Opinion: Cardinals' latest tailspin points back to Kliff Kingsbury

That warning beep garbage trucks and delivery vans make when in reverse?

That’s what the 2021 Cardinals sound like as they back into the playoffs.

And they will, possibly clinching a spot as early as Sunday with a loss by the Saints, or the Vikings, or the Eagles.

But does anyone think the Cardinals will do any damage in the playoffs? To someone other than themselves I mean.

The 22-16 loss to the Colts on Christmas night at State Farm Stadium was the Cardinals third consecutive one, their fourth in the last five games.

Not long ago, they were 7-0, the NFL’s last undefeated team. Not long ago, they were 10-2 with a firm grip on the NFC West and a realistic goal of earning the No. 1 seed and a bye in the playoff. Not long ago, we thought the Cardinals and coach Kliff Kingsbury had grown up together, matured by NFL standards, and were ready to accomplish something more than just make the playoffs for the first time since 2015.

And now?

They look like the same old Cardinals, at least the same old Kingsbury-coached Cardinals. In his three-year tenure, the Cardinals are 15-9 through the first eight games and 8-14-1 afterward. In the last two years, they are 0-5 in games that would have clinched a playoff spot, including 0-3 this year.

We’re certainly hearing all of the same old excuses and cliches. We shot ourselves in the foot. We need to look in the mirror. We’re better than this. We need to get this fixed soon because (insert name of next opponent) is a heck of a team.

The loss to the Colts was a team effort. The Cardinals committed 11 penalties, including three false starts by guard Josh Jones and consecutive offside calls on defense. Matt Prater missed two field goals and extra point. Receiver Christian Kirk dropped a pass that would have put the Cardinals at the Colts 6-yard line on the first possession. Kingsbury challenged an official’s call that he shouldn’t have and neglected to challenge one he should have. Center Max Garcia sent a line drive snap six inches off the ground, past Kyler Murray, resulting in a safety.

It went on and on. It would have lasted longer than three hours but time, mercifully, ran out on the Cardinals.

“Good teams don’t do that,” Murray said. “We weren’t doing that earlier in the season, but now you see it and it’s killing us in crucial moments where we’re not scoring touchdowns because of it or vice versa on the other side of the ball. It’s bad football.”

It is, and it’s a direct indictment of Kingsbury. Elements of the Air Raid offense are not the only thing he brought with him in transitioning from college to NFL coach.

Peaking in October has been a character trait of his teams all the way back to Texas Tech, and it’s happening for the third consecutive year in Arizona.

As the Cardinals built a 7-0 record and then 10-2, I thought Kingsbury and his team were past fading in the second half of seasons. I thought the Cardinals finally had the front-line talent, the depth and the coaching to make a run at winning the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

They showed grit by winning two of three when Murray was out with an ankle injury. They won in Cleveland with Kingsbury sidelined because of COVID-19. They won in wet, chilly weather in Chicago.

A loss to the Rams on Monday night foreshadowed the trouble to come. Not that losing to the 10-4 Rams was cause for shame, but the difference in how stars from the two teams stepped up was noticeable. 

Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald wrecked whatever the Cardinals tried to do on offense. Quarterback Matthew Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp took apart a Cardinals secondary that had been productive to that point.

The Cardinals response? They didn’t have one.

To their credit, the Cardinals haven’t pointed to absent players as excuses for their problems. They could have used receiver DeAndre Hopkins (knee) Saturday night. And every other night. Same for defensive lineman J.J. Watt (shoulder). Same for cornerback Robert Alford (pectoral) and center Rodney Hudson (COVID-19).

They know there is no excuse for losing to the Lions, who had one victory before beating the Cardinals. And Saturday night, the Colts were missing seven starters at the beginning of the game and had lost two more by halftime. 

How did they win? Because they avoided firing trajectories at their feet. They didn’t give up big plays, which allowed their offense to continue to hand the ball to Jonathan Taylor, even when he wasn’t getting many yards. Quarterback Carson Wentz came through the handful of times he was needed.

But, really, how the Colts beat the Cardinals was with coaching. Frank Reich’s team played nearly mistake-free and watched as the Cardinals did a number on themselves.

Reich's team is playing its best football in December. The Cardinals, their worst.

The Cardinals believe they have time to fix what’s gone wrong. At least that’s what they say out loud.

“You can pout about it, but at the end of the day we have two more guaranteed games,” said safety Budda Baker. “We have two more opportunities to get into the playoffs.”

Baker wore a holiday sweater and smiled a little when he met with reporters not long after the game. But not far from the surface, he was seething, he said. “I’m kind of angry, trying to hold it in.”

A third game, the first-round of the playoffs, is nearly a guarantee, too. The Cardinals have a greater than 99 percent chance to earn their first playoff berth in six years, according to fivethirtyeight.com.

That might mean a trip to Tampa Bay, or perhaps back to Los Angeles.

Before the season started, that accomplishment — winning 10 games and making the playoffs for the first time in six years — would have been good enough to satisfy most of those who care about the Cardinals.

But not after starting 10-2.

A promising season for the Cardinals has eroded into a wait for others to help them accomplish what they failed to do themselves. Time’s running out on the Cardinals finding a gear other than reverse.