What The Cardinals Said Following Their Week 4 Loss vs The Seahawks

Cardinals Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury Watch Press Conference: azcardinals.com On the cause of the offensive struggles: “I’m not sure exactly what it was. Had a tough drop early and some tough penalties. We’re moving the ball at times. We have to find a way to finish, and that’s all of us – coach and players. Got to call better plays and execute at a higher level.” On WR Christian Kirk’s injury status: “I’m not sure yet. I’m not sure.” On DL Zach Allen’s injury status: “I’m not sure. I haven’t checked.” On the type of injury Allen sustained: “Zach Allen is a shoulder. I’m not sure what it is exactly.” On RB David Johnson’s performance: “It appeared he played well from the sideline. It’s tough to see.” On what happened on DE Jadeveon Clowney’s pick-six: “It was a screen. They brought pressure. I couldn’t see from my angle exactly what happened. He’s an outstanding player, made a tremendous play. We can’t have those things happen.” On the ups-and-downs and if he expected the growing pains: “You want to play better, obviously. Negative plays have hurt us offensively, and then defensively, untimely penalties at times and some tough missed tackles. It’s all of us, coaches and players together, that have to get better. I like the competitive spirit we’re playing with. I think execution is lacking at times, and that’s on all of us.” On using RB Chase Edmonds more early in the game: “Chase has earned playing time. We wanted to get him involved in the game plan. He does a nice job on special teams and on offense. We just felt like it’s time to expand his role.” On Chandler Jones coverage on TE Will Dissly’s touchdown: “From where I sat, it was hard for me to tell. I’ll have to get that answer after here.” On covering tight ends and the adjustments that were expected: “We obviously didn’t execute the plan as well as we’d hoped. Russell (Wilson) made some great throws, great plays, and that that tight end ( Dissly) is a solid player. We’ve got to do a better job on them.” On how scoring a touchdown at the end of the first half would have changed the complexion of the game: “I’m not sure. We weren’t able to execute so that’s kind of a moot point, but anytime you get the ball back in that situation you have to go at a higher level and we didn’t.” On the keys to getting out of a losing stretch: “Just getting back to fundamentals and techniques and sticking together. There’s nobody coming into that locker room to save us. I think everybody on that team understands how good we can be if we execute at a high level. We just haven’t gotten it done.” On how tough it was to give up the 75-yard drive to the Seahawks in the fourth quarter: “You’d like to get a stop, but I thought our defense gave us the ball back quite a few times in the second half. We had a good stretch where we were playing very solid defense. Once again, you have to give Seattle credit. Russell’s a great player, made some great plays, extended the drive and they found a way to seal the game.” On the reason behind putting QB Kyler Murray under center more today: “Just game plan.” On CB Kevin Peterson getting more playing time at cornerback and how he has been improving: “Knowledge of the system. We felt like coming in he was a talented player, (has) great cover skills and he’s just understanding our system now. I expect his reps to go up.” On WR Larry Fitzgerald moving up to No. 2 on the all-time receptions list: “He’s an incredible player and incredible person and I’m very excited for him to get that.” On targeting Johnson more than any other receiver and if it was by design: “He was open. We were trying to make some progress from the previous week and make sure he was a part of it and checking it out if it’s not there. That was progress in that area.” On Johnson’s performance as a whole: “I think he continues to improve. He’s getting a feel for the offense and where he fits into it and we’re going to keep trying to get him going.” On if he likes the idea of having Edmonds and Johnson on the field at the same time: “We’ll continue to do whatever it takes to move the football. Those two guys can present problems to defenses when they’re both in there. I thought it was a pretty solid package for us today.” On K Zane Gonzalez’ two misses: “I haven’t had that conversation yet.” On what he’s optimistic about: “Like I’ve said all along, effort. These self-inflicted things are things that are correctable. We’ve been competitive in games, just haven’t executed at a high enough level at crucial times. That to me is fixable and we just have to fix it.” On P Ryan Winslow’s performance: “I thought he performed well. He was solid in camp and stepped in and I thought he did a nice job.” Cardinals Quarterback Kyler Murray Watch Press Conference: azcardinals.com On the interception by DE Jadeveon Clowney: “It was a good play by him. Probably should have just thrown it in the dirt. David (Johnson) was right next to him, so it was just unfortunate. He’s a really explosive guy, so thinking he’d get upfield, and on the one play, he didn’t get upfield. He just happens to be there, so it’s unfortunate.” On what he believes the reason is for the team’s offensive struggles: “Penalties, I would say for the most part, just self-inflicted wounds. Some of those are on me, just not throwing the ball away, trying not to take negative plays,” On how they can stop those self-inflicted issues: “Just get better. It’s really not discouraging because if we don’t go backwards, it’s hard to stop, and I think we’ve shown that. We just have to get better.” On if the offense will get going when the self-inflicted issues stop: “Yeah, I think so.” On his ability to make something out of nothing and applying that to NFL games: “There were a lot of those plays out there today. A lot of our explosive plays were with penalties.” On if he thinks the game would be a different story if they scored a touchdown on the final possession of the first half: “I think if we just put the ball in the endzone instead of kicking field goals, we’ll be in better position to win the game. We get down there every weekend, and we’re kicking field goals.” On what was working with his connection with RB David Johnson today: “They were really soft as far as dropping out of there, when they knew it was a pass, the linebackers were dropping 10, 15 yards down the field. I could have checked the ball down to him the whole game. Some of those plays, just give him the ball, let him do his thing. I think that’s what was working for us.” On if Seattle’s defense played against him like Carolina did: “I guess you could say that, yeah. I guess so.” On Seattle’s defense dropping back on him: “Yeah, you can’t get bored with taking the short stuff.” On how aware he was of WR Larry Fitzgerald’s position in history regarding all-time receptions entering the game: “I was not aware of it until it happened. Pretty crazy though.” On what it’s like being a part of record-breaking moments with Fitzgerald: “It really hasn’t hit me that I threw him the ball to pass Tony Gonzales. I’m surprised Jerry Rice has caught that many balls, to be honest with you.” On if his first rushing touchdown will be fun to remember some day: “Yeah. Like I said, if we would have won, it would have made it a lot better.” On whether he was trying to get on the field to talk to Jerry Rice before the game: “No. He’s a good guy though.” On what kind of threat David Johnson has become as a receiver this year: “He’s very versatile. I think everyone knows that. Coach Kingsbury does a good job of putting him in space, giving him opportunities, run routes and stuff like that. So whenever we have those matchups, I know for the most part, he’s going to win.” On how close the thinks they are to putting everything together: “I think we’re really close.” On if he talked to QB Carson Palmer at all: “I got to meet him when he came to the facility. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to talk to him today or anything like that, but got to meet him yesterday.” On what it’s like playing with Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury’s offense: “Everybody in the building understands what we have and how it’s supposed to go and how its supposed to look. There are flashes, but we haven’t finished or put it all together. I think once we put it all together we’ll be fine.” On if he expected the offense to be more put together by this point in the season: “I don’t know. We just got to limit penalties and finish drives.”Cardinals Wide Receiver Larry Fitzgerald Watch Press Conference: azcardinals.com On what being second on the all-time receptions list means to him: “I don’t mean any disrespect to guys on the all-time list, but it’s hard to take anything good from losing two in a row at home. Three home games out of four, and we don’t come out with a win. That’s pretty depressing, so there’s not much to really be happy about.” On Hall of Fame WR Jerry Rice being on the sideline: “It’s not the first time he’s been at a game. He’s been at a couple games when we played against the 49ers over the years. Jerry has been very kind to me long before today. He used to come up and train with me in the offseason, teaching us all the nuances of route running and pass catching. I have a great relationship with him. I talk to him quite often about a lot of stuff that’s not even related to football, so having him there is always great. He’s been a wonderful mentor for a long time.” On how he feels about the Cardinals record: “I didn’t anticipate being where we are now. We’re just not good enough to make the mistakes that we’re making now. Often times, it’s a little bit too late when we finally get going. Last week, we got going early and weren’t able to sustain it. The weeks before, we were stagnant until the second half and got going, which was a little too late. And today, we just didn’t have our flow at all. We’re playing against good teams. Seattle is most likely, if they keep playing the way they’re playing, going to be in the playoffs again. What they did last year was truly amazing. You just have to play better. You can’t spot good teams anything. You have to play well in all three phases consistently for 60 minutes to win in this league.” On if QB Carson Palmer is one of the toughest players he’s ever played with: “Without question. It was great to see Carson. I wish we could have played better for him on his day. To see him up there, his name on our Ring of Honor is really special, especially for the guys that played with him. They knew how tough he is and what he sacrificed to get out there on that field. You guys saw him deal with a plethora of injuries that cost him games, but you didn’t see him fighting and battling through other injuries that he didn’t talk about. That’s just what he stood for and what he embodied. I was really happy to see him out there and honored like that. It’s the greatest honor you can receive from the team, and I don’t know anybody that’s more deserving of it.” On moving into second all-time in receptions with Palmer in attendance: “Carson only cares about winning. When I talked to him after the game, he said, ‘Man, you guys need to win that game.’ That’s what he stood for, and that’s the reason we won 50 games in five years with him as our starting quarterback, because he believed in that. He worked like that every single day, and that was his mindset. I already know what he’s going to tell me when I talk to him later, ‘You guys have to get better.’ That’s what we’re committed to and we’re going to continue to do that.” On how he compares this season to last season: “We’re in the infancy stage of the season. This is the first quarter, the fourth game. We’ve got a lot of football ahead of us. Every single team is different – the identity, the coaches, the players, the season, the injuries. Everything is completely different from season to season. I don’t want to say this is the same or different. It’s early, and the identity of this team is still being developed and being tested.” On what needs to change offensively to get a victory: “We move the ball, between the 20 and 20-(yard lines). We move the ball up and down the field. We had the running game going really good early. We were able to throw it around a little bit, but then we get to the red zone and we stymie down there. We have to do a better job of finishing drives and not relying on field goals. In this business, you have to score touchdowns. When you score touchdowns, you get the momentum in your favor. The defense can feed off that momentum. The defense played well enough. You hold a team to 20 points, that should be good enough. We spotted them (Seattle) seven. In this business, 20 points will usually keep you in the fight most days.” On why the offense stalls in the red zone: “It’s a plethora of things, not executing the plays, a missed block here, a missed throw here, a dropped ball there, a miscommunication. Take turns on doing things you can’t do. It’s easier for the defense down there. They don’t have to worry about giving the deep ball up. They can play tighter to the receivers. They don’t have to worry about getting beat over the top. The windows are much closer. The throws have to be better, and the margin for error is a lot smaller.” On RB David Johnson’s receiving performance affecting his workload: “I think it just opens up everything, because David is running flares and angles and things like that. The linebackers that usually drop back to try to get under our deep routes can’t commit that far because they don’t want to give that space to David because he’s so good in making the first guy miss and breaking tackles. It helps us over the top when David is doing what he’s doing in the passing game. Obviously, same in the running game. It all works in our favor. It doesn’t matter who’s getting the yards as long as the yards are coming. We’re all the same offense.” On if he ever calls for the coaching staff to force passes to him: “No, that’s not my thing. My dad told me a long time ago to watch Barry Sanders and emulate the way he conducted himself and his professionalism, and that’s always the way I’ve been. I’ve got 1,300-plus catches doing it the way I’ve been doing it. I think I’m doing it alright.” On if Rice calling him the greatest of all time on Twitter is special to him: “That’s pretty special to get that from the actual, real G.O.A.T. (greatest of all-time). I guess when you are the G.O.A.T., it’s easy to call somebody else the G.O.A.T., but he’s the best of all time. I got a real nice message earlier from Tony Gonzalez too who is arguably the best tight end to every play the game. To have your name mentioned with those guys is truly an honor.” Cardinals Center A.Q. Shipley On if he is happy with the offense when the margin is closer: “They played us differently than they had shown all year and it ended up working pretty well for us early, in the run game. When you’re down by 10, 17, whatever it is, you have to throw the ball. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. They know, we know it, everybody knows it. It’s not the ideal situation.” On if it’s difficult to get back in rhythm once the offense is out of it: “I don’t think so. I think as long as you stay on track, I know I sound like a broken record, but that’s the truth of it. If you watch us, when we stay on track, we don’t get negative plays. We get four, we get six, we get a first down. We keep it moving, keep them tired and we move the ball up and down the field. The difference is we have to put the ball in the endzone and stay away from the negative plays.” On how much of getting off track is self-inflicted: “Eighty percent of it, 90 percent of it, 95 percent of it. Offensive pass interference when you get a big play, holding call when you get a decent run, even when it isn’t a decent run you get three and you’re still on track. It’s all the self-inflicted stuff. I’m sure coach has talked about it, a lot of us have talked about it. We see it and if it’s not one thing it’s another.” On if some of the offensive struggles should have been expected with a first year head coach and rookie quarterback: “I don’t think you can do that. At the end of the day, in this business you’re expected to win. Maybe Week 1 but that was our best result of the year, obviously. Once you get a week in, it’s the NFL just like anybody else.” Cardinals Cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. On if he thinks the team is close to putting it all together: “Yes sir, I definitely think we’re close. It’s the little details that we all have to fix. Not just certain people, certain this but as a whole I just think we all have to fix the little details and we’ll be good together.” On if Chandler Jones was supposed to be in coverage on the Will Dissly touchdown: “We could have just made a play. I’m not going to say it was his fault, my fault, I could’ve done a better job, he could’ve done a better job. Like I said, little details and we will keep working." On how much of the struggle is due to penalties when there are big plays: “It’s little details. It goes back into that. Every single week we have just got to make sure we’re sticking together, but little things like that can hurt us as we’ve seen. All of those little things that happen, we’ve got to keep fixing, keep working and keep going up from here. Just keep being better and better, every single body on this team.”Cardinals Offensive Lineman D.J. Humphries On how the team is feeling after a tough month of September: “I know how I feel. I feel like we should be 4-0 right now. All of those games that you have seen, all of the wounds have come from us. Even the games where you see the other team flourish, we had an error or something like that that gives them good field position, or we give them an opportunity to score. We just have to work on managing the situations and making sure we understand how important some things are. We have to understand situations better.” On how to move on from a rough start to the season: “I know personally, when things get hard for me, I just try to make sure I come into work every day, honing in on the details and honing in on my technique. When you’re trying to fix something, you have to look at yourself first, you have to start with yourself. That’s the main part, everybody has to come together, look themselves in the mirror, accept their errors, accept the flaws and try to work on them every day and try to make sure we’re moving that needle every day. That’s all you can do.” On the offense’s struggles this year: “You always know that there’s going to be bumps when you have a rookie quarterback. If you know anything about football or if you played the game, you know that you believe in the offense because it rolls. Finishing is just a matter of figuring things out and us capitalizing on certain things and understanding where we should be and where we need to go. I wholeheartedly believe in the offense. You don’t just go out and play against NFL defenses and go up and down the field when it’s important, if it’s not a good offense. That’s usually when you see someone falling apart, in the most important moments, but we’ve proved for the most part that when it counts, we’re going out there and giving our best efforts. We just have to make sure it’s consistent. We have to start fast and finish strong.” Cardinals Running Back David Johnson On if he is upset after today’s game: “Yes, obviously. When we’re in the red zone that many times, and we don’t score, it’s tough.” On if he understood his role in the receiving game going into today’s game: “Yes, every game I go into it hoping to have good catches, receiving yards and stuff like that.” On if the two-running back look early in the game opened up the offense: “Yes, it did help. With Chase (Edmonds) being in there, the defense doesn’t know who’s getting the ball or what we’re doing.” On playing alongside RB Chase Edmonds: “He’s a smart kid. He knows what he’s doing. Whenever he gets a chance, just like practice, he does it in the game. He’s able to pick up the role and get the yards and do what needs to be done for the offense.” On how the team stays motivated: “The biggest thing is staying together, making sure we don’t acknowledge the outside noise, and that we stick together.” On his frustration with the offensive struggles: “It’s very frustrating with any offense when you’re not scoring touchdowns or keeping the team in the game. It’s obviously going to be frustrating for everyone.” On if he is optimistic for the offense moving forward: “Yes, because we can move the ball. When we’re in the red zone, we’ve got to score points.” On Edmonds’ reliability: “Chase is always reliable. Like I said, he’s a smart guy. He knows what he’s doing at all times. Whenever he gets his chance, he always seems like he’s doing the right thing.”Cardinals Offensive Lineman Justin Pugh Watch Press Conference: azcardinals.com On the mood in the locker room following the loss: “We’re definitely disappointed. We had a really good week of practice, did some good things and then we came out, and as an offense, kept hurting ourselves with the penalties. Physically, we’re doing some good things, but we have to finish drives and put our defense in a better spot.” On if he saw anything that may have caused the offensive struggles: “Not until I watch the film, then we’ll know more. I don’t want to make a knee-jerk reaction to it. We have to get in there and watch the film and be super critical of ourselves. Each one of us has to start playing a little bit better and not try to press too much, you can’t do that in this game. Then we need to go out and get a win.” On the mindset after the touchdown: “Yeah, we got some momentum, but we kept taking away our own momentum out there. There was nothing that they did that really gave us fits. Obviously, we gave one to them early, we spotted them seven. But for the whole game I feel like we did a good job of moving the ball, but we were hurting ourselves with penalties. You can’t do that if you want to beat good teams and we didn’t do that today, so we lost.” On the frustrations around self-inflicted wounds: “It’s definitely frustrating. Good teams don’t hurt themselves. So we have to learn to be the team that we want to be and that just starts with coming back together, doing the little things right, and sticking together. I’ve been on some good teams and I’ve been on some bad teams. Teams that start fighting amongst themselves and pointing fingers, those are the teams that never figure it out. The teams that stick together, keep uplifting each other, those are the teams that figure it out. It’s a long season, obviously we’re not starting the first quarter of the season how we wanted to, but we’ve got a ways to go. We have the right character of guys in this room to turn this thing around.” Cardinals Linebacker Terrell Suggs Watch Press Conference: azcardinals.com On the frustration caused by games being decided on a couple plays: “This is the NFL. We have to do better. We have to play better. Starting with myself. You always start with yourself first. We all have to play better. We all wish we had plays back. It’s time. We are all itching for our first win, and we just need to commit to getting it fixed.” On if he is surprised by the team’s record after four games: “Very surprised. When they put this team together, they didn’t expect us to be this late searching for our first win. We’ve had some tough ones, but like I said, this is the NFL. We’re committed. We have 12 left, and it starts next week with Cincinnati” On if it is extra frustrating because he joined the team in free agency: “No, losing is frustrating. You don’t want to get used to losing. There is no ‘extra’ on anything. We’re all committed to winning and winning now. We just have to do that. It starts with just playing the game better.” On if the mindset going forward is there is still a lot of football left to play: “Definitely. We’ve had some unfortunate losses, but it’s just the first quarter of the season. The NFL season is a marathon, not a sprint. You have seen the case where a lot of teams start out hot, and at the end, they don’t have anything in the tank. Hopefully next week, we can go on the road to Cincinnati and get our first win.” On if there is a different mindset when rushing QB Russell Wilson: “Always because Russell Wilson, that’s how he got his name; he’s a counter puncher. He’s basically going to run where you’re not, and you have to be very mindful of where you rush. I think we did a good job of not letting him get out too much today, but he’s a hell of a quarterback. He made plays with his arm and his legs at times. He played a good game. That’s why he’s Russell Wilson. We respect that, but also in the same respect, we have to do a better job of making sure Russell Wilson isn’t Russell Wilson when we play him.” On if this is where veteran leadership can come into play: “Definitely. Sailors aren’t made on calm water. You need a little bit of turmoil to identify your character and see how much fight you really have. It’s a very unfortunate adversity, but it can be a good thing and we’re up for the challenge.” On what kind of impact DE Jadeveon Clowney can have on the rivalry: “I don’t know; that’s for them to decide.”Cardinals Kicker Zane Gonzalez On the missed field goals: “Everybody has misses. Stuff happens. I should bounce back.” On approaching the misses with a short-term memory mindset: “You can’t dwell on the past too much. That’s in every aspect of life as well. I’ll just try to go out there in my next opportunity and make the most of it.” On what happened on his missed field goals: “I wish I knew. Stuff just happens sometimes. A miss is a miss. I’ve got to take it on the chin and move on.” On if a new pre-kick routine may have had an impact: “That had nothing to do with it. That goes all the way back to me. Like I said, I’ll take it on the chin and move on and get better.”

What The Cardinals Said Following Their Week 4 Loss vs The Seahawks

Postgame quotes and locker room reaction from the Arizona Cardinals in their 27-10 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 4.