Clayton Tune Struggles Heavily in Cardinals Offensive Disaster
Following the Week 8 loss to Baltimore--a game which pitted many Arizona Cardinals fans against QB Joshua Dobbs--head coach Jonathan Gannon made the decision to dethrone Dobbs and eventually announced fifth-round rookie Clayton Tune as the starting quarterback.
Dobbs was subsequently traded to the Minnesota Vikings in the final hours of the league's trade deadline.
Safe to say, Tune's debut game was a complete disaster in Week 9's 27-0 loss to the Cleveland Browns. The rookie went 11-20 for a mere 58 yards. He also tossed two interceptions and lost a fumble with a passer rating of just 20.8.
Tune consistently missed throws, and struggled to make reads downfield. He averaged just 2.8 yards per attempt. Early in the second quarter, Tune, looking for Marquise Brown, sailed the pass over the WR's head into the waiting arms of Cleveland's Denzel Ward.
On the following drive, Arizona's offense looked like it had caught a spark. Tune dropped a beautiful pass to Rondale Moore--who had lined up as a HB--on a wheel route, for a 25-yard chunk gain. The play was called back, however, due to an offensive pass interference on Hollywood Brown.
Brown did not make contact with the Cleveland DBs, in fact, they ran into each other.
Now, this is not to say that the Cardinals should have been on top. The offense had failed to pick up first downs on three straight drives. But the blatantly obvious missed call ended the drive, and was likely a blow to Tune's confidence.
Things only went from bad to worse for the Tune squad today.
After three straight three-and-out drives, on which they logged -10 total yards on nine plays, offensive coordinator Drew Petzing dialed up a play-action pass on first down. Browns DL Shelby Harris burst through the offensive line, sacking Tune and forcing a fumble.
Star DE Myles Garrett recovered it to set up an easy 11-yard touchdown drive for Cleveland.
But this wasn't the end of Tune's rough outing. Two drives later, in Cleveland territory, Tune scrambled out of the pocket and attempted to force a ball to TE Trey McBride deep down the sideline. The area was heavily covered, and the ill-advised pass attempt ended up in the hands of Browns LB Sione Takitaki.
Ultimately, Tune's debut went as well as one could have expected. As a rookie fifth-rounder, who failed to beat out Colt McCoy or Joshua Dobbs for the starting role, expectations for Tune should have been low.
In light of Dobbs' recent poor performances, it's reasonable to wonder if Tune could give the Cardinals a better chance to win games.
Wonder no more.
Now, granted, this game served as the perfect scenario to throw Tune to the wolves. Facing a top-tier Cleveland pass rush and secondary, it would have been a tall task to ask even Kyler Murray to avoid the likes of Myles Garrett and co.
In all likelihood, we might have seen another rough performance from Joshua Dobbs today as well.
The Browns manhandled Arizona's offensive line, sacking Tune an astounding seven times, with 10 total QB hits. Starting tackle D.J. Humphries and guard Will Hernandez were both ruled out of today's contest early with injuries.
Petzing appeared hesitant to allow Tune to throw downfield, drawing up a variety of screen passes. These were generally blown up for no gain, or tipped away at the line of scrimmage. Tune was offered very little in the realm of opportunity to throw the ball downfield, but his downfield attempts quickly became disastrous.
All in all, any QB would have likely struggled with this much stacked against him, and expecting a fifth-round rookie QB to have a Brock Purdy-like rise in his first NFL action is certainly unreasonable.
But the truth is, Tune did not give the team a chance to succeed. The offense picked up just 58 yards on 48 plays, the least yards a Cardinals offense had accrued since 1955. The run game was stuffed for 41 yards, and while Tune passed for 58, he lost 41 yards on sacks, ending his day with a net of 17 yards in the air game.
Gannon took an optimistic view of Tune's tough day postgame. Gannon noted that Tune was "positive" on the sidelines today, and acknowledged the difficulty of stepping in to a situation like today's. “It’s a hard spot for him, being his first game on the road in a good environment, versus a good defense, but he’ll learn from it and get better," Gannon said following the game.
Gannon also said he's "not thinking about [Kyler Murray] right now," but with today's offensive disaster, and Kyler poised to come off the PUP list this week, one can only hope and pray that the next QB to take a snap for the Cardinals is wearing No. 1.
