What Bruce Arians said about the run game Monday in terms of the fourth-and-1 that didn't get the 1 is what got the headlines. But before that, Arians again brought up the overall struggles of the Cardinals running the football.
"When you look at the game, that tells the story," Arians said. "When (the Texans) have 10 out of 16 third downs and six or less, and we have three or four, whatever it was, six or less, because they're running the ball, and we're not. You want to stay in manageable down and distances, whether penalties or whatever, we've got to play the game at better, manageable third downs."
Adrian Peterson started the game with carries of six and then seven yards. But after that, the Cardinals could not grind out yards. He had 12 carries after that, for 16 yards. Up until his final carry -- the infamous fourth-down try, where he lost a yard -- his four carries before that had been 3, 4, 3 and 4 yards. (So perhaps there was some reason why Arians felt the Cards could get one.) Still, the Cards need more production.
ESPN's Bill Barnwell tweeted out this stat: The Cardinals are averaging only 3.01 yards a carry this season from their running backs, and only three teams since 2001 have averaged less than that (one of which was the 2005 Cardinals and their 2.98-yard average behind Marcel Shipp, J.J. Arrington and throwing to Fitz and Anquan Boldin every play.)
There is a lot that goes into this -- David Johnson's injury early and the loss for the majority of the season from run-blocking tackle D.J. Humphries, in particular. That Peterson averaged 5.2 and 4.3 yards a carry in his two big games -- and had 63 total carries in those games -- and the average is still low just highlights the issue.
It makes it tough to get manageable third downs. One thing that sticks out to me, however, was the comment by offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin a couple of weeks ago, saying from Peterson he only needs two yards and then two yards to get the offense to third-and-6. That would be something he could work with.
