Cardinals Take Accountability for Second-Half Stumble

The Arizona Cardinals helped make history on Sunday, but not exactly in their favor.

Up 20-0 and eventually 28-7 in the third quarter, the New York Giants pulled off their largest comeback in the Super Bowl era in an eventual 31-28 win for New York. Both teams entered the matchup looking for their first win of the 2023 season, and now Arizona approaches a tough Week 3 matchup with the Dallas Cowboys 0-2.

Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon tried to take accountability for the loss:

"We've got to coach better. We got outplayed in the second half. A tale of two halves. We have to do a better job to help our guys out because the effort's there and the intensity is there—we've got to coach a little bit better."

Yet it was the majority of his players - when speaking to reporters - that made it clear the collapse was on them.

“I am really sick to my stomach. I am hurt. I am not discouraged but I am hurt for sure. We are in this thing together," said RB James Conner. "Our offense put a couple more points up than we did last week. Still wasn’t enough. We didn’t complete the mission.”

S K'Von Wallace

“Losing is rough. (Whether) it’s by 100, a close game, a comeback, a blowout—losing is tough, regardless. We hate to see it. This is not the standard. This is not what we accept. From the staff, to the coaches, to the players, everybody’s got to expect more out of themselves including myself.”

LB Kyzir White

“I think when you get up 20-0 there might be a natural instinct of “we got them”, but it’s the National Football League. Just like we scored 20 in a half, they can go out and score 20 in a half. We definitely played with a lot of energy in the first half, but the second half was unacceptable and not good enough. I put that on me as a leader on this defense to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

QB Josh Dobbs

“We fight, 100% we fight. We can compete with anyone and just like last week, if we go out, execute and do what we’re going to say we’re going to do and what we’re supposed to do, we’re a difficult offense to stop. We showed that and we’ll continue to show that, but as I said, just because we had some success on offense this week, it's finding those ways to get better and not getting complacent in that. It’s ok, we have to hit the reset button tomorrow and watch the film, flush it and hit the reset button and get onto the next opponent.”