After last season’s 13-3 finish and NFC Championship bid, the Arizona Cardinals had high hopes for 2016. But the year hasn’t gone as planned for Arizona. Following their latest disappointing loss — the Cardinals fell to the Atlanta Falcons 38-19 — head coach Bruce Arians made it clear that he is fed up with the Arizona offense, and particularly all of the receivers who aren’t named Larry Fitzgerald.
Bruce Arians has no idea how to fix the Cardinals’ passing game
Arizona has the same personnel in place from last year, but it’s just not working.
Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
“Very frustrating, and you have got to start with yourself and see if you are asking guys to do things they can’t do,” Arians said. “I don’t think asking someone to catch a ball is one of them.”
Fitzgerald, at age 33, is easily Arizona’s most reliable receiver. The future Hall of Famer is on pace for a career season, with 78 catches for 802 yards and five touchdowns. He contributed four catches for 53 yards in the Cardinals’ loss to Atlanta, mixing in dramatic one-handed receptions with veteran savvy that let Arizona narrow the Falcons’ lead to three points just before the half.
Michael Floyd, on the other hand, is in a contract season, and he said prior to this year that he understood it was on him to earn a new deal in Arizona.
“Basically the ball’s in my court,” Floyd said, according to ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss. “How I perform is all up to me.”
Floyd hasn’t lived up to expectations this season, partly because he has been battling a hamstring injury, but the Cardinals can’t get by with Fitzgerald as the only viable receiver.
Cardinals general manager Steve Keim noted that some of the mistakes Floyd has made over the years continue to happen. He also has failed to make up for it with the big plays he’s pulled off in seasons past.
“I know he’s disappointed and frustrated,” Keim said. “In the past, there’s been some inconsistencies, whether it was dropped balls or other things that came with his game. At the same time he made big plays to compensate for that. That’s the one area where, quite frankly, we haven’t seen this year.”
Floyd had a key drop on a fourth-and-7 early in the fourth quarter, which gave the Falcons the ball on their own 40. Atlanta took over and drove for a touchdown to take a 31-13 lead.
It’s not just Floyd who’s vexing Arians. David Johnson, a running back, is ahead of every receiver except Fitzgerald with 613 receiving yards on 55 catches. John Brown has been hindered by injury this season, and left the loss to Atlanta with a hamstring injury, but he remains ahead of Floyd with 31 catches for 399 yards this season. Floyd has just 28 catches for 410 yards.
The problem for Arians is that he isn’t sure how to fix the passing game.
“If I had that answer, I would have fixed it by now, because they have struggled all year and John Brown is as healthy as he could have been and started to have a big game and boom, he’s out,” Arians said. “Mike [Floyd] -- I don’t know. We have tried to do everything we could to fix it. J.J. [Nelson] dropped a couple of balls.”
The Falcons’ 32nd-ranked passing defense should have been an opportunity for the Cardinals’ receivers to shine, but they didn’t.
On the Cardinals’ first drive on Sunday, Carson Palmer and his receivers made the Falcons look like the worst pass defense in the league. Palmer’s first two passes went to tight end Jermaine Gresham for 15 yards, and then John Brown for 19 yards.
Arizona rolled over Atlanta’s defense for 75 yards, and scored on a 1-yard Palmer pass to Gresham to take an early lead. Yet in the second half, the offense went stagnant, and as the Falcons extended their lead, Arizona was forced to pass the ball. The Cardinals managed just 109 yards total over those 30 minutes.
Last season, the Cardinals had the second-best passing offense in the league, and they have all of the same personnel. The results of the passing game, however, are quite different, and it’s part of the reason Arizona is 4-6-1.
“What would have been a strength for the offense this year has been a weakness,” Arians said.
Arizona came into this season with their sights set on the Super Bowl. At 4-6-1, the Cardinals are trailing the NFC West-leading Seattle Seahawks by three games. Unless the passing offense can get back on track, this season will continue to be a disappointment for the Cardinals.
See More:
