Cardinals Make Expectations Clear After Loss

By all accounts, the Arizona Cardinals played arguably their worst brand of football in Week 6's loss to the Green Bay Packers.

Offense. Defense. Special teams. All three areas were out-played by the other side.

"We looked at it with the team and then all three phases, we have to do a better job of being consistent with controlling our controllables. How we get aligned, what we're looking at, the techniques we're using, what is our assignment, so until we do that, we're kind of playing behind eight ball," said Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon.

"We've done that a couple times this year. When we do, do it we're pretty good. You're always striving for that consistency and that's life in the NFL. We'll put together a good plan this week and go play the Chargers on Monday night.”

Arizona is just 2-4 on the season, and a loss against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 7 could be an early nail in the coffin.

The Cardinals have yet to win back-to-back games in the Gannon era, and after a rough showing on the road, Arizona knows they need to bounce back in major fashion - especially in the national spotlight.

"We've done it before and we have to do it again. The mindset this week was they have to understand the schedule because it's a little bit different with the extra day. And we have to have a really good week of practice," said Gannon.

"We have to know our opponent, but I actually told them this week, we will know our opponent. That's always true. We have to take care of ourselves first and it'll be cool to play on Monday Night Football. They'll be ready to go.”

To call the Cardinals inconsistent would be to point out the obvious - as Arizona has flexed their muscles at times while simply coming out flat on other occasions.

For a team learning how to win, growing pains are still evident.

“I think we know who's going to show up. We're going to play violent; we're going to play fast and physical. We have to play a little bit cleaner so it comes from playing ball. You guys asked me a couple times, it takes a little bit of time to get going, see who you are. I think on all three phases we know, and we've had different guys in the lineup, things like that," said Gannon.

"We feel good about those guys, but just playing good clean football in all three phases to give ourselves a chance to win. That's what everybody's striving for, but the record is 2-4, we obviously have to do a better job of that. We'll figure out some different ways and make sure there's no disconnect of what's being taught and learned and drilled and practiced, and then what's being executed. So that's coaching and playing better.”

After reviewing the tape, Gannon says his squad knows exactly what's needed to improve.

“I think today no one's looking around, why did we lose? It's very clear why we lost the game. We did some good things in that game too, so we pointed that out and then (there were) things that if we continue to do, we're not going to win. It's very easy. If you guys want to win, we have to do these things. You point that out and they take the arrow in the forehead and then we have to improve those things moving forward.”