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    • Blame Kyler Murray and Drew Petzing for the Cardinals’ loss to the Bills
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    Blame Kyler Murray and Drew Petzing for the Cardinals’ loss to the Bills

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    ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — It was a lot of fun while it lasted for the Arizona Cardinals in their season-opening loss to the Buffalo Bills, 34-28, at Highmark Stadium on Sunday.

    “Good back-and-forth play,” Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon said after the game. “I thought we started the game fast, went down and scored, controlled the clock and did some good things.”

    The offense was efficient and methodical. The defense created pressure and forced a turnover. And both sides played clean, penalty-free football.

    The Cardinals played great and if the game had ended with about 3 minutes left in the second quarter, they would have won 17-3.

    Unfortunately, Josh Allen was just getting started at the time.

    “I didn’t like the end of the first half,” Gannon said.

    Analysis: 5 Things We Learned From The Cardinals’ Loss to the Bills

    Allen led a touchdown drive to end the first half, capitalizing on a questionable call by Zaven Collins on a roughing the passer that would have been a clean sack in any other era of football.

    “And when they came out of the first half,” Gannon said, “they got right back to 17-17.”

    Allen led another touchdown drive early in the third quarter, and the damage was done.

    The Cardinals never regained their lead.

    Ultimately, there are a lot of positives here. The Cardinals, a team that went 4-13 last season, came within a touchdown of beating a visiting playoff contender. Arizona’s defense pressured Allen, even as it couldn’t bring him down. And the Cardinals scored a special teams touchdown in the fourth quarter to stay in a game that was beginning to feel out of reach.

    For some this may be an encouraging loss, but not for me.

    Marvin Harrison Jr. spent most of the game just doing cardio. Harrison only saw three passes come his way. And he dropped one.

    There was no excuse for that decline, especially for a player of his calibre.

    The No. 4 overall pick in the draft shouldn’t finish the first game of his career with one catch for 4 yards.

    I know Harrison can’t throw the ball to himself, and he deserves a few weeks to get used to the size and speed of the NFL game. But that level of production is going to get someone fired, whether it’s the offensive coordinator, the coach, or ultimately the general manager.

    He’s got to do better, and I don’t think anyone cares more about it being corrected than he does. He needs a lot more chances to show what he can do.

    Michael Wilson also had an unforgivable drop, bouncing a ball off his chest with less than 2 minutes left. That kind of catch could have changed the outcome of the game.

    And Kyler Murray is not to blame here either.

    He took a sack on third-and-6 with about 9 minutes left in the third quarter after Allen had engineered back-to-back touchdown drives. The Cardinals had to answer for that, but Murray’s response was questionable at best.

    Maybe Greg Rousseau, Buffalo’s star defensive end, just made a play? Maybe Paris Johnson Jr., Arizona’s promising left tackle, just got beat? But I wonder if Murray could or should have stepped into the pocket to extend the play.

    It looked like he could have, but I don’t play quarterback in the NFL and never will, so it’s hard to say for sure. I’ve watched a lot of football from the field and the press box, including nearly every snap of Murray’s career, and I think he should have avoided that sack.

    On Arizona’s next attack, Rousseau beat Kelvin Beachum, who had replaced the injured Jonah Williams, to set up a strip sack on Murray.

    Again, it’s hard to say how much of it was Murray’s fault, but on that play he held the ball too long with one hand, giving Rousseau the opportunity to knock it away. When I saw that play, I wondered if Murray should have felt that pressure or at least anticipated it enough to know to throw the ball away when he had the chance.

    Anyway, I blame most of it on the playcalling.

    Offensive coordinator Drew Petzing didn’t seem creative or aggressive enough to win.

    Murray threw for just 162 yards on 31 attempts.

    For comparison, Allen threw for 232 yards in 23 attempts.

    Why not more Harrison and Wilson? Or Harrison? And Harrison again?

    And the final drive was especially frustrating. The Cardinals didn’t use their timeouts, ran the ball on third-and-10 as if they were trying to set up a field goal, and ended the day with a deep pass to Greg Dortch, who was Arizona’s most effective receiver all game but is the least physically impressive man on the field.

    I’ve never been an offensive coordinator, but I would have tried to put Harrison, Wilson or Trey McBride in position to make that play, especially since Harrison wasn’t the target on that last series.

    Gannon did not share my concerns about the rules of the game.

    “Give credit to their defense,” Gannon said. “But I thought our offense did enough to win the game today.”

    And he feels much better about the loss than I do.

    “I’m excited to get back to work. We’re just a few plays away,” Gannon said. “We’ve got to make those plays to win games.”

    I hope he is right.

    There is indeed much reason for optimism, but I don’t want these new Cardinals to make the same mistakes.

    Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

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