Toonstruck 1 » 3 takeaways from the Cardinals loss to the Redskins

It was an ugly loss for the Cardinals against Washington Sunday. The offense couldn’t get much going as Sam Bradford threw for under 200 yards. They couldn’t stay with the running game. On defense Arizona Cardinals Hats , tackling and simply being in the correct spot was an issue. Here are my three main takeaways from the game.Bradford’s arm looks shot20/34 for 153 yards, averaging 4.5 yards per attempt is a problem. Bradford is 34 throws into the season and his arm looks shot. He didn’t have much behind the majority of his throws. It showed. That’s the bigger problem. I would chalk up him not being on the same page as his receivers or not willing to continually throw the ball downfield to still being early in the season. His arm? Not so much. Washington’s defense was able to get their hands on five passes. Bradford tried to fit the ball into tight spaces underneath, and it just didn’t work.Fitz and DJ pick up where they left offThe year is 2034 and Larry Fitzgerald is still getting open. He’s so good. Fitzgerald finished with seven catches for 76 yards on 10 targets. One of those shouldn’t have counted and was a hilarious push off.Just watching him find a way to get open at every level and manage to catch it no matter if he’s wide open or if a defender is hanging all over him will forever be impressive to me. In the case of David Johnson, the only reason he didn’t rush for 100 yards is because of his workload. Your best player can’t have nine carries. That just can’t happen, no matter what the score is. If that’s the case, give Johnson 10 catches instead of five. I didn’t get the impression that the offensive line was blocking poorly Arizona Cardinals Hoodie , against the run anyways. I wouldn’t look at Johnson finishing with 37 rushing yards as if he had a bad game. He didn’t.Unprepared on defenseAll those preseason turnovers feel like they happened years ago. The Cardinals defense I saw looked unprepared and out of control. The Redskins were going to get to the edges in the run game, throw it to Chris Thompson and Jordan Reed, throw quick passes with Alex Smith on the run. Everyone knew that, except Arizona. Thompson caught six of his seven targets. Reed caught four of his five. Adrian Peterson was able to keep Washington’s offense ahead of the chains. I actually didn’t think Alex Smith played that well, the Cardinals just weren’t in a position to make him pay. Take for example that touchdown throw to Reed near the goal line. In the slot it was Tre Boston against Reed. Tre. Boston. Boston is a fine zone defender, but in man coverage? Absolutely not.Speaking of Boston Youth Customized Arizona Cardinals Jerseys , there was a lot of out of control play. Whether it was him or Deone Bucannon. Too many missed tackles from the defense. If the team wants to be competitive this year, that’s going to have to change.Arizona Cardinals have to figure out how to stop the run on defense again For the first time in five years, the Arizona Cardinals have a problem.Since 2013, the Arizona Cardinals have finished in the following places in a major defensive stat:2013 - 12014 - 62015 - 22016 - 72017 - 1This year, the Cardinals rank 31st.That stat is Football Outsiders defensive rankings against the run.That’s right, the Cardinals are the second worst team in the NFL against the run.This is a combination of a couple of things.First www.cardinalsauthorizedshops.com , the Cardinals linebacking unit is high key awful. Outside of Josh Bynes, no linebacker this year has played well until this weekend when Haason Reddick was pretty okay and had a nice statistical game.Secondly, the Cardinals defensive line is one gapping and that means the linebackers have to make plays.When you put two and two together, you get the worst, or second worst technically, run defense in the NFL.Then Arizona Cardinals Womens T-Shirt , when you add to that situation an offense that runs less than five plays per offensive possession, and you have a recipe for disaster.You have a perfect storm of a terrible run defense.Can the Cardinals fix it? That’s one of the many questions Steve Wilks and his staff have to answer now.