3 major improvements the Arizona Cardinals must make after loss to Bengals
By Sion Fawkes
3 - Playing to their offense’s strengths
James Conner or no James Conner, the Arizona Cardinals are pretty good at running the football, and ironically, the line does a halfway decent job when run blocking. And while it’s a passing league, the Cards need to play more to their offense’s strengths, and run the ball between 60% and 65% of the time if it means picking up consistent positive yards.
Arizona may have lost by a pair of possessions today, but you can’t fault the running game, which picked up 142 yards and 6.5 yards per carry. Once again, Rondale Moore looked like a better back than he did a receiver, leading the team with 50 rushing yards and 16.7 yards per carry.
Before he went down with an injury, Conner was averaging 7.7 yards per touch, and Emari Demercado pitched in with 45 yards on 10 carries. The system is friendly toward running backs and obvious end-arounds, but the Cards don’t utilize it as often as they need to.
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(Statistics provided by ESPN.com)