The Cardinals got a full 81 snaps out of Jacoby Brissett in a 30-16 loss to the Broncos, and the offense never really stopped feeling like it was teetering. Arizona played 17 men on offense in all, but the snap counts told the story of a unit that kept searching for answers and never quite found them.
Brissett handled every snap at quarterback, while Gardner Minshew II did not play and Carson Beck was inactive as the emergency third quarterback. After the game, the frustration centered on the same old issues: too much pressure, not enough finishing, and another red-zone mess. Arizona has now produced only one touchdown in its last 10 trips inside the red zone over the past two games, and the final sequence - getting the ball to the 1-yard line and then failing to score - summed it up.
Brissett finished with 272 passing yards and a touchdown, but Denver got to him often, pressuring him 21 times and hitting him 13. Brissett kept it blunt when asked about the sacks and pressure: “It’s football.
Stuff like that happens. I’m still standing.”
Head coach Mike LaFleur didn’t want to turn the conversation into a one-man issue. When asked what Brissett gives the offense, he said, "I'm not even going to talk about any of the individuals.
It's us collectively. We have to finish better.”
LaFleur later expanded on the pressure the Broncos generated: "He got hit a little bit. We knew that they were going to try to take the air out of some of the underneath stuff knowing that a lot of the stuff we've put on tape is just getting the ball out of our hands pretty quickly.
Not only that, but with their defensive structure, you knew we were going to have to get over the top. When you do that, you're going to hold onto the ball a little bit longer.
(I’ll) just keep preaching to these guys (to) strain for that extra click to allow Jacoby to sit back there and allow our guys to separate down the field."
At running back, Bam Knight logged 43 snaps and Tyler Allgeier 38. Evan Hull did not play on offense, Jeremiyah Love was inactive with an injury, and James Conner and Trey Benson remained on injured reserve.
Knight posted 48 rushing yards on seven carries, while Allgeier had eight carries for 19 yards, a 2.4 average. Knight’s longest run went for 29 yards; Allgeier’s went for seven.
Knight also chipped in three catches for five yards. Allgeier caught three passes for 30 yards, including a long of 22.
LaFleur was asked about Knight’s dropped end-zone pass and leaned on the same theme again: "It's a collective, so it doesn't make you feel any better or worse. Again, we're collectively in this thing together.
We can all do better and I trust the guys that are out there are going to be able to make those plays. He's going to have an opportunity at some point to make that play and he's going to."
The receiver rotation was led by Michael Wilson, Jalen Brooks and Kendrick Bourne, with Simi Fehoko and Reggie Virgil taking limited snaps. Devin Duvernay did not play on offense.
Arizona’s wideouts were not sharp enough on the day: the three receivers who were targeted combined to catch only 8 of 20 passes. Wilson saw eight targets and turned them into four catches for 55 yards.
Bourne had three catches for nine yards on six targets, while Brooks caught one of his six targets for 35 yards. That sequence helped set Arizona up at the 1-yard line, where the Cardinals ran five snaps - including two pass interference penalties - in the final two minutes and still came away empty.
LaFleur had praise for his top pass-catchers when asked about McBride and Wilson: "They're studs. They're awesome. They're going to be huge reasons why this thing flips."
And McBride kept piling up numbers anyway. He caught 10 passes on 13 targets for 111 yards and a seven-yard touchdown.
In the process, he moved deeper into the record book: with 406 receptions in 73 career games, he passed Travis Kelce as the second-fastest tight end in NFL history to reach 400 catches, behind only Kellen Winslow’s 72 games. He also became the fifth player in league history with at least seven receptions in nine straight games, and his 10th career game with at least 10 receptions put him alongside Tony Gonzalez, Kelce, Zach Ertz and Jason Witten as the only tight ends with that many such games.
McBride now has 59 receptions this season, the most by a tight end through his team’s first seven games of a season in NFL history.
At tight end, Higgins added three receptions for 17 yards.
Up front, the Cardinals went with Jayden Williams at left tackle, Isaac Seumalo at left guard, Hjalte Froholdt at center, Hayden Conner at right guard and Elijah Wilkinson at right tackle, with Josh Fryar logging one offensive snap. Jedrick Wills Jr. and Kingsley Eguakun did not play on offense, while Jon Gaines II and Albert Reese IV were inactive.
Gaines is out with knee and ankle injuries, and Eguakun was elevated from the practice squad. Paris Johnson Jr., Isaiah Adams and Chase Bisontis are all on injured reserve.
Conner made his first NFL start, and Williams had his hands full with Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto. LaFleur said of Conner, "I thought he did some good stuff.
Again, sometimes up front you have to watch the tape with that as well. I thought there was some good stuff, but obviously there were times where the pressure was getting on Jacoby pretty quick."
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Cardinals Right Back In A Frustrating Spot After Broncos Loss
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Jacoby Brissett finished just over 56 percent of his passes for 272 yards, but Arizona still came away with only one touchdown on five trips inside the 20-yard line. Trey McBride again gave the passing game a steady target with 10 catches for 111 yards and the lone score, yet the Cardinals are still left looking for a way to make those opportunities count when they need them most. [Read more 🡒]
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Jacoby Brissett had little room to settle in, as Denvers pressure repeatedly forced the issue and kept Arizona behind the chains. Even with the game unfolding in the shadow of a special halftime moment for Larry Fitzgerald, the on-field concerns were impossible to ignore, especially the way the Cardinals were beaten up up front. For a team already searching for answers, that is the part of the loss that figures to keep coming up. [Read more 🡒]