Did head coach Jonathan Gannon foreshadow what would happen in Lambeau Field Sunday when the Arizona Cardinals were drummed by the Green Bay Packers, 34-13?
You be the judge.
When asked this past week about the team leading the NFL with the fewest penalties after five weeks (19) and for only 200 yards (eighth-best), Gannon said, “It’s going good right now. It has to stay consistent, but if we get flagged a bunch in Green Bay, hopefully you can overcome it. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, but you’ve got to be able to overcome some of those too at times.”
That might be true if the penalties were slightly more than the 3.8 per game and 40 yards per game they averaged entering Sunday’s game.
The previous totals were 5-31 vs. Buffalo, 5-52 vs. the Rams, 4-30 vs. Detroit, 4-82 vs. Washington with 47 on a pass interference penalty and 1-5 against the 49ers.
However, against the Packers, they came in waves, making it virtually impossible to overcome. For the day, there were 13 penalties assessed for 100 yards and another three for 30 yards were declined or offset. There had been none of those in the first five games.
There were 6-40 assessed on the offense, 6-45 on defense and 1-for-15 on special teams. What appeared to be an apparently brutal horse-collar tackle on DeeJay Dallas on a fumbled punt return was offset by a Packers holding penalty. On defense, a holding penalty was declined and one for too many players on the field was offset.
There were three neutral-zone violations on defense and three holding penalties on offense. Eleven different players were called for penalties. That’s 22.9 percent of the game-day roster of 48 players and one, quarterback Clayton Tune, didn’t play.
Said Gannon, “They got us a couple of times with the snap count, which that can’t happen. We have to do better there. They call what they call. We will look at those and they will be teaching moments for us. We haven’t had a lot up until this point, but there obviously was a breakdown of what we are doing. So we have to play with better technique and make better decisions, and focus a little bit better.
Gannon called the pre-snap penalties “non-negotiable” and added, “Uncharacteristic of us so that’s why we have to look at why those things happened and do a better job there. Bang-bang plays happen, (but) you don’t want to go backwards before the ball is snapped.”
Quarterback Kyler Murray also used the words non-negotiable and uncharacteristic to describe the forgettable afternoon.
“Sloppy. Turnovers, penalties. Miscommunication,” he said. “In order to beat a good team … we play like that, we won’t beat anybody. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot against a good team. We don’t usually, since JG’s been here, I haven’t felt like we’ve played a game like that where we’ve made bonehead mistake after bonehead mistake and haven’t taken care of the ball. I felt like we’ve been fairly good about taking care of the ball and today we didn’t. In the NFL, that gets you beat.”
Entering the game, the Cardinals had five total turnovers and had three against the Packers, including fumbles on two consecutive possessions, one by running back James Conner.
Murray is confident the team will bounce back and said, “Nobody’s flinching. We’re still right there in the thick of it. We’ve just got to get better every day, and I know we will. You can’t let bad plays continue to happen against a good team. It’s too hard.
“We already obviously know where we didn’t execute, but they’re fixable things. That’s the big thing; it wasn’t anything about performance or athlete on athlete. It was just mental breakdowns. My part, everybody’s part. We’ve got to be better.”
For the record, following are the guilty parties with penalties:
Offense
- TE Elijah Higgins (first quarter), holding, 10 yards
- LG Evan Brown (second quarter), holding, 10 yards
- RT Kelvin Beachum, (second quarter), false start, 5 yards
- Delay of game (third quarter), 5 yards
- Beachum (third quarter), illegal formation, 5 yards
- WR Zach Pascal (fourth quarter, holding, 10 yards
Defense
- DL L.J. Collier (first quarter), neutral zone, 5 yards
- LB Zaven Collins (first quarter), neutral zone, 5 yards
- Collins (first quarter), neutral zone, 5 yards
- CB Max Melton (second quarter), holding (declined)
- CB Sean Murphy-Bunting (third quarter), holding, 5 yards
- Murphy-Bunting (third quarter), holding, 5 yards
- LB Krys Barnes (fourth quarter), unnecessary roughness, 15 yards
- Too many players on the field (fourth quarter), offset
Special teams
- S Joey Blount (first quarter), facemask, 15 yards
- RB DeeJay Dallas (second quarter), horse-collar tackle, offset
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