The defending NFC West champion Arizona Cardinals are 0-1 after a 23-21 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday.
Arizona General Manager Steve Keim is not happy about it.
Keim discussed his frustration with the loss on Phoenix radio station KMVP-FM on Monday morning.
"You wake up Monday morning with a loss. You're angry, disappointed, embarrassed, and that's the way we should all feel," Keim said. "Just didn't get it done, and a lot of reasons why we didn't get it done. And that needs to improve. That's certainly unacceptable."
Even though it was a loss to a team that has been one of the NFL's best this decade, Keim told the radio station he doesn't believe in good losses.
"Not when you're playing a backup quarterback [Jimmy Garoppolo] and they're missing some playmakers and it's a game at home," he said. "Our mindset is you cannot lose those games in front of our crowd."
The Cardinals, 13-3 in 2015, are one of the favorites to reach Super Bowl LI in Houston. Keim said the Cardinals have to regroup.
"It's the-sky-is-falling Monday, and that's the feel that all of us should have and use that as a chip on our shoulder to make sure it doesn't happen again," Keim said.
"It's that one thing that we have to do is continue to go out and execute and make sure that something like last night doesn't happen again."
Safe play
Rick Gosselin of The Dallas Morning News has a solution for the NFL when it comes to helmet-to-helmet hits.
Adopt the college football rule.
"Whatever happened to form tackling? Remember how you were once taught -- see what you hit, wrap your arms around the ball carrier?" Gosselin wrote.
"But contact has been all but legislated out of training camp and practice for safety reasons by the NFL's collective bargaining agreement. Thus, tackling has become a lost art. Tackling is now all about the shoulder pads and helmet rather than the arms.
"That leaves the NFL one option -- adopt the college rule. Eject those whose idea of tackling is launching head-first into ball carriers and quarterbacks. No ball carrier, much less a quarterback, should have to endure the punishment that Cam Newton endured Thursday. His night did not become one of success or failure. It became one of physical survival.
Headlines
With the NFL season underway, the satirical website sportspickle.com has resumed its 'Honest' NFL Headlines series.
Here are a few highlights:
• "Jets, Bills, 'Phins excited to be just 1 game back of Brady-less Pats"
• "Jags fall to Packers, 27-23; Earn franchise's 100th moral victory"
• "Failing to get out of bounds cost Dallas; Also, like, 25 other plays"
• "Pats win, proving Garoppolo as elite as Matt Cassel"
• "Raiders humiliated by scoring just 35 points against Saints"
They said it
• Peter King of the website themmqb.com: "How about my Bobcats? Ohio U beat a Big 12 team on the road! Well, it was Kansas."
• NFL.com reporter Adam Rank, via Twitter: "Revis Island available at a steep discount on Groupon. Here's what AJ Green did against him: 10 targets, 10 receptions, 152 yards, 1 touchdown."
• Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald: "Cam Newton was spotted flossing his teeth on the sidelines during last Thursday night's NFL game. That will no longer be necessary now that the Denver Broncos knocked most of his teeth out with helmet-to-helmet hits."
SPORTS QUIZ
What year did the NFL's Cardinals move from St. Louis to Arizona?
ANSWER
- The team was referred to as the Phoenix Cardinals from 1988-1993 before becoming the Arizona Cardinals in 1994.
Sports on 09/13/2016