Well, it was fun while it lasted.
After allowing only one play for 20 yards or more in last week’s win over the Los Angeles Rams, the Arizona Cardinals regressed to their charitable ways Sunday, giving up five big plays — two for touchdowns —making the difference in the 30-16 loss to the Denver Broncos.
Those five plays (20, 27, 47, 52 and 62) accounted for 208 of the Broncos 377 yards on 56 plays (6.7 average) in the game. The average of the five explosives was 41.6 and on the other 51 plays, the Broncos totaled only 169 yards (3.3 per play).
Broncos head coach Sean Payton said, “Yeah, look, each week — different than last week's team (Seattle Seahawks) — you could see these opportunities potentially. We were going to be aggressive. Sometimes
you call them and the ball goes somewhere else. Fortunately, we had a fair amount of opportunities down the field.”
As for hitting the explosives, Payton said, “We knew we'd get a lot of zone pressures. The one thing that we did was we stayed out of some third downs because of first and second down explosives, so all good.”
The 47- and 52-yarders were on first down, and the 62-yarder was on second down.
Breaking down the back-breakers:
Bo runs to daylight
Two plays after the Cardinals tied the game 6-6 in the second quarter after yet another red-zone failure to score a touchdown, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix broke through a gap in the pass rush on second-and-7 and ran to wide-open spaces for a 62-yard touchdown.
Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur said, "With Bo just scrambling, you're in man coverage and from my vantage point, it looked like we got a little bit out of rush lanes. He's a good mover obviously and we're in man coverage and you have your backs turned and it was kind of one of those where the seas just parted. You want to stay plastered on your guys, but then at the same time, they have to at some point realize that that play's over and the new play began. It was a (expletive) situation."
There had been chatter in Denver that some of Nix’s struggles this season were linked to the ankle surgeries he had after being injured in the 2025 season playoffs. So much for that.
Payton said, “I think it answers our question: Can he still run? We got match coverage and it just happened to be a route where we were pushing someone to the flat, someone on a deep corner, someone on a sail, the back going that way, and believe it or not, the tight end; if you watch the All-22 (film), you're going to see a point where he climbs and from the center over, I think all the ‘eligibles’ (wide receivers) are (on the) right. It was more of a match coverage, so it was a good decision (and a) big play.”
“We had sort of a three-level shot on the right and they were playing man to it so they all ended up on the other side of the field,” Nix explained. “The O-line gave me a nice crease there and everybody else just sort of kept their guys occupied while I ran. There was a lot of space and I was just really hoping to get into the end zone.”
Beating the blitz
Early in the third quarter, the Broncos started a possession from their own 38-yard line after a blocker came free and deflected a Blake Gillikin causing it to travel only seven yards. The punt came after a third-and-10 pass from the 45-yard line to wide receiver Jalen Brooks in which clear pass interference on cornerback Riley Moss wasn’t called at about thr 11-yard line.
After a 2-yard run by J.K. Dobbins and an 8-yard first-down run by Nix, the Cardinals came with a blitz by both linebacker Mack Wilson Sr. and cornerback Kalen King. Nix calmly threw a quick pass to his left and running back RJ Harvey did the rest, galloping 52 yards untouched for a touchdown and a 20-6 Broncos lead.
The missed tackle
Following a Cardinals touchdown on their only successful red-zone trip in two games (1-fo-10) that cut the lead to 20-13, the Broncos struck again.
After two first downs, Nix found wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. open for what could have been a 19-yard play. However, defensive back Garrett Williams wasn’t able to tackle Mims at the 34-yard line and he raced another 28 yards to the 6. That led to a Dobbins touchdown and 27-13 Denver lead.
The final Broncos points came on their next possession and was helped by a 27-yard play to wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, moving the ball from the Denver 40 to the Arizona 33.
In noting how he believes the Cardinals were much better than in the two previous home losses to the Seahawks and Lions, LaFleur said, “We're down by seven late in the third quarter and we needed to get a stop. We're capable of getting the stop and they ended up getting a big play. We were right there at the end of the third. I still thought if we could have got one (stop) there in the fourth (quarter), just to bring it a little bit back, (but) we didn't."
Asked about the Mims play, Nix said, “We had a short out route by (tight end) Evan (Engram) and an outside release by Marv. They had shown a little bit of trap coverage. The corner would take the out and we had thrown a couple short passes leading up to that. Marvin did a really good job of staying out by the sideline and in their coverage, if you get an out-breaker by No. 2, the corner is going to collapse and then the safety has got to get over the top. The way it happened real quick is that Marvin didn’t get interrupted on his route, so he got past the coverage pretty quickly.
“It was just one of those anticipatory throws that you see every once in a while on film. The way they were lined up in the mug package, I knew they were going to play palms out of it if they dropped. Budda (Baker) had already shown some of that disguise to where he got to the middle and it was two-high zones. We knew it was a possibility, and we hadn't made that throw all week. It was just sort of a reaction, but that was one of those fun throws where, in my opinion, I know I'm seeing the game really well when I do something.”
More special-teams woes
It began on the opening kickoff when Mims returned it 39 yards to the 41-yard line. That led to a field goal and the possession was aided by a 20-yard pass play to wide receiver Courtland Sutton on Denver’s first scrimmage play of the game.
There were two penalties on Denver’s second possession of the game when linebacker Karson Sharar was flagged for a neutral-zone violation in punt formation and on the punt, King was guilty of a blindside block that ushed the Cardinals back from the 17 to the 6-yard line.
Gillikin had more struggles punting aside from the deflected punt. That one collapsed his average to 36.0 with a 34.4 net. Even without that, his other four punts traveled only 42, 40, 46 and 45 yards for a 43.3-yard average and 41.3 net.
Chad Ryland continued his consistent field-goal kicking with chip shots of 30, 26 and 41.
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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Broncos 30, Cardinals 16: What happened on defense and special teams
