Baldy Breakdown: Cardinals Looked ‘DEAD’ in Blowout Loss to Rams | Where Arizona Goes From Here

Baldy Breakdown: Cardinals Looked ‘DEAD’ in Blowout Loss to Rams | Where Arizona Goes From Here

That made no sense. That was the worst. That was the worst, man. The worst of even the other two. Yeah. Well, I mean that I have no idea what they were doing on defense. They played a dime a dime defense against two tight ends. Nobody does that. You got a rookie Cody Simon playing linebacker out there. Like they just ran. There’s a reason why Blake Corm had the best game of his career. Like I’ve never seen a defense like that. They didn’t take anything away. All right, I’ll intro this Bo. All right, counting down in three, two, one. Lock it in. This will be a good one. Johnny venerable B Brock PX Cardinals with a guy Baldy. Brian Baldinger. Let’s jump right into it. Baldi, these have been tough days covering this team. Was was Sunday against a team right now and the LA Rams that could very well be the best in the NFL. Was this the crescendo for Jonathan Ganon’s Cardinals being dead for the season? Well, they looked like they were dead. They played like they were dead. The scheme was dead. Like it was it was like they got beat at every position. Every single one of those defensive linemen that the Rams have drafted in the last three years beat your offensive line. Whether it was Paris Johnson or John Gaines, it didn’t make a difference. Verse Young, Kobe Turner, they all won. That’s up front. Blake Corm has been the backup to Kairen um since he got here last year. He’s never run the ball like that. I don’t know what they were doing on defense. They played a shell defense. I don’t know what they were defending, but because all they did, Matt Stafford at the end of that game, he could have just hung that uniform up back in his locker. It didn’t have one stain on it. It didn’t He didn’t get hit. He didn’t get touched. Like it was it was it was horrible. Like they they got whipped on I as bad as you can get whipped on both sides of the ball. And I’m not sugar I can’t sugarcoat this because then I’m not telling the truth. Like anybody that would watch that, if I don’t know if uh if Klayas Campbell was sitting next to me right now, we’re watching this. I like Klayas, man. Like, can anybody get off a block? Can anybody can anybody beat a one-on-one? Nobody did. So, you get you give Stafford that kind of time like he’ll hit Puka like he did. It didn’t matter who it was. Yeah, it was a it was it was a tough watch. It absolutely was. And here’s a defensive first coach and Jonathan Ganon and Nick Rollis who’s shown at least in almost two three seasons as a DC that that he can call a defense. What kind of stood out to you? I mean, he said he didn’t like the plan obviously afterwards and I don’t think anybody would like the plan, but what did you see? Was it a mix of guys just giving up and and just a poor scheme? Well, they I I don’t think they have enough players. I mean, you know, Cody Simon’s playing middle linebacker and they’re playing a dime linebacker because I don’t know, you know, they they move Xavian back in there and and Owen was in there for a little bit. They try to go like they try to reduce the front a little bit. They don’t have the players up front to do it. They got pushed around pretty good. But like, you know, they got Boot up there like he’s just blitzing and there’s no there’s no gap control. There’s nothing like if you’re going to play this shell, you’re going to say, “Okay, the Rams are going to have to run the ball and we’re going to make make them bleed slow, but we won’t give up anything over our head.” So, you know, you’re going to hit all the underneath routes that they did to Devonte and Puka and in the group. Like, I don’t understand that def I’ve never seen like I understand playing a dime if it’s a minute 20 to go and they got to go 80 yards. Okay, let’s let’s play the perimeter. Like, if they run, we’ll we’ll limit the run. Um, but I don’t understand that on first and 10 or second and eight. Like I don’t understand the design of the defense at all. Like it I’ve never seen that before. Baldi, you know, they they’ve had ample time to fix this. 27 draft picks in three off seasons, three full free agency periods. We like the players. I mean, we were told these players coming out of school like co Cody Simon, Ohio State, Darius Robinson. You get Dvin Tomlinson. We haven’t called his name once this year. I I I the you the f the closer we get to the end of the season is this is just coaching messaging not resonating with players. Well I I you know the scheme didn’t help him like I don’t like they didn’t challenge anybody you know and so like is that what the the game plan was you know not to you usually go in there all right we’re going to make you know we’re going to attack Matt Stafford and make him beat us like throwing quickly or from his back like something they didn’t that didn’t work. They they gave him these run lanes with no run fits so that Blake and Kirn could go anywhere they wanted to go. And then the goal line defense like I mean just something as basic as goal line defense. You saw Blake run for two yards and Kiran like you’ve got the middle layer of defense all two yards in the end zone. like you’re defending the end zone and then they’re not le they’re not like charging like I understand if that’s your initial position but as soon as you see Stafford do this like you got to go hellbent for leather like they weren’t even the the goal line defense didn’t make any sense. Yeah, it was I if Matthew Stafford is maybe just accurate on the opening drive on three passes. I felt like it was just Stafford if he was just a little bit accurate and he wasn’t under duress or anything. No, they scored five consecutive series to open up the the game. I mean, I I just in my even when this team was severely under manned in 23, like we saw better performances than than that. Well, like there was there was a moment in the game, you know, like you could have scored on your second drive to go up, you know, to get to 14, but you kicked a field goal. Okay. Um, they get it. They go up 14-10 or Yeah. And 10-10, I guess, whatever it was. And but they have a drive with two minutes and 45 seconds to go to get the ball. 17-10. The drive is three straight incompletions. Like nobody won a route. The only guy that really I mean Michael Wilson’s okay. He’s okay. He’s probably a number three, but he’s okay. You know, Michael can play. And obviously Trey is is a stud and he was in the opening drive, but um you know, I mean they they don’t have they don’t have the personnel to go beat that team. They just don’t. And so I mean, you know, Brat’s playing as good as he could play. Like he’s not the problem. Like he’s playing tough and he he’s playing good. He’s playing pretty good football, but they have a, you know, 45se second drive and they give it back ball back to the Rams. They go right down the field 17-10. They go in the locker room. It’s 24-10. It was over. It was over. They weren’t going to come back from that uh having to throw the ball and they couldn’t run it at all against them. that front, that defensive front. If you’re if you want to go to the draft picks, right, Bow and John, if you just want to go to the draft picks, look at every one of those picks that the Rams have on the defensive line. Every one of those guys is a stud and they just rotate them through. Like you’re you’re relying right now on Clay Campbell at 38 and Dvin Tomlinson on his 15. You know, you’re Darius Robinson hasn’t done a thing yet in this league. Not nothing. Walter Nolan’s on the sideline. He’s not playing like their guys line up. Jared Verse, Byron Young, Kobe Turner, Frisky, like all these guys. They line up every single Sunday. They haven’t missed on one of those guys. They’re like less outsmarted everybody. I mean, you and I’m not speaking out of turn here. Like, I’m not here to throw shade at Monty or or Jonathan or anything, but you watch that game and you could see a difference in what they have done over the last three years in their draft. And obviously getting Stafford was was key, but what they’ve done three straight years in the draft and where all those guys are, including Nua, you know, including Aila, like look at where all those guys are in that offense. And then look at where Arizona is with their picks and where they’re at. So that brings to the question I think everybody’s asking here locally in the Valley, Baldi, is that when you assess the season as bad as it is in January, is this a personnel problem? And you we lost a lot of guys to injury. Look at our offense has been decimated or is that just delaying the inevitable looking at a fourth year with a regime that’s 15 and 32? Well, I guess I guess life can change in an instant. You could, you know, stop drinking if you have to stop drinking in an instant, I guess. But sometimes you’ve seen sometimes you just seen enough. Some sometimes it’s just time to change. You don’t want to, but sometimes change is necessary. And I’m not advocating it. I’m just saying if you ask me the question, sometimes the record speaks for itself. And you know, to to play that poorly at home again in a division game where these division games should be they should be close. They should be tough. That Thursday night game next week between the Rams and Seattle, I promise you’ll come down the last series. Like they should be tough. You should know each other inside and out. They played they played a defense that like Matt Stafford probably went in that locker room at halftime and at the end of the game and said, “Sean, can you can you believe what they did to us? Can you believe they played us like that?” Like, who plays like that? You’ve been around this league, this game for a long time. When the messaging falls flat, when you lose the room like that, have you ever seen a anybody turn it around before? Like it has to happen very little. I mean obviously that you follow the trends and you try to do the best the data that you have, but if you’re if you’re Michael Bidwell, I mean, is there a precedent for for this continuing on? Well, sometimes, you know, some people just cut the bleed, you know, stop the bleeding by just making the change. Just to make the change, you know, I’ve been on a team like that that was one and 15. We made the change. The coach that they fired won some games in this league. They made the change. They, you know, they got ahead of it. Um, you know, but uh I I don’t know what the answer is. I know the scheme was terrible and I know that physically they got beat bad at almost every position. And so, you know, if Puka is coming across the middle like he does every week and nobody’s putting any wood on him. Like he’s just like honestly like he’s not even getting hit. Like he’s going up there and he’s taking the ball right out of the sky play after play. Like that’s his game and that’s who he is and that’s a credit to Puka. But I mean, Buddha or Jaylen, somebody’s got to like, you know, blow him up in the middle of the field. Like, feel good about something out there. Like, nobody was doing anything. Uh, let’s bring up a subject that’s maybe difficult to talk about for fans of this franchise. You mentioned Buddha Baker um being blitzed and near the line of scrimmage. He has not looked like the same player as years prior. Is that just father time? Assess number three for the Cardinals this season. I don’t know. Like I I don’t want to say it’s it’s father time because I don’t know how Buddha feels on Monday and how he is during a week. I don’t know that. So I don’t want to say it’s everybody has a shelf life. Everybody I don’t care. Sometimes it’s five years. Sometimes you know Philip Rivers can come back and play at 44. But like everybody has a shelf life. But he’s not he’s not the Cobra. He’s not striking the way you would just see that guy hit with a ferocity that was unmatched by anybody in the league. He doesn’t play like that right now. Now, it could be it’s just, you know, he sees this thing collapsing and he’s been around long enough to know what that feels like and looks like and he’s been a part of regime changes from the GM to the head coach to you name it. He’s seen all that. So, maybe he’s just like going, you know, they’re going to do it again. It’s coming. Like, I’m sure the conversations are being had amongst the veterans in the locker room like, yeah, here comes another change. I mean, sometimes you can’t get out of your own way and you just know what’s going to happen. You brought up Darius Robinson. It was been one that we’ve been trying to be patient with. Obviously, he had such a uh turbulent rookie season from the injury to the tragic loss of his mom. And you know, Ganon called it, you know, this was going to be his 1.5 year. This was going to be kind of a it was a red shirt. This year we just haven’t seen really any impact from Robinson. And we’re looking like at advanced data and it’s saying, you know, he’s on average over six yards from the quarterback. He’s not getting anywhere close to Stafford in that game. I mean, what have you seen from Dro? Have you seen at any point through your film study him making an impact on the game? Well, if you’re going to play on the interior in this business, you got to have you got to have one of three things. You got to have unbelievable power where you can just line up like a Jaylen Carter and just have great power and you can control the line of scrimmage. You got to have fast twitch, which he doesn’t have, and you can get you can, you know, you can escape blocks and you can get on the edge and you can or you’ve got to have tremendous athletic ability where you’re never on the ground. You just out athlete the guy in front of you. And you can’t say that Darius wins any one of those three. And I’m just throwing some categories out there. There’s other things, too. But, you know, he came out of Missouri and he had a really good senior year or last year there. and he’s got good size and I think he’s a good kid and I think he’s a hard worker, but you know, at some point you got to start winning some battles. You got to start winning some one-on- ones. It’s they’re not all world up there, you know. I mean, uh, for the Rams, I mean, they’re they’re Aila was a second round pick. He’s not, you know, I like I like Aila. He’s a good player, but um, you know, they’re not none of those guys are going to the Pro Bowl up there for the Rams. They’re good they’re good solid players. They don’t spend first round picks on offensive linemen in the Rams. They never have. They take second, third round picks and they develop the guys. Cardinals via Pro Football Focus are the worst tackling team in the NFL. Is that what What do What do you attribute that to? How How is a team this bad tackling with a third year defense? Well, they play like, you know, I don’t I don’t always listen to those stats. It kind of it doesn’t surprise me, especially after Sunday because they look like the worst tackling team. So, sometimes I just use the eye test. I don’t look at a lot of data like that. But regardless, the the the reason why on Sunday they ran for 250 yards is they just played so loose. So tackling is about leverage. It’s about getting a lot of hats to the ball. It’s about if if you don’t make the play, at least you’re turning it in to all your health. There’s just fundamentals to how to play and it’s about effort and it’s about getting to the ball and it’s about um playing with leverage where you you’re turning the guy in and you’re setting the edge and you’re turning, you know, Kiran back into all your help coming at you and you limit the num number of runs. But if you’re just loose and you’re just standing and you’re just waiting, these guys are and you give Blake Corm and Kron, either one of those guys like a little bit of steam, it’s they’re going to be hard to tackle. Last thing before you’re getting out of here. You said that, you know, Michael Wilson probably profiles as a a really solid wide receiver three, but when he’s been given the opportunity to be wide receiver one, albeit in a lot of garbage time moments where they’re in, you know, uh, known pass, what what have you seen maybe the difference between Michael Wilson’s ability to kind of put up these numbers where we haven’t seen that in this offense under Drew Petty? Well, I mean, Marvin’s not out there and they don’t have a slot receiver and so he’s getting the targets, but you know, just like in San Francisco, Dwan Jennings can look a lot like Michael Wilson. I mean, neither one of those guys are fast, but they’re they got size. They know how to use their body. They get out of their breaks real smooth, both of them. And they catch the ball away from their body. So there’s there’s there there’s places for Michael Wilson, but he’s not going to, you know, that’s not the guy that you would target 14 times in a game to get 10 receptions like you would, you know, like the tight end, you know, like you do that to Trey, but you know, they’re running like speedo routes and they’re running it with Michael Wilson and Trey McBride like most teams are running with receivers, but Trey is he’s a he’s that good. He’s a great player. Um, and he does run routes like a wide receiver, but ultimately you’d like to have at least three guys that could go down and win. Yeah. Running on fumes the end of the year. Go ahead, Bo. I I mean I No. Uh, no. Paris Johnson Jr. We got an undrafted rookie free agent about to get in at left tackle against this Houston defense. Just out. He’s out. Yeah. So, whatever you do, uh, you hope uh for and pray for this team comes Jacobe Brassett’s well-being. Baldi. Yeah. Jacob’s I like he is not any part of the reason why this team is losing. He just isn’t. He’s he’s played the game the way you got to play it. He’s played better than the other guy. Um it’s unfortunate that they can’t run the ball at all. I mean I don’t know how many running backs are down. At least three. Um maybe it’s more. But you know they they got what they got right now. But um you know they’re they at least you know in past years even when they were losing they were running the ball in Pittsburgh and Philly and Dallas. They were they at least they that you could hang your hat on something right now, but right now I mean it’s just Jacobe trying to engineer an aerial circus and it’s they don’t have enough people out there to really win. Dark times for the Arizona Cardinals. It’s crazy how fast these seasons can go south. Bald, we appreciate you my guy. Safe travels this weekend. All right. Yeah, Johnny. Yeah, Bo. Yep. Have a good one, man. I’ll talk to you soon. Happy holidays. Yep.

Baldy breaks down how the Arizona Cardinals “looked dead” in their blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams. NFL analyst Brian Baldinger on where the Cards go from another lopsided performance against a division rival. Can Jonathan Gannon survive this? Find out on PHNX Cardinals!

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