Kyler Murray threw a perfect game (in terms of passer rating), rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. showed his best side and the Arizona Cardinals pass rush was able to reach Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams.

The combination of these factors led to a 41-10 victory for Arizona (1-1) against a team it had not defeated at State Farm Stadium since 2014.

After a narrow loss to Buffalo to start the year, we reached out to our hosts and writers immediately following the Week 2 win to discuss the Cardinals’ situation.

Here’s what they learned from a great performance against Los Angeles.

Our Reactions to the Cardinals’ Week 2 Win Over the Rams

Luke Lapinski, co-host of Wolf and Lucas: The Cardinals entered this game 3-19 in their last 22 games at State Farm Stadium. They hadn’t beaten the Rams in Arizona since 2014 — when they were the St. Louis Rams and Andre Ellington was the Cardinals’ leading rusher — and they were just 2-13 in their last 15 games against the Rams overall.

Oh yeah, they were also 1-11 in the division since 2022.

Their response? Hand Sean McVay his most lopsided loss ever.

That’s a pretty good answer, and it started with Marvin Harrison Jr. The first two scores of the game came from Marv, and they were the kind of exciting plays that make you believe this offense is capable of anything now that he’s here.

Maybe. The Cardinals have scored 69 points in two games — trailing only New Orleans as I write this — and they’ve done it against two pretty tough opponents, the Bills and Rams. Kyler Murray’s passer rating on Sunday was a perfect 158.3. The Cardinals outgained LA by 178 yards (231 to 53).

And it’s possible that MHJ simply can’t be covered on some plays.

What’s more, you could argue that the defense’s performance on Sunday was the most encouraging part. Budda Baker was everywhere, starting with a huge fourth-down stop on Cooper Kupp early in the game. This was one of those games where it seemed like there were seven or eight Buddas on the field, and his teammates followed suit. Dennis Gardeck had three sacks, Zaven Collins and Krys Barnes added one apiece, L.J. Collier recovered a fumble and Arizona held Kyren Williams — the running back who torched them for 362 total yards and three touchdowns last season — to just 25 yards on the ground.

Baker summed it up as you might expect him to: “This proves we can win one game.” He’s right, of course, but now that narrow loss in Buffalo last week seems a lot more acceptable, if not outright encouraging, especially after what the Bills did in Miami on Thursday. And the Week 2 performance was a glimpse of the best-case scenario that even the most optimistic Cardinals fans have imagined since April. But it’s no longer a hypothetical; it’s a reality. It happened. Now they just have to figure out how to do it consistently.

Dave Burns, co-host of Burns and Gambo: Have you heard that things ended with a whimper and not a bang? This was a bang. A big, loud, window-rattling bang. An eight-game losing streak in the division. Gone. A decade without a home win over the Rams. Done. Nineteen losses in their last 22 games at home? I guess that remains to be seen, but it sure feels like it’s over. When it is, and when Sean McVay’s reign over the Cards is over (or at the very least suspended), then we’ll talk about it.

I guess you could say that given the Rams’ injury situation, it was expected and given the state of their offensive line, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the Cardinals won. It was the dominance of victory; a roundhouse 40-burger dropped on their personal tormentor in front of a home crowd that was hungry for that moment in this building. The defense hit some notes that most didn’t think they had in them. James Connor continues to do the dirty work.

But this will be remembered most as the day Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr. showed the kind of chemistry that Walter White would envy. It was humorous and revealing to hear Harrison lament that Murray’s only four incompletions were ahead of him. The two stunning touchdowns and Murray’s literally perfect passer rating weren’t enough to satisfy him. He wants more, and so do we.

Is this the win that confirms the belief — or at least the possibility — that the Cardinals are better than most people think? It’s really too early to tell. But this result, in this building, against this coach, with those two players leading the way, is as good a starting point as anyone could ask for.

Tyler Drake, Cardinals reporter and co-host of the Cardinals corner Podcast: We gave the Cardinals a lot of (fair) criticism last week for their midgame adjustments, or lack thereof. Marvin Harrison Jr. was a nonfactor, there were no deep balls, and the defensive pressure was almost nonexistent. Just a tough call for a team that came out of the blocks in Buffalo.

Against the division bully Los Angeles Rams, however, the Cardinals made all those adjustments we were all screaming about just a week earlier.

Harrison nearly tripled his target share (eight) and found the end zone twice. The Cardinals also seemed to go deep much more often. They didn’t hit them all, and they didn’t need to! The threat alone was immense. Last but not least, the Barbarians showed flashes of their former selves in 2020, with three sacks in the win and a much-improved pass rush.

Even when things went wrong – James Conner dropped a touchdown to Trey McBride – the Cardinals still came out on top on Sunday.

There haven’t been as many complete games like this for Arizona in a while. Enjoy this one a little extra, Cards fans, especially considering the stranglehold LA has had on Arizona for the past decade.

Kellan Olson, co-host of Sports in Arizona at Night: I’m going to assume that most of the words you read here are about Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr., and rightfully so. I’m going to digress for a moment here and give the defense a ton of credit. Yes, the Rams’ offensive line was undermanned. Yes, Puka Nacua was out and Cooper Kupp only played half of this game. But Arizona’s defense was in such a shaky position early in the season and after Week 1 that we didn’t know if they could take advantage of a vulnerable group like the Rams.

The Cardinals did. Emphatically. Outside of Budda Baker’s one blunder on a deep completion, it was a signature performance. The front seven did a good job of plugging holes in the run game, while a questionable secondary wasn’t really tested thanks to a pass rush that was indeed capable of jumping on a wounded pass-blocking unit. Dennis Gardeck had three sacks and remained a compiler, regardless of his role.

This just seemed like a game as defensive coordinator Nick Rallis pushed all the right buttons and was one step ahead of Sean McVay. A reminder to give him almost no blame when this defense inevitably fails due to its shortcomings.

This is the kind of thing great football teams do. You have a division rival in town that you know you can beat in what is probably the second most winnable game on the schedule until December. Arizona dominated them. If you want to talk about litmus test games, let’s take a look at what this team is really about next week against a 1-1 Detroit Lions team.

Mitch Vareldzis, co-host of Sports in Arizona at Night: BEAT LA BEAT LA BEAT LA That was the most fun I’ve had watching the Cardinals play a football game since I started working here in 2018.

*Voice of Stefon from SNL*

This game had it all! Marvin Harrison Jr. breaking out with two touchdowns. A pass rush led by Dennis “The Barbarian” Gardeck. And Kyler Murray getting that pest of a monkey off his back by beating the Rams’ Sean McVay and doing it in front of his home crowd. I’m also much more excited for when the Lions come to town next week. The Cardinals have a chance to show dominance for a second straight week against one of the NFC’s best.

Kevin Zimmerman, Editor-in-Chief of ArizonaSports.com: A guy — whose name starts with a W and rhymes with “gulf” — told me not to apply transitive theory when the Bills toppled the Miami Dolphins on Thursday. But I’m going to lean more heavily on that result in evaluating the third-party Cardinals, saying that Arizona, which competes with Buffalo, looks like it said a lot.

Because against the Rams, the defensive line didn’t look too bad. The offensive line got the run game going easily. And of course, the passing game found Marvin Harrison Jr. — for a quarter, anyway.

It was to be expected that a good football team could beat the Rams, whose offensive line had been decimated and whose receiving corps was without its Nos. 1 and 2 players late in Sunday’s game. But beating Los Angeles by 31 — and coach Sean McVay by 31 — means that a loss to Buffalo at least shouldn’t mean Arizona’s high preseason expectations weren’t met.

After two games they meet the highest expectations.

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