KVSP 
Kliff Kingsbury has guided the Arizona Cardinals to their first playoff berth since 2015, yet the team is playing its worst football of the season at the least ideal time. Since starting a surprising 7-0, the Cardinals are just 3-5 in their last eight games — falling to 10-5 on the season and out of the NFC West lead in just three weeks.
The Cardinals are on a three-game losing streak and need to get the season restored in order to make it a success. Arizona went from Super Bowl contenders to a postseason afterthought.
“I think we’re hurting ourselves,” Kingsbury said, via the Cardinals website. “We’re hurting ourselves in critical situations. Through this rough patch, the same things continue to show up: mental errors, tough penalties in critical situations, and we got to clean that stuff up.”
The Cardinals have improved in each season under Kingsbury, yet the trend of late season collapses has become noticeable. The Cardinals started 3-3-1 in 2019 before finishing their season at 5-10-1 and started 6-3 in 2020 before finishing at 8-8. In Kingsbury’s career, the Cardinals are 7-15 in the second half of the season, not ideal for a team with Super Bowl-caliber talent on its roster.
“As of late, we haven’t played as well as we would have liked,” Kingsbury said. “We just talked about treating each practice rep like a game rep. Don’t let things slide, don’t say, ‘Hey coach, I would’ve got it right on Sunday.’
“We are way too far in this deal to be falling back into any bad habits like that. So that’s what we have to do. It starts on the practice fields, and it has to carry over to game day. We have a lot of work to do this week.”
The Cardinals have two games left to end the late-season collapse talk, starting with this week’s showdown with the Dallas Cowboys. A win in Dallas would silence the noise and get the Cardinals’ season back on track.
