What Went Right/Wrong in Cardinals loss vs. Rams

The Arizona Cardinals had an absolute slugfest with the Los Angeles Rams at home but ultimately ended up with a loss. Here's what went right and wrong for them.

Author:
Richie Bradshaw
Publish date:
Sep 25, 2022 8:55 PM EDT

In this story:

Arizona Cardinals

Los Angeles Rams

Calling the Arizona Cardinals loss to the Los Angeles Rams frustrating would be a massive understatement. The Cardinals were a maddening team that would go from shades of brilliance to complete incompetence.

There was simply a lack of consistency that, if it existed, would have won them the game otherwise.

There are certainly some bright spots to recognize here, with many of them having the ability to be building blocks moving forward for wins. However, the negatives are huge red flags that require immediate attention, or things could get ugly moving forward.

Let's take a look at what went right and what went wrong for the Arizona Cardinals in week three.

What went right:

Marquise Brown was masterful in this game, setting a career-high in receptions with 14. The connection he has with Kyler Murray has been as good as advertised this year through three games.
Hollywood has proven more often than not this year to be a reliable target for his former college teammate and has had little issue adjusting to a more pass-heavy offense than he was accustomed to in Baltimore. In no other game this year has this been more emphasized than against the Los Angeles Rams this week.
Brown was repeatedly finding soft spots in the defense and rarely let Murray down. This game should solidify Brown's value to this offense. Brown now has 24 receptions in his first three games with Arizona, which is a career-best.

It wasn't always pretty, but the Cardinals defense certainly stepped up to the occasion this week against a dynamic Rams offense. While LA took advantage of tons of screen passes, Arizona did a great job swarming to the ball consistently and keeping the offense in check.
If you take away Cooper Kupp's 20-yard end around, the Cardinals truly played great sideline-to-sideline defense, especially Zaven Collins. Collins felt like a blur when the plays bounced outside and saved several big play opportunities from happening for Arizona's defense.
This was anything but a perfect performance, but Arizona should take plenty of pride in how it handled any plays outside the hashes and more importantly the hustle the defense showed. That kind of discipline goes a long ways, so celebrate this one, Cardinals players.

While the Cardinals offense took quite a while to get going, when it finally did it was efficient to say the least. Following several three-and-outs for the offense, the unit got settled in and had three drives of 16+ plays and a fourth that went 12 plays. Overall, Arizona convincingly won the time of possession battle with 33:56.
That kind of clock control allowed the Cardinals offense to dictate the pace of the game. At one point in time, Arizona's defense was doing a fine job of containing the Rams offense and it likely has a lot to do with the amount of rest of offense continually gave them during those long drives. It's certainly a recipe for success for both sides of the ball.
The Cardinals also managed to commit zero turnovers during the game. it doesn't get much better than that. If Arizona could've gotten into the endzone at least once, but preferably more, you could say the offense was arguably not at fault for this loss...

What went wrong:

The easiest way to lose football games is to not score touchdowns. Well, that's exactly what happened to the Arizona Cardinals against the Los Angeles Rams.
It certainly wasn't for a lack of opportunity, as the Cardinals had several long drives that ultimately ended with the team having to settle for field goals. Even one touchdown could have changed the nature of this game, but that was simply not meant to be.
Against a team like the Rams who feature a high-powered offense, you simply cannot afford to not score touchdowns. Even on a day where the defense held LA's offense in check with just 20 points, the offense couldn't hold up its end of the bargain. This is perhaps the biggest failure the team experienced this week.

The Cardinals' defense was playing so strong in the first half of the game, with the exception of the screen pass. There was perhaps no bigger weakness shown by the Cardinals' defense against the Rams than when LA ran screen-plays. The Rams consistently beat the Cardinals with the underneath passing game and found next to no solutions for it throughout the game.
More frustrating was the overall collapse of the run defense in the second half. Arizona had given up just 20 rushing yards in the first half of the game before allowing the rams to topple the century mark and north of 5.0 YPC. It was the ultimate downfall of this team.
While the defense did force a crucial fumble at its own one-yard line to keep the LA from turning it into a three-possession game, Arizona took their sweet time going down the field and ultimately cost them the game. Perhaps a complete game effort from the defense could've swayed the scales in their favor.

The Rams absolutely capped the Cardinals' run game to 70-yards on 21 carries. The run game was also kept out of the end zone despite numerous opportunities inside the ten- or even five-yard line. For an offense that scored 23 touchdowns on the ground a year ago, that is obviously less than ideal.
The Cardinals do have three rushing touchdowns on the season, but two of them came last week against the Las Vegas Raiders. While those obviously were incredibly timely and important touchdowns, surely Arizona would've wanted the same success this week.
Instead, the Cardinals could hardly move the ball on the ground throughout the game. James Conner recorded just 39 rushing yards on 13 attempts, with a long of 12. Murray didn't take off until the fourth quarter and ended the game with 8-yards on two carries. The Cardinals are definitely a stronger team when the run game is flowing, and without it they struggle. This was the case this week, as well.

This is definitely a tough loss for the Cardinals, but there are some bright spots to focus on. Plenty of work needs to be done moving forward, as there are still plenty of good defenses remaining on the schedule. Next week the Cardinals travel to Charlotte, Carolina to play the Panthers. Here's hoping the offense clicks more then.

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