Arizona Cardinals finish season number one

The Arizona Cardinals played arguably their best game overall of the season on Sunday.  It was good enough to finish number one.

Good enough to finish with the number one draft pick at the 2019 NFL Draft in April.  The Seattle Seahawks helped them clinch that with a game winning field goal by Sebastian Janikowski as time expired.

Cardinals kicker Zane Gonzalez nailed a 55-yard field goal with 1:49 remaining in the game to tie it at 24.  At that point we all knew the Cardinals left Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson too much time on the clock.

Many Cardinals fans were happy for the loss in order to secure the number one pick.  A victory would have been nice though.  Close games are much harder to lose than the blowouts the Cardinals became accustomed to in 2018.

Special teams played well, the defense did a decent job on Sunday but a few lapses cost them the game.  The offense had short enough fields to put some points on the board.

Cardinals players didn’t lay down.  They came to play and that was nice to see.  It looked like over the past few weeks that some had mailed it in.

But the same old story re-appeared.  The Cardinals just didn’t have the personnel to make great plays and didn’t have good time management at certain times.

The Cardinals could have had a field goal at the end of the first half with 11 seconds remaining.  They were in field goal rang with no timeouts.  The only thing that couldn’t happen was a Josh Rosen sack but guess what happened?

Time ran out and the instead of the Cardinals going to the locker room with a 16-14 lead, they trailed 14-13.  In the end, it was a difference maker.

Now the Seahawks get ready to take a trip to face the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Wild Card playoffs.  The Cardinals now have a lot of work to do with personnel on and off the field.  We shall see if the Cardinals make a decision on the future of head coach Steve Wilks by Monday morning.