LAST CHANCE: Arizona Cardinals Offense MUST Target Marvin Harrison Jr and Trey McBride MORE

LAST CHANCE: Arizona Cardinals Offense MUST Target Marvin Harrison Jr and Trey McBride MORE

How to fix the Cardinals. I feel like I’ve done this before. Now we’re in code red mode. Let’s discuss. [Music] You are Locked On Cardinals, your daily Arizona Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Locked on Cardinals. Alex Clancy here. You know what’s going on, man. We’re in code red mode. And I don’t mean that like, oh, Cardinals are wearing red. That’s cute. No, no. We’re far beyond anything with any sort of semblance of cute with what’s going on with this damn team. Um, so today is going to be uh how to fix the Cardinals to save your job. How about that? Um, I’m going to do that immediately. Uh, and this is their last chance. I’ll talk about that in the second segment. And if Kyler Murray misses time, I’m going to tell you what should happen and what it should be constituted as. Uh first, a little piece of personal information. Um this is my eighth anniversary today. Eight years doing this show. Um it’s been a long fun road and I get to talk about sports every day. when I pivoted away from sports media five years ago, sports radio and I, you know, got a big boy job and I, you know, do this as well. Um, I thought that I was going to like lose the real passion for it because I wasn’t doing a 4-hour show every day. But I find that I didn’t really find my passion even though I was 10 years in until this was my only focus. And this is every this is the best part of my day every day. So, thank you to everybody who’s made it possible. Um, for those that don’t know, I’m gonna take one more minute and be selfish here. For those that don’t know how I got this job, I applied I was looking to maybe move out of state. I was working radio. I wasn’t necessarily getting the opportunities that I wanted. And uh, I applied to a Utah Jazz internship. And the reason why I applied there was because I saw David Lockach, who is the play-by-play guy for the Utah Jazz. His personal email was attached to the Indeed thing. So, I applied and he emailed me back. He goes, “You’re way overqualified for this. This is not what you’d like.” I’m like, “Well, I just wanted to put my resume out there to somebody who’s in the in the industry somewhere and uh kind of outside the box.” He’s like, “Well, I’m starting this podcast. I’ve started this podcast platform and it’s really just in its somewhat early days and we need an Arizona Cardinals guy. I’m like, okay. So, that was it. And uh you know, 2500 days later, here we are. Just it’s just crazy. It’s just crazy. So, anyways, thank you to everybody every day or from day one when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in the podcast world um to now where I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing in the podcast world, but I can fake it better. Um, thanks for hanging out. It means a lot. Um, you know what also would mean a lot? Marvin Harrison Jr. and training bride getting 10 targets each on Sunday. This is how you save everybody’s job. This is how you save everybody’s job. And the crazy part is it’s so simple. All of this could have been avoided. Aside from, you know, the taking the foot off the gas, put all the cliches you want to use for the Cardinals, getting a lead, and then just floaty dancing your way through the rest of it. All of this could have been avoided, and it can all be saved in one game. So, now that that already hasn’t happened already, 20 targets minimum combined between Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison Jr., Figure it out. Save your job. Figure it out. Save your job. both of you, Jonathan Ganon and and uh Drew Petting because here’s the thing, the uncomfortable truth and the biggest I I I don’t like the terminology red flag as people use it for everything. This was a massive one in the presser when asked about the last series when the Cardinals were up 2119 and the game was all they needed was a couple first downs to end the game. after that crazy, you know, circus interception fumble. Cardinals forgot to use their hands or forgot how to use their hands. Tyler Lock a touchdown. It’s like, okay, so it was second and nine and you run the ball on third and nine. Jonathan Ganon didn’t like the play call. Drew Pson didn’t like the play call. Then why call the damn play? Does Kyler Murray have any have any option to check out of it? No. Okay. So, what the hell are we doing here, guys? Are you trying to lose? because that is lunacy behavior. Yeah, nobody likes it. Let’s do it. Let’s try it out. That was the most scared series I’ve ever seen from this coaching staff and I’ve seen a lot. And on top of it all, they can still fix it. All you need to do, hold on to your hats. Anybody a drummer? Drum roll. Throw the ball to your best players. Throw the ball to Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride. Just do it. Do it. Do it. Four catches, 98 yards for Marvin on five targets. What if it was eight for 150 with nine targets or 10 targets or 12 targets? I don’t care. Throw the throw him open. You know what? Throw the scheme out and just let Kyler Murray go play football. Try it. Try it. And if they if they fail and they fail miserably, who cares? They are walking the plank and they have the tools to stop it and they are not stopping it. Imagine looking at this roster with Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride and saying you can’t figure out how to how to score more points. Throw the damn ball to him. Throw Trey McBride the ball. I don’t care if Kyler gets intercepted three times. Force it. Force the issue. Allow the guys to go up and get it. Throw 50/50 balls. I don’t give a rip. Go let Trey McBride and Marv do what they do. And yeah, now I fully trust Marvin Harrison Jr. It happens overnight sometimes with young wide receivers. The catch against Seattle was all I needed to see. And then we saw one where he saved Kyler Murray from the interception this past week and it was almost a touchdown. Throw the ball to him. 20 plus targets. If there aren’t 20 plus targets thrown combined to Marvin Trey McBride on Sunday in Indie, break it up. They won’t. But how far is too far? And I’m not one to be like, “Oh, they’re going to get blown out in Indie, so let’s not even talk about the chance of them winning.” Because first of all, it’s not fair to you. Second of all, even though it seems to be the most rational outcome to end up on, look at what happened last week. We’re living in whatever the opposite of La La Land is. We’re living in hell. hell with rational conventional wisdom and thought surrounding this team. Well, it’s been like that forever. Not with expectations tied to it. That’s the clear difference. That’s the clear difference. And I know it’s a weird feeling because we haven’t experienced this before in a while. We haven’t experienced this in a while. We’re living in hell hell. So, there’s that. Listen, Drew Pson, if you want to save your job, throw the ball to your best players. Run less. Make Kyler Murray be the reason you win or lose because you got to figure out, if they haven’t already, if he’s the dude in 2026. I’m sick of this. I’m sick of it. It’s institutional failure from the top down. Coaches down. I’m not ready to look at Monte Austin for yet. Some are. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. Locked on Cardinals, your team every day. This is their last chance. What does that look like and what does it mean on either side? I’ll discuss it next. This episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by Price Picks. Um, every day we make decisions like me showing up to do this damn show. Maybe I should be checked in some. Um, but on Price Picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don’t miss the excitement of the football season with prize picks where it’s good to be right. Playing prize picks is such a fun simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Josh Allen’s passing yard or Saquon Barkley’s rushing for a touchdown and you’re in the game with the Cardinals. Good luck. But say you want to head over to prize picks more or less projections in the indie game. Whether it’s Jonathan Taylor rushing yards or to score a touchdown, Kyler Murray rushing yards or to throw for over 200 yards, whatever it is, Price Picks has you covered. Download the Prize Pix app today. Use code locked in NFL to get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code lock NFL for 50 bucks in lineups after your first $5 lineup prize picks. It’s good to be right. Please go to the YouTube channel, search lock in Arizona Cardinals. Hit that subscribe button, man. You know the drill. Uh shattered my most watched video. Uh the instant reaction video. I guess y’all are glutton for punishment, huh? It’s just how did we get here? Like these aren’t like laughs of like my mental capacity about to break. It’s just it’s idiocy. It’s just like how how is this where we are? Even the wins you couldn’t enjoy this year so far. Even the wins. It was only a matter of time before you get in a situation again you’re going to lose because they’re NFL players on the other side of the ball. So, um I’ve gotten a lot of comments about the defense, how I’m giving him a pass. I’m going to highlight that tomorrow. Okay? Uh because I do want to talk about the topics that you want to hear on top of obviously the laundry list of stuff. I’ll never have, you know, enough to talk about, but I want to highlight the defense. I’ll do that tomorrow first segment. Um if I don’t get a guest, I might get another beaten down soul who covers the team uh to commiserate with. This is their last chance. Last week wasn’t their last chance. Last week ushered in the chance of people losing their jobs. It wasn’t there before and it shouldn’t have been. I know that they had two walk-off losses and now three, but it shouldn’t have been. Like it’s easy to say, “Oh, fire this person. Fire this person. Trade this person. Fire this person.” It’s like, “Okay, so what do you do after that? You punt on the season?” Yeah, it’s way too early for that. It’s way too early for that. But after losing in the way that they did, um, it expedites exponentially the this is the last chance storyline. This wasn’t here. I I said before the season started like there’s no way nothing’s happening. There there’s no way anything’s happening in the middle of the season if it’s not if they’re not the dudes they’ll handle at the end of the year and load up on offense like they loaded up on defense this past offseason and go go you know uh choose that route. I mean it’s like so many things had to happen for us to get to where we are now watching this team and lo and behold they figured it out. It took just over just over a month and we are in the zone of anything is on the table aside from like they’re not Jonathan G is not getting fired. Okay. He’s just not he’s not and I don’t think he should yet. Like the thing with Margie Marcato, please can we just pretend or not pretend that he’s the first head coach to light up a player who made a catastrophic mistake on the sideline? I’m sure he hugged the hell out of him in the locker room afterwards. Like this is not like, oh that’s bad. Oh, that’s fireball. Relax. What are we doing here? It’s a head football coach. You’re in the heat of p. You’re in the heat of passion in the middle of a game. That was though, in my humblest of humble opinions, the first action of a man realizing how grave the situation is. And the situation wasn’t grave before week five. It wasn’t grave. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t like, oh no, everything is on the table until this past Sunday’s loss. It wasn’t. And it was a quick jump. And this isn’t like this isn’t speaking I’m not speaking hyperbolically. That’s Darren. Is that a word? H. It’s got to be a word. Hyperbolically. It’s got to be a word. If it’s not like foundationalized, that’s not a word. should be if Homer Simpsonis isms are in the dictionary. Why is foundationalized and hyperbolically not? Anyways, it went from zero to 100 in a couple of hours and 100% rightfully so. 100% rightfully so. And this isn’t, you know, doomsday only, but this is their last chance going to Indie at home against Green Bay. If they can split, you fight to live another day. But if they lose the way the Raiders lost to the Colts this past week, it was 40 to six. Gino had multiple interceptions. He looked terrible. The offensive line couldn’t block anybody. The guard’s offensive line is better than the Raiders offensive offensive line. How do you come back to the valley with everything still intact? That’s the question. That’s where the last chance comes into play. And that’s why last week wasn’t a fireball offense. It wasn’t, but it brought out the silver platter for this week to be. if they lose, it’s like, do it again and we’re going to have to go our separate ways. Do it again and we’re going to have to go our separate ways. Uh it’s um it’s not a great situation to be in. Okay? And while this may seem like I’m a broken record trying to grasp its straws of positivity, this is just a factual statement. They have the ability to force the issue out of scheme and just force the ball to their best players and see what happens. When Kendrick Bourne has 10 receptions for 140 yards in a game against a very, very good Rams team, why are there excuses as to why Trey and Marv can’t get the ball? And this is a Kyler Murray thing, too. I’m not saying this is a Drew Petting thing by any stretch. I would give Kyler Murray more blame than Drew Petting this past week. Not because he fell on the ball, didn’t fall on the ball. Uh, he left the game with a foot and came back. So the people say, “Well, he’s hobbled, so maybe he shouldn’t be playing.” No, no, no. We can’t revision his history this uh he was looked at as being soft for ever. So the fact that he came back and tried to stick it out, I would take that. I You take it. You take a quarterback coming back. Uh it wasn’t a great, you know, result at the end, but you can’t fault him for coming back and you can’t fault them for playing it, but this is without a doubt their last chance. lockdown Cardinals, your team every day. If Kyler Murray misses time, this adds a completely different element that I discussed in the preseason, but I’ll discuss it more in depth next. And I don’t even know if I’m ready to have this conversation yet, but here we go. This episode of Locked on Cardinals is brought to you by Mazda. Mazda crafts cars for those who do more than simply move. We deliver confidence with every ride with more IHS top safety pick awards than anyone else. Uh from footwork to breath work, athletes sweat all the details and Mazda brings this same attention to how we craft every model. You can feel Japanese craftsmanship in every detail from the metallic accents to available Napa leather upholstery. And with all-wheel drive standard in every crossover SUV, you can drive with confidence through almost any season. You can make everyday drives feel like anything but. from smooth handling to intuitive controls. Like our players, we sweat every detail because when you make every move count, impossible becomes irrelevant. Mazda move and being moved. So pulling the band-aid, ripping the pulling the band-aid off, that seems pretty like dainty. You rip a band-aid off. Ripping the band-aid off. If Kyler Murray misses time, I don’t care if they win or lose those games. That’s bad at the end of and that’s bad for the future of Kyler Murray with the Arizona Cardinals. Um, and on top of that, if they win games while he’s hurt, that’s the worst for putting into question who the future quarterback of this team is going to be because it’s not going to be Kyler Murray. That’s that’s the interesting conversation to have here. Like if he doesn’t play on Sunday when the team needs him the most, that’s bad. That’s bad because then things will will start to crumble. You know, like Brassette has been great. Okay. Starting quarterbacks miss time. Lamar Jackson’s missed the last is miss missed last week. He’s probably going to miss this week. That’s what reports say. Joe Burrow hasn’t been healthy since 1987. Like quarterbacks miss time. But when you’re in this situation and everything is on the line, you’re going on the road after one of the most, if not the most embarrassing losses Arizona Cardinal organization has had in decades, and that’s saying a lot. And you missed the game for me. And I’m not saying it’s it’s a death nail. It’s a terrible look. It’s a terrible look. Um, it’s a terrible look. And listen, like these guys are human beings, okay? So, it’s easy for me to say sitting in an office like, “Oh, you got to play.” Well, what if my foot is throbbing to the point where I can’t walk? Okay. Um, that sucks. And I I’m not joking at all. Like, that’s you never want anybody to get injured. Anybody ever. And it becomes the too little too late thing where this isn’t just in a vacuum about week six in 2025. This is about everything before it culminating into this year where everything is on the line. And that’s not again I’m not speaking like fantastically about things. This is what it is. This is the year where everything matters and this is what the buildup has been for. And this is why every walk-off loss is like a dagger to the heart because it’s like, well, this wasn’t supposed to go this way. And for the the Boobirds are just like, yeah, this is this Cardinals. This is always how it’s supposed to be. Look at what’s happened. These are rational moves that have been made to make this roster better. You can’t deny that. And if Kyler Murray after having a good performance for you know a couple quarters and then like we’ve seen he doesn’t play on Sunday just a bad look because here’s the thing man it’s an intoxicating mistress seeing the by-week two weeks away I guess three weeks away three weeks away sorry it’s an intoxicating mistress just like, “Oh, well, if they can somehow eek out a win without Kyl and he’s healthy in week nine and then you can go make that push.” He’s intoxicating mistress, but the Cardinals are two and three and that absolutely cannot happen. So, if he misses time, even though it is irrational to say with all the buildup that I said about, you know, it’s obviously you don’t want every anybody to get injured, it’s not about just this foot injury. It’s about everything that’s happened up until this point, injury or otherwise. And it looks like, and this sounds irrational, and I’m sorry, but it would be him giving up on this team. The Cardinals need him to show up. This would be giving up outside of him being in like a walking boot. Obviously, if he can’t play, he can’t play. And also, that’s still a strike against him. That’s still a strike against him. And I know it’s irrational and I know it’s not fair, but unfair went out the window after they lost to the Tennessee Titans last week. the worstc case scenario for Kyler Murray and this is I’m just saying this like this isn’t you know I give Ben Garcia the you know uh member of the Cardinal squad show as well I give him a lot of crap where it’s like well what if this happens I’m like dude there’s no like let’s see Aliens at State Farm Stadium first then we can you know then we can entertain that because Alien City in the stadium has a much better chance of happening than this but the worst case scenario for Kyler Murray is if he does miss Sunday and the Cardinals offense looks electric with Jacobe Brassette That’s the worst case scenario. And that’s not the same as saying, “Oh, if Nathan Peterman was the backup quarterback or whatever, like that.” No, no. Like, you bet’s been very, very solid slash very good at times throughout, you know, the course of his career, even recently. That would be the worst case scenario. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Um, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But to bring this in for a landing, if Kyler Murray misses time, regardless of how the Cardinals fare, it’s not like, oh, so he misses time and they lose by 30 two games back to back. It’s like, okay, well, uh, when he was healthy, they could barely beat Carolina and lost to Tennessee, even though he was hobbled down down the stretch. Shouldn’t have been that close. They’re not calling just run plays once they’re up 21-3. Amari Marcato’s touchdown dropped. It shouldn’t have mattered. But this offense continues to just be listless. No emotion. It’s not just a play call. And Kyler Murray definitely has a massive say in this. Obviously, he’s the quarterback of the team. You hope that he’s healthy for him as a human being first, you know, and then as the Arizona Cardinals quarterback, you hope that they figure out this offensive stigma that’s been going on, I guess, period. I don’t really know. I don’t really think we have to add a time thing there. Throw the ball to Marvin Trey 10 times. I’ve been saying it for months. Throw the ball to your best players and just see what happens. Well, okay. If you lose by 30, okay, who cares? It couldn’t get worse than it is right now with the look of the offense. Maybe the offense that we saw in the fourth quarter against Seattle is what will start this game. And maybe there’s going to be help wanted posters outside of State Farm Stadium at the end of Sunday if things don’t go close to plan where the Cardinals have a chance to win at the end of the game. Knockdown Cardinals, your team every day. Again, thank you for making these last eight years um possible. It’s uh it’s been an amazing amazing thing to show up every day and and do this with you and yeah really appreciate it because remember without you there is no me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

In this hard-hitting episode, Alex Clancy dives deep into the Arizona Cardinals’ recent struggles, offering a no-nonsense analysis of their offensive woes and proposing a deceptively simple solution. Clancy argues that the key to turning the team’s fortunes around lies in maximizing the talents of standout players Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride.

The podcast takes a critical look at the play-calling decisions of head coach Jonathan Gannon and offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, questioning their strategy in pivotal game moments. Alex doesn’t pull punches as he examines how these choices have impacted the team’s performance and what needs to change moving forward.

With crucial matchups against the Indianapolis Colts and Green Bay Packers on the horizon, Alex frames these games as potential watershed moments for the Cardinals organization. He explores how the outcomes could shape the team’s trajectory for the remainder of the season and beyond.

The episode also tackles the elephant in the room: Kyler Murray’s potential absence due to injury. Alex dissects the implications of playing without their star quarterback, considering how it might affect the team’s immediate performance and long-term planning.

Throughout the podcast, Alex emphasizes the urgent need for offensive improvement, suggesting that the jobs of key figures in the organization could be at stake if significant progress isn’t made soon. He offers bold predictions and doesn’t shy away from discussing the potential consequences of continued underperformance.

Listeners can expect a passionate, in-depth analysis of the Cardinals’ current situation, complete with Clancy’s trademark straight-talking style and insightful commentary. This episode promises to be a must-listen for Cardinals fans and NFL enthusiasts alike, offering a compelling look at a team at a critical juncture in their season. Let’s discuss.

The Best Daily Arizona Cardinals Podcast. Host Alex Clancy (@ClancysCorner) take an unbiased approach covering the biggest Cards stories.

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