AT WHAT COST: Arizona Cardinals Win Over Carolina Panthers Overshadowed By Multiple Injuries

AT WHAT COST: Arizona Cardinals Win Over Carolina Panthers Overshadowed By Multiple Injuries

Yesterday was a mixed bag of emotions. The Cardinals got a win, but at what cost and what now? Let’s discuss. You are Locked On Cardinals, your daily Arizona Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Welcome in Locked on Cardinals. Alex Clancy here. Follow me on Twitter, Clancy’s Corner. Follow the podcast at locked onazcards. Thank you for making Lockdown Cardinals your first listen. Free wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube, part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Um, as you can tell, I’m still a little confused as to how to feel after the Cardinals 2722 win yesterday to move to 2 and 0. There was a like, you know, the a glass cage of emotion from Anchorman. Yeah, kind of that. One thing’s for certain, the Arizona Arizona Cardinals must pivot immediately. I’ll talk about that in the final segment. A nightmare injury scenario naturally. I’ll talk about that in the second segment. But first, listen. Overall, the Cardinals moved to 2 and 0. Okay? and it wasn’t pretty for a large chunk of the game, namely the fourth quarter. Um, it was ugly with all of the injuries that the Cardinals sustained and that kind of clouded how great they looked through two and a half quarters. Yeah, I think I can kind of wrap the show there. I mean, they were up 273. So, let’s do this first. Okay, let’s do this first. The second half, the offense was there to run out the clock. The pass rush was there to bend but not break. The last thing you want to do is give away all your secrets for what you’re the game plan or, you know, the tricks up your sleeve that Nick Rollins has to show San Francisco what they’re going to get on Sunday and show Seattle some of what they’re going to get a week from Thursday. So, oh, the pass rush didn’t do anything the entire second half. Run the clock out. This whole Oh, you got to put the hammer on. What is this, Steve Spurer? What is this? 1990s Florida football. It’s like, dude, run the clock out. Nobody get hurt. Go away with a win. That was the plan. And then for some reason, when Kyler Murray throws an interception, the Cardinals are inside the 30 of the Panthers. He throws that that duck interception where his hand got his arm got hit. And then the entire switch just shifted. The Panthers got every like I’m not and I said this on the on the immediate the postgame reaction and then and then on the Cardinal squad show. If you haven’t checked it out, both of those are on YouTube already. Um I I don’t blame refs for anything. I think it’s a fool’s errand. I think it’s kind of weak and lazy. You just kind of you got to do sometimes you get calls, sometimes you don’t. But oh boy, oh did the Panthers get some interesting calls in the fourth quarter down the stretch. Cardinals had 12 penalties for 96 yards. They had almost 20 more penalty yards than rush yards. I mean, they only ran 49 plays to the 77 of Carolina because they were up a lot. But that inter that interception kind of switched things. Not because it was a pivotal interception where the Cardinals were driving down to score to take the lead and then they were going to lose, but I don’t know, things just kind of shifted and then the injury started one after another after another. I mean, Max Melton was earlier in the game, but it kind of gives you that weird, oh, we’ve been here before feeling, you know? Oh, we know this one ends up and luckily it didn’t. But like, let’s just take a second and chuckle here. Raise your hand if you thought the Arizona Cardinals were going to recover that onside kick. Ain’t nobody raising their hand. So, when push comes to shove, what we witnessed yesterday was an offense that looked like it was starting to click, a defense that was pretty dominant for a large portion of yesterday, and a team that was beating up on a team that they were supposed to beat up on. So, I’m not sure exactly how to take the fourth quarter. if you take it with anything or you just say, you know what, that was weird. They came out with a win. Let’s move the hell on. I I don’t know which one it is because obviously being in sports media for 15 years here and hosting this show for nine years, talking every day about the Cardinals, you’d more than likely take the latter where it’s like, gh, this is the worst I’ve ever felt after a win for the Cardinals. It’s the worst I’ve felt. Just like in week one, talking about the numbers yesterday really doesn’t tell the story. Michael Wilson touchdown was nice. James Connor, the the um the drive that ended with the James Conor touchdown was nice. You know, Kyler Murray’s 31 yard scamper where he Houdini it was nice. Trey McBride is always open which is nice. Marv being a Houdini in a different way, just disappearing isn’t nice. Um, but by and large, it was a go by a lot of points and hope to run the clock out. That was kind of the thing. And it’s not a loser mentality to do that if you do it effectively. Again, as I talked about on Friday going into the Saints game and as I talked again this past Friday going into the game against Carolina, the Cardinals had the opportunity to end this game in victory formation. Just under five minutes left. Carolina had all three timeouts, but they were down a 100 points and all the Cardinals had to do was get a couple first downs and end the game and they couldn’t twice in a row. So, my biggest takeaway aside from, you know, the catastrophe that I’m going to talk about in the next segment is is is when they need it, they still don’t get it. when they absolutely got to have it needed. The way to end the game last week without any sort of stress, any sort of sweat, any sort of anything, any sort of shenanigans, get a couple first downs like you were doing the majority of the game and run the clock out and they were unable to do it. So when you so you know when you’re friends and you were talking today about oh the pass rush didn’t get home you’re not going to show well and then look at what happened on that last drive where they ended up sacking when Kas ended it with a sack like you started to see some of those blitzes that that worked. It’s like yeah he’s got them. You’re just not going to show them when you’re up a hundred and then he had to show them. So he showed a couple. Nick Rollis is who I’m talking about. They rush for the entire game pretty much. And I mean another conversation is rushing for the entire game uh and them not getting home. That’s a question that needs to be answered. I still think that they’re still kind of trying to figure it out. They’re still kind of trying to figure out who the best dudes in the best packages are because listen, they’ve got a lot of guys up front. Um, Darius Robinson not really doing much. Um, so TBD on that. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens with Walter Nolan. Hopefully he comes back week five, you know, like it’s something that it’s not troubling yet. It’s not troubling yet. Um, something that is troubling, the offensive line. I’ll talk more about this later in the week. This is just kind of like uh I it’s impossible to to package everything that happened yesterday into 27 minutes. It’s impossible. The offensive line didn’t look great. And um I and this is not like, oh, I’m a martyr. I was vilified. I said they should have taken offensive lineman at 16. Grace Ael was right there. And the Cardinals have passed on and Josh Simmons looks fantastic. Could add Josh Simmons on the right side to book end with with um Peris Johnson Jr., but they decided against that. Um this offensive line isn’t bad enough to where the Cardinals are going to lose because of the offensive line. They only allowed one sack yesterday, so it’s not awful. Okay, it could be elite, but you know, we’ll see what happens with Walter Nolan. Like, I’m not saying the Cardinals made the wrong pick at 16. We have no idea what’s going to happen. but they didn’t address it this offseason and this is where we’re at. So, there’s so much to unpack this week. So much so much so much. Um, but the injuries kind of that was the biggest story from yesterday. If the Cardinals would have lost yesterday, I don’t think a human could comprehend that. Like I don’t think the human mind is advanced enough to comprehend the Cardinals losing yesterday if they were to have lost with how they would have lost. So luckily that didn’t happen but the injuries it’s not good. It’s not good. I’ll discuss some next lockdown Cardinals your team every day. This episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by Prize Picks the daily fantasy app where making the right call actually pays off. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right means cashing in. 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Um thanks for hanging out. This is fun. Uh yeah, sucked. Yesterday sucked even though they won. Um Max Mountain went down early. Knee injury, TBD. As of as I’m recording this show, I waited until Monday to record this show because I didn’t know if anything was going to come out last night, early this morning. As I’m recording now, nothing has come out yet. Garrett Williams, like you never wish on anybody. You never choose to speculate. Um because this is a young man’s life and you don’t want to say, “Oh, that’s definitely this.” Especially without an MD. Um, the way he grabbed at his knee right away and was writhing in pain, usually that means one thing. So, let’s hope it’s not. Um, but by most accounts, and you know, we’ve watched football for a long time, you would think we’re not going to see Garrett Williams for the rest of 2025. And then Max and then uh Will Johnson after getting getting peanut punched by Jordan Burch in the ribs earlier in the game when he was going down and he was going back and forth. I mean if you got punched the ribs man that doesn’t feel good at all especially by a large man like Jordan Burch. So it’s a little friendly fire there but um he had a groin he had a groin injury uh towards the end of the game too. So um here’s the thing that’s a nightmare scenario. That’s your top three corners after already losing Stling Thomas for the year. So, while I will dive much deeper into the pivot and what I think they should do in the next segment, this is the absolute worst case scenario for the Cardinals on defense pretty much. Um, and it’s not like, well, oh, what if Buddha got hurt? What if it’s like it’s all three of them, dude. It’s all three of them. So, we’ll see what happens with Max Melton. Maybe he won’t miss as much time. Maybe he’ll miss a handful of weeks. Will Johnson hopefully will just be fine and he’ll play and he’ll be able to he’ll be able to start next week. Like the be the beauty I mean you’re trying to find some positive here. The the bright side about this and there’s very little is that you have a guy in Jaylen Thompson who’s played slot corner before. So you’ve got a guy who can jump in with Denter Dmerson and Buddha Baker and have three of the five DBs handled. And Jaylen Thompson was hobbled also. I think it’s back like so you’ve got to figure out a way and I’ve got ideas again as I mentioned. Um you’ve got to figure out a way to fill those other two spots and it’ll be three at some times and I promise you it ain’t Denzel Burke and Keel Clark. Denzel Burke actually played pretty well last week. Yesterday. Last week he actually played pretty well yesterday. He played better yesterday than at any point in the preseason. And I wonder if just like I gave Max Melton and Will Johnson a pass in the preseason was there is nobody else really at NFL caliber playing around them. So maybe if you’ve got your starting pass rush and you’ve got your starting, you know, just backers, maybe you can play better football than what we saw in the preseason. Um he defended a couple balls really well. Um did have that hold. uh 90 yards away from Bryce Young running for his life 25 yards behind the line of scrimmage. He had that he had that hold that that gave them an automatic first down that would have ended the game um if that didn’t happen. Uh so but uh listen all in all this is a nightmare scenario but it’s a nightmare scenario but when I discussed this entire off season after the roster was pretty much set. It was like right after the draft. It’s like they’re deep enough at most positions to be able to function at somewhat of the same level if injuries were to come into play. Now, I wasn’t expecting three corners to get hurt in the same game and Jaylen Thompson. I wasn’t expecting that. We’ll see what happens to Jaylen Thompson. I don’t I don’t know if he’s going to miss time. I don’t think he’ll miss time. But when you have a competent pass rush and you have Buddha Baker and Jaylen Thompson over the top and you have Hakee Davis Gaither played his best game as a Cardinal yesterday. M Wilson’s playing well like cuz you’re like M. Wilson Hakee Davis Gaither like we’re starting to see a trend where you’re bringing in a veteran dude who’s just playing meaningful like ADG was all over the place yesterday. all over the place. Now, instead of the the the offball backers being the question mark, now it’s going to be the quarterback room. And the Cardinals are playing very good wide receivers. I mean, I know that they have Tennessee at home in a couple weeks, but I mean, you’ve got Ricky Pierce, Christian I mean, it’s Christian McAffrey. I don’t care who’s quarterback for the 49ers. It’s Kyle Shanahan and it’s the 49ers. Like, it doesn’t matter. And it’s at and it’s at Levi Stadium. And then you’ve got Jackson Smith and Jigba and you got Michael Pitman and Tyler Warren in Indie. Like, while it is, as I mentioned, a nightmare scenario, the Cardinals haven’t been equipped to handle it and continue to move forward in years past like they are now. And it’s not going to be again, we need to see what how how how severe these injuries are, but they’ve got a talented enough roster at other positions to be able to not have the bottom fall out of the season. This is what it looks like to have a balanced, deeper roster and not just having five good players and a bunch of, you know, journeymen or a bunch of rookies that aren’t ready to play yet. But one thing is certain, you cannot roll out Denzel Burke and Kro Clark as your corners next week. Now, I’ve got a plan and I’ll discuss it next. Locked on Cardinals, your team every day. This episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by our friends over at BetterHelp. Listen, man. Um, when it comes to mental health, when it comes to therapy, it’s it’s it’s something that is just incredibly important in this day and age. You know, we all turn to some funny places for advice. You’re a barista, your barber, maybe even a random stranger in the bathroom. But not everyone is the right one when it comes to real support. And that’s why BetterHelp is here. With over 30,000 licensed therapists and more than 10 years of experience, BetterHelp helps you find your right match. Someone clinically trained and credentialed to guide you through life’s challenges. Um, listen, it’s also super flexible, so you can join sessions online from home, on the go, you know, which makes therapy, you know, it fits into your schedule. And then if you don’t really match with the therapist that you have initially, you can switch. Piece of cake. 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Real people are getting paid just to make their daily commutes and you can’t, too. Plus, you can cash out anytime to your bank account, PayPal, or an e gift card for Amazon and other brands. Don’t let other, you know, think of it this way. You’re leaving free money on the table, man. Download the free upside app now. Use my limited time promo code touchdown for a limited time 25 cents per gallon bonus. That’s promo code touchdown. Offers vary by user location code upside.com for terms and conditions. Please go to the YouTube channel, search lock in Arizona Cardinals. Hit that subscribe button, man. You know the drill. Um, this sucks. Like, it’s it’s not so much about how the Cardinals won yesterday. You just got to feel bad for Garrett Williams, Max Melton, Will Johnson. just like the world was their proverbial oyster this year. And this isn’t like doom and gloom. The Cardinals are 2 and 0. Okay? There is a hurdle to climb. And I’m going to go much more in depth about this tomorrow and Wednesday, okay? But listen again, putting 20 doing 27 minutes, 28 minutes with everything that happened yesterday, impossibility. So, kind of just playing the hits and um today doing a broad overview and then we’ll get more into the nitty-gritty uh tomorrow and Wednesday. So, I’ve got a plan. Um there’s two options. one that I think will happen and one that’s just another option that’s a little bit more grandiose, a little bit bigger, more moving parts. Option number one, go sign James Bradberry. He was in Philly. He’s older, but he’s a corner and he knows Jonathan G. Like, that seems to be the most obvious one. Um, the money will be interesting. Uh, but you need a veteran corner today. Today, like immediately, you need a veteran corner. Um, his play fell. I mean, he’s not on a team right now, so that would speak to his his uh talent level now as compared to, you know, when he was with the Giants in years past. But I would go sign James Bradberry. It just makes too much sense. And that’s one. Okay, that’s plan one. Plan two, the bigger one is you trade for a corner. And this is trickier obviously, okay? if you could bring somebody in for a couple million bucks for the year because you weren’t really planning on this. And it’s not like they were planning on it. Oh, let’s hope nobody gets hurt because there’s zero chance the Cardinals can compete if some if one player gets hurt. Players get injured every single day in this league. You never wish it upon your worst enemy and players get injured every single day. It’s part of the game. So, oh, poor Cardinals. This happens to every team. It’s who can withstand it, who can Yeah. get a little lucky and not have them happen. not only to key players but also, you know, volumewise, the amount of players who get injured, but this happens to every team. Okay? So, it’s how you adapt and how you pivot. So, I would go sign James Bradberry uh pending a physical things like that. But number two, if you trade for a corner, like I floated the name Denzel Ward um this off season when we didn’t really know what the quarterback room was going to be like. Um Cleveland’s really bad. He makes a lot of money. So, it’s like, but there are a lot of corners on bad teams in the NFL that you can go trade for one. I’m not saying you trade a first round pick. I’m not saying you trade a second round pick. But, if you can get a dude who’s game ready, who’s ready to rip, who fits their system, it’s worth the conversation. But I don’t see a world like Jonathan Ganon is very reflective with his with how he coaches. He said that the fourth quarter was on him yesterday and it was Megan was completely out of control. And while I’m a million% in the camp that he’s the dude, we’re starting to hear more and more that’s on me than you’d like. Of course, you know, getting the win is a beautiful thing. Like if they would have lost yesterday, again, I don’t think the human brain can really comp I don’t think we’d be able to really um digest that in a rational world. But he’s reflective and he understands like he’s not going to be a guy that’s so hard-headed to say, “Oh, we got our dudes. Everything will be fine.” And they get torched for 40 points to uh on Sunday there. I I would be shocked if there wasn’t action. Unless somehow Max Melton plays on Sunday, which I don’t think is possible. Um even if Will Johnson does play, I you can’t start Denzel Burke or Keroll Clark alongside him. You just can’t. You can’t do it. And if you could sign James Bradberry or I I think listen I know that trading for someone is is well out of bounds of what most likely will happen. But it’s I mean the beauty of what the Cardinals have their situation they’ve got the money and they got the pick. So you can do it. You can do it. It’s just a matter of if they want to if they want to get kind of a stop gap situation here if there’s one that they feel like could produce for them. and James Briber just seems to be the obvious choice. Um, so as I mentioned, I’m like I’m just you can tell by my kind of demeanor today. Like I try to always be myself with you. Um, it’s a lot to take in what happened yesterday. You know, we haven’t even gotten into, you know, the Kyler Murray stuff and I barely touched on Marv, but it’s like I will get into the offense deeply tomorrow, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot to take in what happened yesterday. I can’t like I’ll leave you with this. Like the thing outside of the injuries, obviously because they’re human beings, like that’s obviously the most, you know, important thing in real life world. The fact that the Cardinals had the ball with five minutes left and couldn’t get a couple first downs to end the game when you were up multiple scores. That’s what stays with me most because that is what full games are going to be like if the Cardinals want to make the playoffs. That’s how much pressure is going to be on this team. And there’s that wasn’t even pressure. It’s like you’ve been punishing this team all game. Just go get a couple first downs. Go have a couple got to have it plays. Get a couple first downs. Make them use all their timeouts and run the damn clock out. And they couldn’t come close to doing it again. That’s the biggest one for me. And um let’s hope it becomes an exception to the rule and not the rule. But that would be a massive change from what we’ve seen from this team over the last couple years. Lockdown Cardinals, your team every day. Remember, without you there is no me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Alex Clancy unpacks the Arizona Cardinals surviving to beat the Carolina Panthers, highlighting the Cardinals breaking down in the fourth quarter. The analysis covers Arizona’s defensive issues, strategies for the cornerback crisis, and concerns about finishing games strong.

The cornerback situation takes center stage after losing Max Melton, Garrett Williams, and Will Johnson. Alex explores options like signing James Bradberry or making trades to bolster the secondary.

Can the Cardinals fix their fourth-quarter problems? Will they find solutions for their depleted cornerback group before facing their next opponent? This episode dives into Arizona’s challenges and opportunities in the competitive NFC West.

Listeners get an insider’s view of the Cardinals’ current state, from celebrating a hard-fought win to addressing urgent roster needs. Clancy offers expert insights on the team’s next moves and how they might impact Arizona’s season going forward. 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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