Inside Slant

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October 18, 2018 at 12:09 am.

Run defense has been non-existent for Cardinals

When it comes to their constant failures at trying to stop the run, multiple Arizona Cardinals defensive players have kept saying it’s up to every individual to look in the mirror, admit his own failures, and do something about it.

A smarter tact might be to quit looking in the mirror because all it’s probably going to do is break a ton of mirrors and bring this team more bad luck at stopping the run.

After allowing a season-high 195 rushing yards to the Vikings during their latest loss, a 27-17 defeat in Minneapolis, the Cardinals are still scratching their heads trying to find answers as to why they suddenly forget how to tackle, how to seal their gaps, and swallow up running backs the way they regularly used to until this season.

They’re allowing an average of 151 rushing yards per game and on a short week against the Broncos this Thursday night, that’s not a comfortable feeling. Denver features two good rookie running backs in Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman, each of whom can and probably will present problems for this overmatched run-defense outfit.

“They bring two different dimensions to the game,” Cardinals middle linebacker Josh Bynes said. “Freeman is a bruising guy, he’s physical, he’s downhill and he bounces off tackles. And Lindsay, he can move. He can move, he can shift, he does it all.”

Last year during an 8-8 season, the Cardinals allowed an opponent to rush for 100 yards or more only three times. Only once, meanwhile, did that include allowing a single running back – Todd Gurley II of the Rams in London – to rush for 100 or more yards all by himself. Until this season, that had only happened four times in the previous three years combined.

It’s already happened twice in 2018, both times by backup running backs, including Minnesota’s Latavius Murray on Sunday. He ran for a career-high 155 yards during Arizona’s fifth loss in six games. It also marked the fifth time an opponent had gashed them for at least 122 yards.

“The run defense has been a problem all year,” defensive tackle Corey Peters said. “At some point, it’s like, ‘Do guys care?’ At the end of the day, everybody’s got a responsibility and everybody’s got to take a look in the mirror and say, ‘Did I do what I was supposed to on this play?’

“That’s the reality of it.”

The Cardinals batted down or deflected six passes at or near the line of scrimmage in Minneapolis, but they couldn’t stop the run if their life depended on it. It’s been an alarming concern in their new 4-3 base defense, which rarely gets employed at all as coordinator Al Holcomb and head coach Steve Wilks have both preferred to rely on more of a zone defense regularly featuring five defensive backs.

It’s not the scheme or the system, though, the Cardinals keep saying. It’s individual players who routinely stray from their gap assignments and it’s an ongoing problem with tackling.

“It’s people making mistakes, not one person, but people are taking turns,” Peters said. “It’s a question for every man. Everybody has to take responsibility for themselves. It’s fairly simple to figure out who is making the mistakes when we are watching the tape. At the end of the day, until everybody stands up, all eleven men on the field and say, ‘This ball is not coming through my gap,’ we won’t have this problem.”

Peters and defensive end Chandler Jones have both been harping on the defenders about gap integrity and doing a better job at using their hands to avoid letting explosive plays develop right in front of them. Of Murray’s 155 yards last week, more than 100 of them came on just four rushing plays and they were the result of players straying from gaps and not using their hands.

If the same players keep making the same mistakes, there will be more personnel changes in the works and Wilks and Holcomb have already made substantial moves to the depth chart, particularly at the linebacker positions. Until then, the coaches said they will be leaning heavily on Peters and Jones to spread the message.

“A lot,” Wilks said when asked how much he’s relying on his veteran leaders. “When you look at Corey Peters, Chandler Jones, those guys that are really consistent in the things that we’re asking them to do. They’re taking a lot of ownership in trying to get things corrected up front.

“Starting with me, I’ve got to put the guys out there that are going to do the things that we ask them to do. Regardless of status, draft pick or whoever, if you’re not doing the things that we ask you to do, you can’t be out there on the field.”

SERIES HISTORY: 11th regular-season meeting. Broncos lead series, 8-1-1. This is the first time the teams have met during the regular season since 2014 and the Broncos won that game in a rout at home, 41-20. After the teams played to a tie in their first-ever meeting in 1973, the Broncos went on to win the next seven straight in the series before Arizona snapped the streak in 2010. That was Denver’s last visit to State Farm Stadium, where the Cardinals scored a 43-13 win.

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