Arizona Cardinals head coach endorses the back-by-committee strategy following loss

The Arizona Cardinals may be 1-5, but you can’t look at that meager record without at least placing some blame on an injury bug that has claimed both starting safeties and star running back James Conner. Before his knee injury in Week 5, the Cardinals went all-in with Conner as their primary back, but for Week 6, they were forced to unveil a committee. 

And to our relief, all three backs involved played a good game. Damien Williams was the surprise, rushing for 36 yards on eight attempts, but Keaontay Ingram also erased some doubts as he racked up 40 yards on 10 carries. Emari Demercado didn’t see as much action running the ball, but he too was effective when called upon, and head coach Jonathan Gannon commended the trio for a job well done, despite the 26-9 blowout loss.

"“I thought they did a good job. I thought all three of them made some plays in there, they ran hard, they were good in pass pro. What we were asking them to do was a little bit different this week. I thought they did well.”"

- Jonathan Gannon

Source: Cardinals turn to running back by committee in Week 6 loss to Rams by Tyler Drake, Arizona Sports

Expect the Arizona Cardinals to continue to roll with the committee

For Week 7, the Cardinals will travel to Seattle to face their heated rival, the Seahawks, a team that has one of the best run defenses in football following the best rushing defenses in football, allowing just 3.2 yards per carry and 396 yards in five contests. Their yards per carry allowed ranks the best in the NFL, and across five games, they are allowing only 79.2 rushing yards per contest. 

It’s also worth noting that these statistics can be misleading, as sometimes a team has an excellent rushing or passing defense because the other is unbelievably bad. However, this isn’t the case with Seattle, as they are 17th in the league in passing attempts against, and they are 18th with 1,288 passing yards allowed. 

Therefore, the real test comes for the Arizona Cardinals running backs this Sunday when they face the Seahawks. But if we can take Jonathan Gannon’s words with more than just a grain of salt, you will see the Redbirds running backs try to help quarterback Joshua Dobbs to keep things at least manageable. 

(Statistics provided by ESPN.com and Pro-Football-Reference)