In a short but stirring halftime ceremony marking his induction into the Arizona Cardinals’ Ring of Honor and formally retiring his No. 11 jersey, Larry Fitzgerald had a message for the fans at State Farm Stadium.
He said he was “sorry” for not being able to say goodbye when he left the Cardinals and the NFL after 17 years following the 2020 season. He also left them with this on Sunday, Oct. 25:
“Arizona, you gave me something far more than a career. You gave me a home!”
The crowd immediately roared. Well, at least the ones who weren’t decked out in orange.
Once again, Cardinals fans were greatly outnumbered in their home stadium, where the losing continues, and the other side is getting far too comfortable in seats that used to belong to season-ticket
holders.
This time, it was the Denver Broncos’ faithful, and yes, there were just as many of them — if not more — than there were Detroit Lions fans two weeks earlier. Just like then, the Cardinals were bullied as the Broncos rumbled to a 30-16 victory and handed Arizona a 10th consecutive defeat at home dating back to the 2025 season.
This wasn’t how the Cardinals imagined it would play out. They were coming off an impressive upset win at the Los Angeles Rams, had regained a ton of confidence, and their most popular player in team history was being honored at halftime.
Besides, this Denver team had been struggling offensively and seemed primed to take a shot in the mouth. Instead, it was the Cardinals who got clobbered again to drop to 2-5 with a supposed winnable game looming at the Dallas Cowboys in Week 8.
“We were juiced up to get a win at home, and it’s just tough that that was the outcome,” quarterback Jacoby Brissett said afterward. “The men in this locker room will lace them back up and get back to work.”
Brissett didn’t have any real opinion about all the Denver fans in the stands, but he acknowledged the losing streak at home is something the Cardinals must retire like they did Fitzgerald’s famous No. 11.
“Trust me, we’re not going out there to lose games,” he said, adding, “Not finding a way to get it done at home is definitely frustrating. Obviously, we’ve got more opportunities coming up, but we’ve got to figure it out.”
First-year coach Mike LaFleur sounded confident his team is “going to flip this thing,” and the Cardinals are going to figure it out. If it doesn’t happen against the Cowboys, is there any reason to think it’s going to occur during the team’s three games after that when Arizona plays at the Seattle Seahawks, at home against the Rams, and on the road at the Kansas City Chiefs?
What the Valley’s loathsome NFL franchise really needs right now is for its unsteady defense to start preventing big-yardage chunk plays and for its malingering offense to start producing some of its own.
That’s what sacked the Cardinals like a sock full of rocks to the noggin on Sunday.
Three huge plays by the Broncos during the second and third quarters did most of the damage as quarterback Box Nix easily scrambled 62 yards for a touchdown to help give Denver a 13-6 lead, running back RJ Harvey had an explosive 52-yard catch-and-run for another touchdown to make it 20-6, and a 47-yard pass from Nix to a wide-open Marvin Mims Jr. set up another TD for a 27-13 lead.
The painfully long TD run by Nix was the most egregious.
“He’s a good mover, obviously,” LaFleur said. “We were in man coverage, and you’ve got your backs turned, and it was kind of one of those like the seas just parted. You want to stay plastered on your guys, but at the same time, they’ve got to at some point realize that play is over and the new play began.
“So yeah, (expletive) situation.”
So was the fact that Brissett and the Arizona offense couldn’t respond accordingly. The splash plays everyone expected to see out of LaFleur’s play-call sheet just haven’t materialized. The only real big gains they produced didn’t come until garbage time in the fourth, and all the Cardinals got out of that was one Chad Ryland field goal.
Still, LaFleur seems convinced more big plays are coming. He wouldn’t tell us when or how.
“It’s what I just told the guys; I told them what I wasn’t going to tell you,” he said. “I like the humans, and I like the men in that locker room. But we need to get better, we need to coach better, and we need to get right back to work.
“We have a great opportunity next week to play good football. I want that same energy out of this group that I saw last Monday after we got a W in LA on Sunday.”
The Cardinals thought they had a chance to do that against the Broncos on their home turf during a special day of celebrating Fitzgerald, the first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. Instead, they let that opportunity slip through their fingers like the once-proud fans that used to pack State Farm Stadium.
Right now, the product they are putting on the field isn’t nearly good enough to entice anyone other than the outsiders who keep showing up to support the visiting team.
Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic .Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. on Roc and Manuch with Jimmy B on ESPN 620 (KTAR-AM) and every Thursday on the Doug Franz Unplugged podcast via Apple or Spotify.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Larry Fitzgerald calls Arizona home as Cardinals lose theirs | Opinion
