Cardinals Suffer Blow Right Before Jaguars Game

GLENDALE -- The Arizona Cardinals will not have star rookie CB Will Johnson today against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Johnson was questionable entering today with a back/hip injury. He went through pre-game warm-ups and looked uncomfortable before officially being ruled out.

He joins Trey Benson, Baron Browning, Emari Demercado, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, who were ruled out previously entering Sunday.

Kelvin Beachum, Will Hernandez, Darius Robinson and Garrett Williams were all questionable ahead of today but are good to go.

Official Cardinals Inactives vs Jaguars

Trey Benson, Baron Browning, Emari Demercado, Marvin Harrison Jr., Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, Will Johnson, Xavier Thomas, Bilal Nichols

This week, defensive back Darren Hall was signed to the active roster from the practice squad while Arizona elevated tight end Pharaoh Brown and linebacker Channing Tindall to the active roster from the practice squad as standard elevations.

Cardinals Emphasize This Stat vs Jaguars

The 3-7 Cardinals welcome a 6-4 Jaguars team that excels at forcing turnovers, which was a major point of emphasis for head coach Jonathan Gannon entering this week.

"Jacksonville's done a really good job of earning some takeaways and capitalizing on some takeaways a little bit (differently) in my opinion," said Gannon.

"The quarterback air mails it and hits the free safety in the chest; that's kind of capitalizing on it. Quarterback throws an out cut and the corner's playing off and he drives the heck out of it and lays out and makes a play, that's earning it. They're all earned, I'm not diminishing the effect of taking the ball away when the offense puts it at harm's risk, but I think there's layers to that too.

"Credit to Jacksonville, they've done both. I think that we have done a pretty good job of capitalizing on things that when the ball was in harm's way, we've capitalized on that. I think we've earned some as well. I'd like to see us continue to take it away and capitalize on a couple more opportunities I think that are there for us because those plays change games.

"When you talk about taking away on defense, you're either taking points off the board or the offense is trotting back out there. The number one job of defense is (to) get the offense the ball back. When you take the ball away, if the ball is on the plus side, you're taking points off the board in some way shape or form.

"Or if they have to punt, you're going to be backed up, so you're helping out the offense there. If you take it away on their side, that's leading typically to points, so it's a winning stat for a reason. The ball is huge in every game, and typically the numbers would say you don't overcome losing the ball. You really don't. (We) have to make sure that's on our mind on a daily basis and we have to coach it.”

Kickoff is at 2:05 PM MST.

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