Arizona Cardinals vs Detroit Lions: Week 1 Recap

Arizona’s Offense Looks Old

Week 1 now in the books and the Cardinals will go back to the drawing board. Carson Palmer threw 2 interceptions (both his fault) in the first half. Larry Fitzgerald, though reliable, looks slow and honestly somewhat uncomfortable out there. After David left with a wrist injury, our Offense looked as bad as it gets.

Carson Palmer went 27/48 269 yards passing, with 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions. David Johnson had 23 rushing yards on 11 attempts, and 6 receptions for 68 yards receiving. Larry Fitzgerald lead the WR group with 6 receptions for 74 yards. JJ Nelson had the only touchdown through the air in garbage time at the end of the game.

Cardinals Defense Looked Solid

Set aside from garbage time points, the defense looked really solid. The front 7 in particular looked really good. Haason Reddick started today and played lights out with 8 total tackles in his debut game. Justin Bethel came away with a pick 6 in the 1st quarter, but gave up big plays later on.

Would have loved to see a better pass rush than we got. Chandler Jones had the only sack of the night and played solid. To some it up, the defense can only do so much when your offense looks like absolute garbage. Big changes will need to be made to the offensive playbook. This could be a really long season for the Arizona Cardinals.

Recap..

Honestly my biggest take away was how old Carson looked. Palmer looked uncomfortable in the pocket and Detroit isn’t great at rushing the passer. He missed a few throws, made bad decisions, and didn’t look confident back there.

Bruce Arians promised he wouldn’t let “post Palmer” mirror “post Warner”. I just hope he’s ready to find that replacement sooner rather than later.  If we play like we played tonight, we might end up in that “sucking for Sam” conversation.