The Arizona Cardinals failed to resemble a playoff team during their preseason loss to the Chicago Bears on Saturday night
The performance of the Arizona Cardinals during their 24-23 preseason loss to the Chicago Bears on Saturday night was a head-scratcher. It wasn’t as if they played terrible. In fact, head coach Bruce Arians’ group did some good things.
At the same time though, there were visible warts. The offensive and defensive lines did not look good at all. Both will need fixing if the Cardinals plan on going to the postseason this year.
The special teams unit, a major headache in 2016, could still be a problem. The 109-yard touchdown return following Phil Dawson’s missed 63-yard field goal attempt was downright embarrassing. The 11 players out on the field seemed to disappear into thin air when the Bears’ Deonte Thompson was running for the end zone.
The play of the offensive line in particular was putrid. Quarterback Carson Palmer was hit way too many times. The running backs struggled to make even minimal gains for most of the evening.
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The one o-lineman who the Cardinals aren’t supposed to be worrying about is left guard Mike Iupati. Unfortunately, the 6’5″, 331 pounder was pushed around terribly. The position switch of tackles D.J. Humphries and Jared Veldheer looks to be off to a slow start, as neither looked comfortable against Chicago.
The defensive line got run over consistently by a fourth-round rookie, Tarik Cohen. The tiny Bears’ back gained 77 yards on the ground on just 11 carries. It’s possible that the loss of defensive end Calais Campbell could haunt the Cards all season.
Arians’ expression following the inexcusable special teams’ blunder spoke a thousand words. The group’s coordinator, Amos Jones, won’t be blamed for the humiliating gaffe, of course. It’s quite clear that Jones can do no wrong in the eyes of Arians at least.
One thing’s for sure, a lot of repair work is needed before Arizona faces the Detroit Lions in the season opener. All areas of the squad need to be tinkered with. Cardinals’ fans can only hope that the issues are scheme, and not personnel.