Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals were unable to keep their strong start to the season going. They couldn’t pull off a “Hail Murray” this time to win against the Bills.
“I felt like we deserved to win that,” Murray said after losing 34-28 to Buffalo on Sunday. “We should have won.”
Even though Arizona did many things right, they made too many mistakes. They scored on their first three possessions of the season opener for the first time in 18 years but still lost a 17-3 lead.
One issue was Murray’s difficulty in connecting with No. 4 overall pick Marvin Harrison Jr. during his NFL debut. Harrison only caught one pass out of three targets for just 4 yards. One of Murray’s throws was behind Harrison, and Harrison dropped another.
On a positive note, DeeJay Dallas gave Arizona hope in the fourth quarter by cutting the lead to 31-28 with a 96-yard return for a touchdown, the first under the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff rule.
The game ended with the Cardinals falling short on their last drive.
Facing fourth-and-7 from Buffalo’s 29, Murray scrambled to his left and threw a pass toward Greg Dortch near the goal line. However, Ja’Marcus Ingram and Damar Hamlin broke it up.
The pass was similar to the “Hail Murray” from four years ago when Murray threw a 43-yard touchdown to DeAndre Hopkins with 2 seconds left in the Cardinals’ 32-30 win against the Bills.
“Bang-bang play. We’ll make more of those than we won’t,” coach Jonathan Gannon said. “Good back and forth game. What I like about this group is their will to not waver. We’ll keep our confidence. We’ll get back in the lab tomorrow and fix up what we need to.”
One missed chance on the final drive was when Murray, while scrambling to his left, completed a 7-yard pass to Dortch for a first down but didn’t see Harrison open on the right side.
“When you play football, there’s a lot of stuff moving around, moving fast,” Murray said. “You don’t see everything.”
Gannon defended his quarterback, saying: “Whatever decision he made, we felt like that was the right one.”
Harrison chose not to speak to reporters after the game. The 22-year-old is the son of former Colts star receiver Marvin Harrison. He won the Biletnikoff Award as the top receiver in college last season at Ohio State and was the first of a record seven receivers picked in the first round of the draft.
Gannon praised the Bills defense for limiting Harrison’s impact on the offense.
“That’s how our offense is going to be built,” he said. “The ball will go where it should go, depending on the coverage.”
“I wouldn’t say they were taking him away,” Murray said. “As a quarterback, you go through your reads sometimes, and the ball goes to the best option.”
Murray ended up 21 of 31 passing for 162 yards and a touchdown to Michael Wilson on the opening drive. He also rushed for 57 yards on five runs. But after halftime, Murray was 5 of 12 for 23 yards.
Buffalo took the lead 24-17 late in the third quarter when Allen connected with Khalil Shakir for an 11-yard touchdown. This happened five plays after Greg Rousseau caused Murray to fumble. Rousseau’s third sack came when he got past backup right tackle Kelvin Beachum, who replaced Williams after his knee injury in the first quarter.
Arizona’s offense gained 191 yards and scored on its first three drives for the first time since their season-opening win against San Francisco in 2006.
“We stayed on schedule,” Murray said. “When you’re on the road, coming out in a first game, haven’t really played football in a long time, in a live atmosphere like that, coming out against a great team, you don’t want to be moving backwards.”
“That was the difference,” Murray concluded, “between the first half and the second half.”
