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 game,” 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 looked great, and if the game would have ended with about 3 minutes left in the second quarter, they would have won 17-3.
Unfortunately, that’s when Josh Allen was just getting started.
“I didn’t love the end of the half,” Gannon said.
Analysis : 5 things we learned from Cardinals loss to Bills
Allen led a touchdown drive to end the first half, taking advantage of a questionable roughing the passer call against Zaven Collins on a play that would have been a clean sack in any other era of football.
“And then coming out of the half,” Gannon said, “they got it right back to 17-17.”
Allen led another touchdown drive to start the third quarter, and the damage was done.
The Cardinals never regained their edge.
In the end, there are a lot of positives here. The Cardinals, a 4-13 team last season, came within a touchdown of beating a perennial playoff contender on the road. Arizona’s defense pressured Allen, even if it couldn’t bring him down. And the Cardinals got a special teams touchdown in the fourth quarter to stay in a game threatening to get out of reach.
For some, this could be an encouraging loss, but not for me.
Marvin Harrison Jr. was just out there running cardio for most of the game. Harrison only saw three passes come his way. And he dropped one of them.
There was no excuse for that drop, not for a player of his caliber.
The No. 4 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 will get somebody fired, whether it’s the offensive coordinator, the coach or, eventually, the general manager.
He’s got to do better, and my guess is that no one cares more about getting it corrected than he does. He needs way more opportunities to show what he can do.
Michael Wilson had an inexcusable drop too, letting a ball bounce off his chest with less than 2 minutes to go. That kind of catch could have changed the outcome of the game.
And Kyler Murray isn’t without blame here, either.
He took a sack on third-and-6 with about 9 minutes to go in the third quarter after Allen had engineered back-to-back touchdown drives. The Cardinals needed to answer there, but Murray’s response was questionable, at best.
Maybe Greg Rousseau, Buffalo’s outstanding defensive end, just made a play? Maybe Paris Johnson Jr., Arizona’s promising left tackle, just got beat? But I wonder whether Murray could have or should have stepped up 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 with any certainty. I’ve watched a lot of football from the field and the press box, including most every snap of Murray’s career, and I think he should have avoided that sack.
On Arizona’s next possession, Rousseau beat Kelvin Beachum, who had come in for an injured Jonah Williams, to get a strip sack on Murray.
Again, it’s hard to say how much of that was on Murray, but on that play, he held onto the ball for too long with one hand, giving Rousseau a chance to swat it out. Watching that play made me wonder whether Murray should have felt that pressure or at least anticipated it enough to know that he should have thrown the ball away when he had the chance.
All that said, I put most of the blame 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.
By comparison, Allen threw for 232 yards on 23 attempts.
Why not go downfield more to 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 like 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 he’s the least physically imposing guy 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 hadn't been targeted on that final series.
Gannon didn’t share my concerns on the playcalling.
“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 a couple plays away,” Gannon said. “We’ve got to start making those plays to win games.”
I hope he’s right.
Truly, there’s a lot of reason for optimism, I just don’t want these new-look Cardinals to lay the same old eggs.
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore .
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Blame Kyler Murray, Drew Petzing for Cardinals' loss at Bills
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