Missed Opportunities Continue to Plague Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals dropped to 1-5 following another sloppy Sunday afternoon loss, this time at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams.
Although they once again went into the half dominating the stat sheet, failure to make necessary plays sunk them once again.
Arizona's first half looked, in many ways, similar to many of their previous games this season. They dominated yards, time of possession and first downs by a wide margin.
So how could they manage to only lead by three heading into the locker room?
Missed opportunities.
QB Joshua Dobbs had another inaccurate day, completing under 50% of his passes, for 235 yards, no touchdowns and an interception. He carried a passer rating of just 58.5.
What hurt the Cardinals most, however, was the inability to capitalize on what the Rams were offering them.
On their first offensive drive, Dobbs had Marquise Brown open for a touchdown, but overshot him, leading to a 55-yard Matt Prater kick and leaving four points left on the board immediately.
After the defense came away with a crucial red zone stop, the Cardinals went three-and-out before their special teams recovered a fumble on the ensuing punt, placing the ball at the LA 17 yard line.
Dobbs missed Brown twice downfield before settling for a three-yard gain and taking another field goal. Although they began their drive in the red zone, they failed to come away with a TD in a spot where they were gifted a near guaranteed six points.
On their next possession, sitting at 4th and 1 on an extended drive at the LA 36, OL Elijah Wilkinson was called for a bizarre offensive offsides penalty, taking away the chance to pick up a "brotherly shove" conversion.
HC Jonathan Gannon elected to keep the offense out for 4th and 5, and the decision itself was a good one. Dobbs, however, saw Brown streaking down the sideline once more, with several yards of separation, but an inaccurate pass led the speedy WR out of bounds.
Arizona came away empty from a surefire TD opportunity, giving the Rams the ball with good field position.
But it wasn't just Dobbs who held the team back.
Although OC Drew Petzing has generally done an excellent job maximizing the potential of this young and thin Cardinals squad, after engineering another solid drive, with a 3rd and 3 on the LA 8, he called a questionable run play to Keaontay Ingram and lost a yard in the process.
The offense stayed out, but only to attempt to draw the Rams offsides. The lack of aggression stalled another long, deep drive, and forced Arizona to settle for another field goal.
In the world of hypotheticals, the Cardinals could have gone into the half with 21 points, but instead merely led 9-6.
In the second half, things only went downhill. After immediately allowing a long touchdown drive, the offense went three-and-out. When the defense held the Rams to a field goal, and the deficit was only seven points, it seemed like the perfect time for the offense to wake up.
And it did, sort of. The Cardinals moved the ball well on the next drive. Following a 15-yard facemask penalty against LA, Dobbs threw a beautiful 22-yard pass to Hollywood Brown, setting up Arizona to potentially tie the game at at their opponents' 12-yard line.
On the very next play, Dobbs failed to notice a wide open Rondale Moore, and tossed a pass well behind TE Zach Ertz, resulting in another tipped-ball interception, this time by Rams' LB Christian Rozeboom. Arizona walked away from another promising drive again empty-handed.
Plenty went wrong in this game on both sides of the ball. But the truth is that Dobbs' poor decision making and inability to take advantage of the opportunities in front of him once again cost Arizona a chance to fight until the end.
Dobbs' tendency to stare down targets like Ertz and Brown take away the ability to spread the ball around and move it more consistently.
Following last week's game, Dobbs mentioned that WR Michael Wilson deserved more targets. "My first target to [Wilson] can't be in the 4th quarter," Dobbs said.
Wilson had been put up excellent numbers against the 49ers before becoming a non factor in Week 5. He was targeted only twice against Cincinnati, picking up one catch for 18 yards.
Against the Rams, Dobbs was able to hit Wilson for a nice 17-yard gain in the first quarter. However, the rookie WR was not targeted again until late in the 4th quarter, when the game was effectively out of reach. Wilson was still able to pick up 62 yards, despite two of his three receptions coming in garbage time.
If Dobbs wants to be effective, or at least give the Cardinals a chance to capitalize in other ways offensively, he has to be able to look for his big targets early on, and has to make accurate throws. Wilson is a playmaker, and he's shown his ability to come up big, break open and make contested catches; give the playmaker a chance to make a play.
Granted, the Rams put a great deal of pressure on Dobbs, and star DL Aaron Donald is never an easy player to avoid, but the journeyman QB let the pressure get to him early and often in this game. The Rams collected 9 hits on Dobbs, including two sacks and a forced fumble, but even when he was able to get the ball out, it was clear he was failing to go through his reads consistently, and his accuracy suffered as well.
It was another week of sloppy play, on both sides of the ball. This loss was not in any way entirely on the shoulders of Dobbs, but the fact of the matter is Dobbs missed numerous opportunities for points.
The four point plays that put them at a disadvantage through different points of the game are exactly what the Cardinals need to eliminate from an offense that - in general - has been more impressive than expected.
