Edge rusher Markus Golden had 35.5 sacks in two stints with the Arizona Cardinals, including 12.5 in 2016 and 11.0 in 2021. His nine NFL seasons produced 51.0 sacks, and the ride ended earlier this summer when he retired while a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He was in State Farm Stadium for the coin toss Sunday, and judging by what the Cardinals defense did in a 41-10 beatdown of the Los Angeles Rams, maybe they should have him around more often.
Golden always talked about going “hunting” for quarterbacks and that’s what the much-maligned pass-rush group did Sunday. Dennis Gardeck had three, Zaven Collins and Krys Barnes one and four came on third down. The one by Collins and two of Gardeck’s came in the first half as the Cardinals built a 24-3 lead.
Gardeck had sack celebrations that were tributes to Golden, who Gardeck didn’t know was going to be in the house.
“(He) did not tell me he was going to be doing the coin toss, which is absolutely absurd,” Gardeck said afterward. “He kind of got me charged up seeing him out there. That is my dog. One of my favorite teammates I have ever played with. He used to always do the St. Louis Stomp— a little something like this. He said, ‘We’ve been doing this since high school Dennis.’ That was a little nod towards Markus.”
Head coach Jonathan Gannon said, “I thought the rush was lights out. I thought the plan was good. It was executed in practice all week and we had a bunch of guys win one-on-ones. I thought the back end did a really good job of taking some things that they wanted to do away. Guys (were) winning leverages, guys (were) winning one-on-ones and getting on the right people.
“The help was displaced. The zone distribution was displaced where it should be. When you make the quarterback hold it, we had guys winning, so I thought that was kind of a winning edge for us.”
All the Cardinals coaches have unique ways of communicating, and Gardeck pointed to one of defensive coordinator Nick Rallis’ points of emphasis.
He said, “We talk about the SERR model. It’s something Nick is always talking about. Situation, Emotion, Response, and the last R is the Result. The R that you can control is the response. It depends on the situation, but a lot of the time it’s stick to the game plan and continue to play your football. Sometimes feeding into it can get you hyped and get you ready, but sometimes it can be a distraction. You’ve got to understand (and have) enough self-awareness to know where you’re at, also understand the situation of the game and just be able to respond accordingly.”
They sure responded Sunday.
Said Collins, “It’s a fun game when it’s like that. Everything is just clicking well, everything happening. The coaches, scouts, everyone did a good job at figuring out what we were going to do and it ended up working our way so it was awesome.”
As for the persistent outside shots taken at the defense, Gardeck said, “I think we know who we are. We don’t need validation from anybody else.”
The defensive play made Rams head coach Sean McVay look like a seer when some probably thought he was using coach-speak prior to the game.
He said of the Cardinals defense, “They’re really multiple. They do a great job. They can morph into different personnel groupings with the same guys on the field. They have the ability to activate different personnels with different body types. You can see there’s a philosophical approach that they take that they understand how to put the offense in conflict. Jonathan Gannon’s a guy that I have a ton of respect for (and) Nick Rallis.
“They do a great job of creating a lot of issues schematically putting players in positions. There’s an intent and there’s a philosophy. I always respect that when you see it show up on the tape. Their ability to morph and mold as they see fit and basically match up against an opponent is something I respect.”
After the game quarterback Matthew Stafford said, “They always have nice wrinkles. They’re a really sophisticated defense, do a lot of cool stuff on third down, and had some things for us today.”
And it was executed, which is always the bottom line in the NFL.
Most important was the win was only the fourth at home since Oct. 2021 in 20 games and the first at home over the Rams since McVay became the head coach in 2017. The last Cardinals home win over the Rams was in 2014 when the Rams played in St. Louis.
Asked about the importance of winning the home opener, especially against a division rival, Gardeck concluded, “That was kind of my message throughout the week was, ‘Hey guys, I’ve been here seven years and I think we’ve beat them at home one time (actually none). That gave me extra motivation throughout the week. It’s got to be dialed in, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It did mean something to play a divisional opponent that’s had your number at home, so to go out and do it was fun.”
As good as quarterback Kyler Murray played, he said of the defense, “I love it more than how we played honestly. Just that they had our back. It was a complete team win. Complementary football at its finest. In all three phases of the game we played well.”
Now we’ll see if they can have fun, play well and stack games in another home game next Sunday against the Detroit Lions, who lost at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday.
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