If you like to keep score in mind-boggling statistics, the Arizona Cardinals just snapped three unique streaks in Thursday’s win over New Orleans.
The Arizona Cardinals looked sharp in their win over the New Orleans Saints – and when I say sharp, I mean they could not have looked sharper both in on-field production and in the uniforms they wore. The Cardinals were also so sharp that they snapped not one, not two, but THREE losing streaks in last night’s 42-34 win.
If you are a Cardinals fan, you probably know that this franchise is synonymous with losing streaks. Or just negative streaks in general. Zero playoff wins since 2015, zero championships since 1947, and they also managed, at one point in their history, to go 50-plus seasons without winning a single playoff game and 32 seasons without a division championship.
But all streaks are meant to be broken, and the Cardinals are no exception to that rule. Below, you will find three losing streaks Arizona snapped in their big win on Thursday Night Football.
Streak #1: Home losing streak – 8 games
The Arizona Cardinals went 361 days between home wins, with the previous win coming on October 24th, 2021 in a 31-5 win over the Houston Texans. Since then, the closest the Cardinals came to a home win occurred on two different occasions.
The first came when they lost 24-21 on Thursday night to the Green Bay Packers backups. As for the second, you only need to flashback a couple of weeks to their 20-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The Cardinals may have had a chance to snap the streak then had it not been for Matt Ammendola’s shanked kick in the final minutes that would have tied the game.
Streak #2: Color Rush losing streak – 6 games*
I had to put an asterisk next to this one, since the Cardinals won their first game wearing the black on black, but they did so wearing their cool black helmets. In the previous six games, the Cardinals lost all six times wearing white helmets with the Color Rush look.
Their most recent loss came on October 28th, 2021, in that three-point loss to the Packers. The 7-0 Cardinals initially looked as though the were going to pull off the comeback before quarterback Kyler Murray threw an interception in the end zone during the final minute of play.
Streak #3: Scoring 30 or fewer points streak – 11 games
The Arizona Cardinals offense got a nice boost from the defense, who scored 12 points on Thursday night. So if you are counting offensive points only, this streak will continue. But the last time the Cardinals put up over 30 points overall in a single game occurred on December 5th, 2021, in a road win against their former crosstown rival, the Chicago Bears.
If you count the playoffs, then you can bump that 30 points or less streak up to 12 games, since the Los Angeles Rams laughed the Cardinals off the field in a 34-11 beatdown on January 17th.
Overall, the Cardinals spent the latter half of 2021 and nearly the entire first half of 2022 looking like a shell of a team that started off 7-0 and at one point, sat at 10-2. Perhaps the 10-day layoff and DeAndre Hopkins return will get the Cardinals healthy and productive enough to somewhat resemble what was one of the NFL’s best teams just one year ago.