Josh Weinfuss, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Without Larry Fitzgerald, next man up doesn't produce a win

SEATTLE -- For 10 games, it has been more than a motto, more than a slogan, more than coachspeak.

Arizona’s next-man-up mentality was as tangible as it could get.

When one player went down, another stepped in, took his place and kept the Cardinals’ engine purring to a league-best 9-1 record.

Until Sunday.

When wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald was ruled inactive at Seattle 90 minutes before kickoff, the baton was handed to the latest in a long line of next men up. This time that honor was bestowed upon Jaron Brown, who entered Sunday with nine catches for 76 yards. He showed no matter how good a team has become, enough injuries can pile up until it hits a limit.

And, as it turned out, that limit was Fitzgerald -- not quarterback Carson Palmer, as would be expected. When the two were missing together, Arizona looked like a team that wouldn’t be favored next Sunday in Atlanta.

The Cardinals finished Sunday’s 19-3 loss with 204 total yards, their lowest under coach Bruce Arians. They got 140 in the air and just 64 on the ground.

“All right, very simple analysis of this one: If you don’t block, catch, tackle, kick, you can’t win,” Arians said. “We didn’t do any of the four.”

For the third straight week, the running game couldn’t figure itself out, left tackle Jared Veldheer said. Andre Ellington finished with 24 yards on 10 carries, his second-lowest output of the season. Quarterback Drew Stanton was the team’s second-leading rusher with 23 yards on four carries.

“It’s still too many negative runs,” Veldheer said. “Got to eliminate those and then we got to be able to convert our third downs [25 percent on Sunday], so we can stay on the field and keep running it.

“If we’re not staying out there and sustaining drives, and all that stuff, as it’s reflected on the scoreboard you don’t score points.”

The Cardinals have scored three points in their past seven quarters, but Stanton said it’s more a result of the defenses Arizona has faced than ineptitude and poor execution by the offense.

Without Fitzgerald as an option Sunday, Stanton was 6-of-13 with an interception targeting wide receivers, according to ESPN Stats & Information. All six completions went to just two men: John Brown and Jaron Brown. Stanton’s favorite target, however, wasn’t even a receiver. It was Ellington, whom Stanton targeted eight times, completing five for 39 yards.

Offenses don’t tend to win games when a running back is the most-targeted option.

“He’s a playmaker,” Stanton said of Ellington. “We get the ball in his hands and that’s pretty well documented how good that defense is, so they present some problems and we thought we could attack them from some different areas, and we did early on.”

One of Stanton’s incompletions could’ve been a turning point for Arizona, but Jaron Brown, wide open near the middle of the end zone, left his feet to make a catch and tried to secure it against his body. After the game, he said he knew better than to do both.

And Fitzgerald? He has 20 drops in his 11-year career.

But the drop cost Arizona a touchdown and it entered halftime down 9-3 instead of 9-7.

“That’s part of the game unfortunately,” Stanton said. “Those are physical errors. We just have to limit those. Everybody took turns today. It wasn’t one position group or anything like that.

“Offensively, we didn’t play well enough to win. Anytime you score three points and come in here and only put up that number, you’re not going to be successful. We’re aware of that and we have to find a way to correct it.”

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