Kyler Murray couldn’t get anything going and the Arizona Cardinals offense stalled. Luckily for Arizona, James Conner came to his team’s rescue.

With less than two minutes remaining and the Cardinals trailing the Los Angeles Chargers 15–14, Conner took a short pass, turned upfield and picked up 33 yards to put the Cardinals within field goal range. Chad Ryland hit the game winner as time expired and Arizona escaped with a 17-15 win.

It was a bad evening for both offenses. The Chargers didn’t score a touchdown, but led within the two-minute warning as the Cardinals were no better. Justin Herbert had 349 passing yards but couldn’t find the end zone. Murray, as has been the case for most of the season, did not produce many yards in the passing game.

But Conner, a tough veteran, saved his team. He had 101 yards rushing, 51 receiving and he helped the Cardinals defer any criticism of their offense for the win.

“He’s a dog, he’s a workhorse,” Murray told ESPN after the game. “One of our leaders, one of our captains. A guy who comes to work every day and leaves everything to the guys. I can’t say enough about that guy, man. He’s a great teammate, a great person.”

A mediocre first half

For all the supposed star power at quarterback for the lesser of the two Monday night games, there was little excitement in the first half.

The Chargers didn’t score a touchdown. They had a good shot at one when Jalen Reagor caught a long pass from Justin Herbert, but Cardinals cornerback Starling Thomas V knocked the ball out just before Reagor scored, and it was recovered by Arizona in the end zone.

The Cardinals should have had a good offense this season, but that hasn’t been the case. That was evident in another slow half to start the game, although they did get a touchdown on a short catch by Greg Dortch. Kyler Murray passed for just 74 yards in the first half.

It was a boring first half between two mediocre teams going up against a better matchup, and what’s more, the game was great for ESPN+ subscribers only. It probably wasn’t what the NFL had in mind when it was planned.

Kyler Murray gives Cardinals the lead

There wasn’t much reason for people to subscribe to a streaming service anymore when the second half started. Midway through the third quarter, the Cardinals had third-and-1, so they replaced backup quarterback Clayton Tune just for a sneak sneak. He was stopped in third place and then stopped again in fourth place. This is how the evening went for both teams.

Finally, there was another big highlight. Early in the fourth quarter, Murray scrambled to his left, beat linebacker Junior Colson to the sideline and ran past him for a 44-yard touchdown. Murray’s passing wasn’t good on Monday night and hasn’t been that way all season, but he can still use his speed to run past people. Like his other long touchdown run this season, Murray seemed to start his celebration a few yards past the line of scrimmage, knowing he was gone.

Although the Chargers hadn’t scored a touchdown deep into the fourth quarter, the Cardinals hadn’t done enough to put them away. Los Angeles got a field goal, a stop and then went on a long drive. The Chargers picked up a big fourth down and went for it instead of trying to score a go-ahead goal to keep the drive alive. That fourth down allowed Los Angeles to eat up most of the rest of the clock. The Chargers got a field goal with 1:54 left to take a 15-14 lead.

Arizona still had all three timeouts, but didn’t have much to do on offense all game. On the second play of the drive, Marvin Harrison Jr., who has had a slow start to his rookie season, dropped a pass downfield, but there was a questionable unnecessary roughness penalty on cornerback Cam Hart for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Harrison . .

That set up Conner’s big play that led to the game-winning field goal. The Cardinals improved to 3-4, the Chargers fell to 3-3 and had to wonder how they let that game slip away.