
(08:50):
to be a larger aspect to this, right, Like there's
got to be something else that's happening. And so that's
kind of where we as fans need to sit back
and go, Okay, what's what's the cause? Like, what is
the cause of this situation? Because to depend it all
on Justin fry just doesn't make sense to say, well,
(09:13):
they're missing Clayton Adams. I mean maybe, I mean, maybe
they are missing Clayton Adams, but to the extent that
they're just not able to run the ball consistently with
their running backs like that, that doesn't track, you know,
and you look at it. The Cowboys are eleventh in yardage,
(09:34):
They're they're second in yards per attempt. So maybe Adams
does have a huge, huge ass, you know, hand in that,
but the Cowboys are also you know, fourth and overall
offensive stats, they're they're tenth in scoring and they're one
(09:57):
and two.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
So I mean, well, you look at this, it could
it be as simple as two things Isaiah Adams is
not nearly as good. Well, I guess it would be
three things. That Isaiah Adams is a clear step down
from a healthy Will Hernandez. One, two Evan Brown isn't
(10:19):
as good as he was last year, and three James
Connor is not as good as he was.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And you know these are always at age thirty. He
is age thirty now.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And we'll sending all.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Off season that they were purposely managing him and his
reps more than they ever have in the past.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, and these are always hard conversations to have after
the fact of like this dude's now likely done for
his career. I mean, let's be honest, like you said,
thirty years old. I mean, if anybody's going to come
back from it, right, it's James Connor. Yeah, but likely
that that's a career ending type of injury for him,
(11:08):
you know, and which you know is heartbreaking and everything.
He's been the heart and soul of this team and
especially like you said, the running game and all of that.
But also you look at it and you go, you know, this,
this team, this group they need they needed something more explosive.
I mean, he's he's getting some tough yards. He was
(11:34):
getting some tough yards, but he wasn't getting the tough
yards that he was consistently in years previous. And like
you said, uh age thirty right, Like that's that's always
a big bugaboo. I mean, his his long rushing this
year was twelve yards. And I get it, small sample size,
only thirty two rushing attempts, but I mean we're talking.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Just as it and probably it could be the blocking
is that you haven't It hasn't looked as good, and
that viably could be because the run blocking up front
is more populay. But but you were saying before this
could be that interior defensive run play on the defense
(12:19):
is improving this year, that there's something different, because there's
a lot more, but it's just it's going from being
dominant in the run game to now that the Cardinals
have always struggled a little bit, even with James Connor
on like third and one and fourth and one scenarios
where you get that first down, but this year it's
been so so markedly so and and and as we
(12:45):
as we're becoming starting to note is that the offense
is predicated on an efficient run game that without it,
it's really hard to do anything because they build their
offensive packages over twelve and thirteen personnel, and twelve thirteen
personnel is not a good passing set unless there's the
(13:06):
threat of a running If there's an efficient run game,
then you're going to get good passing sets out of that.
But if the bulk of your if you're not getting
the run game, then spreading the receivers out is become
something that you need to do. And that's not something
that has drew Petsing has not shown very much that
(13:28):
he's good at that, that there's creative work from traditional sets,
which I guess for me sets him apart in his
West Coast background is that he's not efficiently doing that
eleven personnel.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
No, and that's what the hard part is, right. So
you know, we talked about this last week. You can't
run the ball to set up the pass as you
have in the past, and now of a sudden you
so you can't throw the ball. I mean, you look
at it. They have two games under two hundred yards
passing this year. They have two you know you mentioned it,
all three games under three hundred yards of total offense.
(14:11):
I mean they're not turning the ball over but they're
just not doing much on the offensive side of the ball.
You know, something I've talked about is that they just
they don't run a lot of plays, right Like they're
they're twenty five plays less than their opponents. Their opponents
have one hundred and or sorry almost three or sorry,
(14:33):
almost two hundred yards of offense more offense, and their
their opponents are averaging more yards per play than them.
And so that's a really hard thing. And you know,
I don't want to take away from what the defense
is doing. Fifth in points per game. They're they're doing
a nice job. But here's a couple of things. One,
(15:00):
they face the most past attempts in the league. You know,
that's not shocking because they've been leading most of the
of the season, right and they they faced the the
fourth fewest rushing attempts in the league. The issues have
(15:22):
become that there been. But don't break style works extremely
well when you're up by more than a field goal
at the end of the game. Right Like, if if
you're ben but don't break and you don't allow a
lot of touchdowns, which they don't, you're in a good spot.
(15:44):
But if you're excuse me, m but if you're ben,
but don't break and the other team just needs a
field goal to win. That's a that puts you in
a bad spot. And that was the first time.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
We'll get to when we get to the defensive side
of the ball, for sure, just the the philosophy that
you're doing. But but you.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
You look at this offense right and and I text
you this on Sunday, especially after Gannon's comments and things
of that nature. This is a defensive coaches mindset. I
don't want my offense to put me in a bad position.
I trust my defense to win games. We're seeing the
(16:31):
results of that, like like it or not happy with
it or not. I mean, this team has one turnover
in three games. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
This lead time of possession.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, they they're out possessing their opponent by over forty
seconds per drive. But there's a couple of things in
that they've had three less drives than their opponents, so
one drive per game, the opponent gets an extra drive somehow,
(17:08):
and their opponents, like I said, they average almost they average.
I have to play more per drive. So the Cardinals
run six point seven plays per drive while their opponents
run seven point two plays per drive. They give up
more yards per drive, which isn't shocking with more plays, right,
(17:30):
I mean not shocking, but they hold their opponents to
less points per drive. And so that's that's what the
key really is, right. And so the offense in turn
is kind of doing what the defense, specifically the head
coach wants, right, like, hey, don't screw this up. That's it,
(17:54):
that's that's literally it, like, hey, don't screw this up
because I trust my defense to win this this game.
And so the offense is conservative. I mean, I talk
to you about this off off air off you know,
you and I just in our you know, just our
text and the the thing that kills me, and we
(18:17):
can have a long conversation about Kyler and this and
that and the other stuff, right, but the thing that
kills me more than anything is that they basically handcuff
him all game and then they go, hey, we're down,
(18:40):
can you make a play for us? And they and
he does, and then they go okay, back to handle
the ball off. Think about this, Jess. When they're tied
or leading with under four minutes in the game, they've
got they literally have or drop back passes they did. It's
(19:06):
crazy they don't try to throw the ball like they're
basically like, we're not gonna throw the ball here, like
not not gonna happen. And so you're you're basically going, Okay,
we don't want to throw the ball when we're leading,
we're gonna run. We're gonna run the ball, play conservative,
(19:27):
not put ourselves in a position to turn the ball
over at run clock and then punt and play defense. Again.
We can, we can lament the offense all we want.
Do they need to convert some of these absolutely at
at so freaking lutely they have to start converting these.
But when the unequivocal best playmaker on the team is
(19:53):
still the quarterback, I mean, the argument can be for
trade McBride, but that's literally the only other guys right
right now, And you're saying, don't throw the ball, Like
Tyler has one less rushing attempt, then he does dropbacks
in that span, so they're literally just handing the ball off.
(20:16):
They're like, we'll run the ball. Well, if we'll run clock,
we'll punt. So that's the thing there are they like,
that's my question, and obviously we're never gonna en again,
But why why handcuff a guy that just got you
a lead, right, Why handcuff a guy that efficiently and
(20:39):
quickly went down and scored to regain that lead, and
then say, okay, but now now just go back to
handing the ball off. Okay, it's third and seven. We
need to play, right, Like that's all the that's all
the crazy stuff to me that they're doing that I
would love to know.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
That is is he able? Does he have the freedom
to check out a place? Or is it just is
he now running whatever play that Petsing gives him?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Right? And so you look at it and you say,
is this is this an edict from the top. Is
this Jonathan Gannon saying this is how I want to play?
Or is this Drew Petsing Drew Petsing style again and
(21:32):
as a obviously as a defensive guys like I appreciate it.
Or is this a bigger controversy, you know, conspiracy of
like we don't trust Kyler, so we don't want to
leave the game in his hands. Those are all legitimate
questions that I that is to me, what the panic
(21:53):
button is. It's not it's not that is this team
good or bad? Because I think that we found that
they're actually good. They're frustrating, but they're good.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
The question and we look at the drops. My goodness,
my goodness, the drops. And when when when you're not
doing much else offensively and you add drops onto that.
I mean, it really was. It really came down that
the if you had to point to anything offensively, the
drops cost him the game. He had the de Marcado
drop that would have been a walk in touchdown that
(22:25):
cost him four points. They lost by one. The Zay
Jones drop, I'm going to call it a drop because
let's let's face it. I didn't see upon Stout get
his hand on the ball at all, and Zay Jones
had the ball in his hands, he corralled it and
then as he went to the ground lost it. He
makes that catch. It's a first down.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And it's a ball game.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It's pretty much ballgame. Pretty much ballgame right there. And
you know, Marv had a terrible drop. There was the
one where there was a pass interference in the end
zone and I'm I'm convinced that Marv stole that ball,
and I believe that the throw was intended for z Jones,
but that Marv saw it coming and nearly hauled it in,
(23:09):
but it was kind of a drop in the end zone.
But if it matter because two plays later they scored
a touchdown to Train McBride, which we got that out
of the way. But like, how concerned are we with
the fact that are the not only are they not
running the ball, but then they're dropping passes. Is it just?
Is it just one of those things where everything's going
bad all at once and then it'll eventually click. Although
(23:31):
I do sit, I will say this, three of the
first four games the Cardinals had last year, they didn't
get to three hundred yards and they ended up averaging
overthrow almost three hundred and sixty yards per game. So
maybe that there's just something to a slow start because
of offense around the league. Now, I've noticed that offensive
(23:52):
like by and large, team yardage feels like it's lower
across the board to start the season.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And there's some things to that. I mean. The first
thing is obviously that you have the reality of the
kickoffs and things of that nature, right starting at the
thirty times, you know, so you look at it and
you look at the names underneath the Cardinals, right, the Eagles,
the Vikings, the Texans, the Steelers, the Bengals, and people
(24:25):
might say, well, Joe Burrow is hurt, okay, But and
Joe Burrow's game he played, he had seven yards of
offense in the second half. They had one hundred and
forty one total yards of offense in the one game
he played. And I get it. The Browns are a
great defense, don't get me wrong, but like that's a
(24:47):
it's not ideal. You know, the Vikings same. You know,
everybody's quick to annoint guys JJ McCarthy. It's like they
had to lie about an injury because he was so
bad that they had to put Carson went and to
make the offense look good. Allegedly, allegedly the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Philadelphia Eagles have a worse offense than the Arizona
(25:09):
Cardinals through three games. That's crazy. They're three and now,
uh you know the the Houston Texans now they're oh
and three and they and and and CJ. Shrouds about
to get Dimiko Ryans fired. Uh So, and remember these
are all guys that were, you know, clearly superior and
(25:33):
why you move on from Kyler and and we've said
all along like maybe but maybe not right like because
and that's what the offensive conundrum comes from is is
is this a is is it easier to find a
guy that's better than Kyler or is it easier to
(25:54):
find a guy that can take the offense to the
next level from a play calling and scheming standpoint, And
I think the latter is easier because as we're seeing,
you know, the scheme matters. Look at Daniel Jones in
in Indianapolis, right, and I know they really haven't played
(26:16):
anybody great, but you know, look at look at Marcus
Mariota in Washington, right, like that made a huge difference.
Look at getting Shane Waldron out of Chicago, Like all
of those guys are are having all You know this,
(26:37):
the Seahawks got rid of Gino Smith and moved on
to the Sam Darnold because they they thought he was
a better fit for what they wanted to do. And
and so all of those things are are making a difference.
And and it's not necessarily player driven. It's scheme driven,
(26:59):
it's play calling driven. And so you know that's the
question mark. But but to your point, Jess, I mean,
Kansas City's barely above Arizona in terms of like productive offense. Denver,
remember last year boat Nicks was the truth and now
he's terrible. Like that's the thing, is I just I
(27:23):
my genuine question is is this the scheme that's being
kind of handed down of, like, this is how we're
going to do things because we're not worried about we're
not worried about scoring thirty points, and so these games
are all going to be tight and then once they
(27:45):
get blown out maybe things will change. Right. But but
two Gannon and Petsing's thought processes, like you said, like,
man if we catch one pass out of you know,
three different attempts, we win that game fairly easily. Man
If we if we block up do a one time correctly,
(28:09):
we spring a little bit. So those are all things
to look at and understand that. Yeah, it's super frustrating
and and if they continue to play close games and
win games this way, then it's going to continue this
way whether we like it or not. And it's it's ugly,
annoying football. But it's also I mean, you look at
(28:34):
it that they've allowed the fourth least amount of points
on the season. Their point differential is right in the
middle of the pack. Like everything they're wanting to do,
they're doing. I don't necessarily know if I love it.
But you can only do and and you know, you
(28:56):
can only do what or play who's in front of you,
and you can only deal with what is in front
of you. And right now they're you know, they're doing
I guess well enough again frustratingly, but well enough to
(29:17):
not feel like they need to make any wholesale changes.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And mix of the resis Hered podcast The Best Oarf
Cardinals talking about let's move on to the defensive sign
of the ball, the good of the bad there that's
coming next to resus Read. We're back on the resis
he Read podcast, The Best Star Cardinals talk on the web.
The defense really has been pretty impressive so far. Yardage wise.
They are bend but break, and they came up with
the big plays that the problem was here, here's the
(29:42):
thing with that game, and and the defense people talk
about how how the defense kind of say they did
they did, but at the same time they also let
Mac Jones run dink dunk, just take them down the
field and kick Kim winning field goal. And my question
is for me, my one criticism of all that is
(30:02):
that what are you doing playing prevent defense when the
opponent only needs a field goal, and the guy that's
playing quarterback is mac Jones, and he's got a banged
up knee, And how does mac Jones play when he's
under pressure?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right, we've already seen it all day, right, like when
when they bring heat, when they get into him, he's
a different quarterback. But all of a sudden, you're a
conservative and you're kind of letting it go. That's been
the frustrating drive.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Made no sense defensively to me at all. It's different
if you've got a touchdown lead right when they were
doing out against the Panthers, and you do that against
the against the Saints. But when you've got a one
point lead and all you need is a field goal,
like that means you only have to like a team
only has to go thirty yards and they can win
the game. That was like mac Jones shouldn't beating you.
(30:57):
Mac Jones shouldn't be beating you. And on a game drive,
and when you've dominated the whole game. They did really
well against christ McCaffrey. They had him bottled. My goodness,
Quinn McCaffrey. That I don't know if it was just
the in the water on Sunday, but the drops on
both sides of the ball. My heavens, what was happened
at the Christian McCaffrey with the drops, and you know
(31:20):
they did a good job against the run and Josh
what got the sack, But again the Cardinals don't. They
came when it came down to it what they were
able to get, and it looked like they got it
with with Kalais Campbell on the ended up being the safety.
But at the end of the game, the Cardinals have
(31:41):
had to rely on their best players making big plays
at the right moments, and they got no plays made
in that final drive. They kind of ran out of them.
And in that sense, like you can't expect your defense
to stop everyone every time. But isn't this like the
last two years, like the defense needs to make a stop,
they have a lead and they need to make a
(32:02):
stop and they can't at the end of the game.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's right, good And you look at just the last
two sequences right in how they all came about, and
and the Cardinals get the ball back with three to
ten left in the game. They run a play for
nine yards and San Francisco smartly goes, Okay, they're probably
gonna get a first down, so we're just gonna let
(32:26):
this play. And then they hit They finally hit a
decent run five yards and call time out. Then they
the one kind of my biggest question mark play call
of the day was, you know, they ran the exact
same play the other way that they ran the first
play and they gained one yard, so San Francisco is
(32:47):
able to bang a time out, and then you know,
obviously they run the next play no game to set
themselves up in third and nine coming out of two
minute warning. And then obviously we know, like you talked
about the Zay Jones drop not drop, but Jay Jones
doesn't make a play on the ball. And then Blake
(33:07):
kill Can finally hits a terrible punt, right and so
and so that that gives you Mac Jones at the
twenty burst down. You get Mac Jones trying to force
the ball to Ricky Pearsol You're ready for it looks good.
And then listen to who beats you? Right, you talk
about Mac Jones, Jake Tongus eleven yards, sky more ten yards,
(33:30):
Jake Tongus again, and they get the penalty on Denzel Burke.
I hate that they're not showing the penalties anymore, by
the way, like at least let us see that it
was a terrible call before you don't show us anything, right,
Uh then then Kendrick Bourne, then Kendrick Bourne, then finally
(33:53):
Christian McCaffrey on the screen pass. But before that it
was like they they they had five plays were you
know what's the equivalent Tip Ryman makes a catch? Uh,
you know, not even like probably Exavier Weaver is where
(34:14):
Sky Moore is right, like in the system, you know,
Zay Jones makes two more cats Like the Niners, guys
that nobody counts on that nobody is worried about, made
plays and and your guys didn't. To your point, you
(34:35):
look at who they attacked. They attacked the safeties, uh,
Dadrian or a rabbit on one play, Buddha on a play,
Jayleen Thompson on two plays, and then the screen right
because they knew they were gonna pin theirs back try
to get sacked. It's just a great play called by
Kyle Shanahan. And and you go to yourself like, how
(34:58):
are we not ready for this? Like to your point,
like where why are we not ready for this? And
you know this is where the defense, Like you said,
giving up those nickel and dimes, those death by a
thousand cuts. That's where it hurts you because this was
the first game that they weren't playing for the win
with the touchdowns. They just needed a field goal, and
(35:20):
we saw the result. It was kind of effortless, right,
like they have no timeouts or no they they did
have a timeout. Sorry, they had one time out and
they didn't even need to take it. Jess like, well,
here's the other thing.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Why do you not force Eddy Pinero to think about
it for one more time? When they call the time
out right before the game winning field goal? You don't
need to try and ice it. So he kicks it
once call the time out. You've got him, Like, what
do you what are you going to do with those?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
You get? You get actually one next game, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Or does he does he get a does he get
does he get a cast? Those in for for an
extra lunch or a butt or.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Bid? Was like, you didn't use all your time outs
in this game, so here's.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
A hundred bucks, oh man, But yeah, I mean it
was good to see that, honestly, to see that the
cornerbacks held up that backs melt was able to play
the entire game. Uh that the that the the blend
of Denzel Burke and Key Troll Clark held up, Josh
Sweat adding pressure again, he's been good. Mac Wilson had
(36:35):
himself one heck of a game. And but so there's
lots of things to like there. But let's move on
to the other part that's not so great. Coming to
next and the Rise of Here podcasts are Cardinal's Talk
on the Web. Let's move on and discuss the next part,
which is injuries, James Connor and perhaps more that's coming
next Rise up.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
He read.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Back on the Rise of Here Podcasts are Cardinals Talk
on the Web. This the most important injury that happened
was James Conner season ending foot injury, which they said
was an ankle, but it turned out to be a foot. Apparently.
What do you think this does? What sort of impact
does it have? Do you think that maybe by giving
(37:18):
Trey Benson the bulk of things now, that there's the
possibility that the run game will become slightly more explosive
and that perhaps Benson will be a better runner, right,
And that's.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Kind of what you have to hope, And that's not
a shot at James Connor, but like, you know, you
have to look at it and be realistic. He had
been you know, unfortunately not James Connor through the through
the first couple of games. It's really hard to look
(37:55):
at how they have played and and and not think
that this could potentially help the explosiveness of the run game.
That being said, there's an emotional aspect of it that
(38:17):
is tough to overcome because he's so much more than
just you know, your lead running back. He's a captain
of the team. He's kind of that emotional support guy.
You saw the devastation on the field and then postgame, right,
I mean, the amount of outpouring from his teammates and
(38:40):
from those in the NFL community. I mean that just
kind of speaks to who James Connor is and everything
he's done. So that's that's more the question, like how
how are you gonna not to be cheesy, but you know,
rise up and kind of step up and show what
(39:00):
you're doing and what you have when you lose such
an important piece of your team and of your franchise.
So we'll see how that all kind of turns out.
Because you know, right now, that's kind of a big
question overall when you say, like who is this team
(39:24):
and what's their identity, because we haven't really seen anything
that that tells us that they're I don't want to
say that they care, because that's you know, that's that's disrespectful,
but they just they seem to follow Gannon's lead of
kind of serial killer ice cold, like no emotion in
(39:45):
situations like hey, we're just onto the next one, like
we gotta, we gotta get better, and we gottah, we gotta,
you know, fix the the issues that we have.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
And and.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
That works to Dent at times.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You know what I wonder, you know, Gray has not.
Benson has not been Like early last year, he wasn't
a very decisive runner, then kind of got better as
the year went on. So far this year, he hasn't
been great about hitting holes. He's been trying to bounce
(40:24):
things more, and he does have the only two explosive
runs that the running backs have. But at the same time,
he was also playing in a role that was new
to him because he was in that third down role.
Now he was getting some like some spell carries, but
he was playing it in Marty Mercado's role, and I wonder.
I wonder, not to say that, I wonder if things
(40:47):
will settle down a little bit for him when he
gets that, because he's he's gonna be Trey's gonna be
the James Connor now. He's gonna be the James Connor now.
And perhaps being in that role as runner runner will
help him be better at the efficiency where he knows
(41:08):
he has to go. He's got to take the two
three yards and then he's gonna bust with here and there.
And then putting Demarcado back in that third down role.
Granted he did have the drop, but then you get
Demarcado in there for those draw plays that turn into
big games, because that's the type of runner he is.
He's better in pass pro. He's got pretty good hands.
(41:29):
If that will settle things a little bit more than
Trey being in that new role, which oddly enough, we
never saw him do in the preseason, right see Trey
doing that role then, so they upped his usage, but
put him in a new role that he probably wasn't
(41:51):
as familiar with doing, put him in that starting role.
I'm not saying that suddenly the running game is going
to be fixed, but perhaps by putting him in what
is probably a more familiar role for himself, putting de
Mercado back in a role that is familiar for him
and then mix it in a little bit of Bam
Knight to perhaps I don't know if if if the
(42:13):
de Mercado will by default now do the full Tray
Benson role, or if they'll sprinkle a little bit of
a bit a little bit of Bam, then you've got
you've got a different look to that running attack. And
that's kind of what I'm hoping to see. But James
Connor getting you know, boss for the season. That that's tragic.
That's one of the guys that you really hoped that
(42:34):
you you that didn't happen to. Now there's another injury
on the offense. There's another injury that you have to
concern be concerned yourself of, and that's because the Cardinals
signed Demontri Jacobs from the practice squad, a guy probably
not most of you haven't heard of. He's He's a
twenty twenty four undrafted rookie guy tackle and they signed
(42:55):
him to the roster. Paris Johnson has the knee. Apparently
Kelvin Beacham's got a knee problem. You know what it
kind of sounds like, and we'll talk more about that
in our preview show. Josh Fryer's looks like he's going
to get a start if they signed Now how they
have ten offensive linemen on the if they signed Jacobs
to the active roster, you have to wonder about, at
(43:17):
least for this week, the availability of both Paris and Beacham.
And you might be facing the Seahawks either with an
undrafted rookie at left ticker tackle and Josh Fryer, or
they moved Jonah Williams over for a game to left
tackle and let Friar plays more natural position at right tackle.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, I mean, isn't that the meme?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The dog sitting in the fire. This is fine, So.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Against the team. Now, we're got to talk Seahawks because
the Seahawks have been they've been they've been good. But
we'll talk about that on the next show. Anything else
of notes other than my goodness, the forty nine ers?
What did they do to like, what are they what
debt are they paying? Where they have all these injuries?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I mean it's not for one in a Super Bowl,
that's for sure, So I mean it makes it tough man,
I mean this is a this is a you know,
a violent game. We talked about it the week before
and and now you've you've had a game where the
Cardinals lose, you know, a very talented piece and very
(44:36):
important player on their roster, and James Connor and the
forty nine ers somehow counter that and lose their best
or second best defense. I mean like, well, I mean you.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Could whether he's your best with Fred Warner, he might
be probably the most important.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well that's what I was gonna say. It's almost like
it's almost to the extent if the Cardinals lost Tyler
Trey McBride, right, like, you lose one of those two,
you go, well, hats off, gigs, right, like, we'll see
you in uh, we'll see you in January and start
doing draft breakdown stuff. So that sounds that that's the
(45:16):
hard part, but I mean that that'll be the thing
is is how I mean they drafted mikel Williams. He
had a decent showing against the Cardinals. Uh yeah, got hurt.
But you know, overall, this is just this is a
game that it was, It was emotionally draining, and then
(45:37):
the fallout is even worse, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
And then they have to play on a short week.
We'll talk more about that on our next show. So
with that, we'll wrap up this edition of the Rise
of Here podcast, Best our Cardinals talk on the web
on this short week. We still have two more shows.
I've got Cole Muskrove coming on from Seahawks Wire and
Seth and I will do a preview show. We're gonna
get this all packed in into days. Is the Cardinals
will play the Seattle Seahawks Thursday night, which gives us
(46:04):
insinceias he was playing on Friday night. This gives me
kind of a a no stress football weekend. I can
still watch football, but it's there's no investment in the
in the weekend of football because I will have overly
invested Thursday and Friday night.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
And with that, so that that's Sefcox. I'm just rude.
Thanks for listening. As always, we'll be back again, Sued.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Thanks for listening to the latest edition of the Rise
Up Sea Red podcast. Listen to previous episodes and subscribe
to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitch your Radio, Audio, Boom,
or many other podcast platforms so shows are delivered directly
to your mobile device. Please give the show a five
star ready and always support the sponsors who support the show.
(46:49):
We'll be back soon for the best hour of Cardinals
talk on the web, Rise up Red Sea, b red
Sea Red, and of course Rise up Sea Red.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Ves it lives, It.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Lives, it
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Lives it
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