Jacoby Brissett stays Cardinals QB1 after Broncos loss

The QB question came up again after the game, and how the game ended is the reason it did.

Darren Urban

@Cardschatter

Rough end to the Cardinals day. Offense again gets to red zone. Twice has first-n-goal from the 1. (Because of penalties). Ultimately a turnover on downs at the 5 yard line.

First-and-goal from the 1. Twice. Penalties kept pushing Arizona back, the drive died on a turnover on downs at the 5, and Denver walked off with a goal-line stand. It was the worst way to cap a day that was already going badly, and the red zone numbers explain why nobody in the building was shocked.

Bo Brack

@BoBrack

Broncos HOLD on goal line stand and going to keep the Cardinals offense to a single TD in this game. Red zone woes continue, 1-5 today and 1-10 over last two games.

That's 1-for-10 inside the 20 over the last 2 weeks, and the 1 that worked on Sunday was Trey McBride's. McBride was the bright spot: 10 catches, 111 yards and the touchdown, on National Tight Ends Day of all days. Brissett went 27-for-48 for 272 yards, and the team's own recap says he was under pressure all afternoon behind a banged-up offensive line that couldn't handle Denver's front. Bo Nix hurt Arizona with his legs and on screens, ripping off a 62-yard touchdown run and hitting RJ Harvey for a 52-yard score. It also happened on the day Larry Fitzgerald went into the Ring of Honor at halftime. Bad timing all around.

So the obvious question came up postgame, and LaFleur gave the same answer he's been giving.

Darren Urban

@Cardschatter

LaFleur said Jacoby Brissett will continue to be QB1, although he seems to understand the question is going to keep coming.

He isn't pretending it'll go away, either. He's been here before: after a loss earlier in October dropped Arizona to 1-4 and made it 4 straight losses following a Week 1 win over the Chargers, LaFleur said Brissett "was not the problem" and that "we were a problem as a team today. And, again, that starts with me." The name in the background is rookie Carson Beck, who was being floated as a possible option down the line even then.

In fairness to LaFleur, this one wasn't all on the quarterback. Arizona got flagged 9 times, the defense gave up 30-plus for the 4th time in 5 weeks, and it's hard to read the field when the pocket is gone. But 1-for-10 in the red zone is the stat that gets quarterbacks benched, fair or not, and Brissett is the guy holding the ball when those drives stall.

What to watch: whether the line gets healthy enough to give Brissett a clean pocket, and whether the Cardinals can turn even half of those red zone trips into 7s. If the field goals and turnovers on downs keep coming, so will the questions, and at some point LaFleur's answer might change.