Dirty laundry: Arizona Cardinals know they must be smarter when it comes to penalties

Jonathan Gannon famously said he wanted “killers” on his team. The Cardinals' first-year head coach didn’t mean it literally, though.

That’s why as positive as some things looked on Sunday during Arizona’s season-opening 20-16 loss at Washington, he wasn’t necessarily pleased with some of the violent and aggressive acts of his players that resulted in nine penalties for a Week 1 NFL-high 122 yards.

It was especially frustrating during the Commanders’ second possession of the game when they went 91 yards on seven plays, capped by a 7-yard touchdown pass from Sam Howell to Brian Robinson. During that drive, the Cardinals committed three penalties for a staggering 67 yards – two for illegal helmet-to-helmet hits by linebacker Kyzir White and nickel corner Jalen Thompson, and one coming on a long pass interference call against cornerback Marco Wilson.

“Yeah, on that drive that hurt. We showed them that today,” Gannon said Monday after reviewing game film with his players. “That 91-yard drive, 67 yards are penalties. That’s tough, but we’ve just got to play within the rules. I liked our violence and aggression and the DPI that happens. We talked to Marco (Wilson) about his technique there.

“The helmet to helmets (are) a kind of bang-bang (play). Kyzir, he’s got to be smarter than that. We can’t hit guys in the white, especially quarterbacks. I liked their violence, their motor, and their attitude—that was all good. We’ve just got to play a little smarter.”

Defensive lineman Jonathan Ledbetter was flagged for a similar helmet infraction later in the game and rookie starting right tackle Paris Johnson Jr. was called for unsportsmanlike conduct for ripping a Washington player off a dogpile following a fumble and tossing him aside.

There were other penalties as well, from false starts, a holding call and ineligible men downfield, but those three penalties during Washington’s first scoring drive were critical and will continue to be the subject of coaching points throughout the rest of this week as the Cardinals prepre for their home opener Sunday against the New York Giants.

“When they came off (the field), they knew,” Gannon said, adding, ‘Holy cow, we just gave up 67 yards. We just had three penalties in one drive.’ It’s hard to overcome that, so they knew they had to clean it up and they did.”

Fine, but penalties and the Cardinals are no strangers. Twice in the past three seasons, Arizona led the league in total penalties. The other year where they didn’t finish first overall, they were fourth. That’s a trend Gannon and his coaching staff know cannot continue.

On Sunday, it made a huge difference in the game and helped negate some of the positives, such as the Cardinals forcing three, first-half turnovers and sacking Howell six times overall.

Penalties are a lot like turnovers, which also hurt Arizona in the opener. Too many of either will cost you games. And in a rebuilding season, there’s almost zero room for error. But considering the way Gannon and defensive coordinator Nick Ralis want Arizona’s defense to play – with violence and an attitude – that could lead to many more flags from week to week.

“We talk a lot about playing with a high motor and violence and that’s actually one thing that we talk about when we first installed those philosophies,” Rallis said Tuesday. “It’s you can’t do certain things that are outside the rules. Whether that’s lowering the head or hitting guys (near the sideline), especially quarterbacks. You have to be smart.

“There is a way you can play violently within the rules so that not only you won’t accumulate those penalties, but the rules are in place for safety reasons, and you don’t want the other team or your own guys getting in situations where injuries are happening,'' he said.

"That’s not what we’re trying to accomplish. You have to learn the right time to pick your spot and it’s easier said than done because they’re flying around and it’s a man’s game, it’s a warrior’s game out there, but you have to be a little bit smarter in some of those situations that showed up on Sunday.”

Gannon likes to say “penalties go in waves,” meaning certain officiating crews may call things more than others, and that sometimes the opponent has a history of being able to draw multiple penalties. Certain offenses can cause that to happen and it’s the same with certain defenses, he says.

“It’s our job as coaches to educate them, make sure that we’re practicing the right way, and they know exactly what non-negotiables are that are going to get called,” Gannon said. “That’s why I say I appreciate the refs when they come in here in the offseason. … We’ve got to do a good job with that because you don’t want to be highly penalized. You understand in a game, certain penalties are called that’s OK. It goes both ways. We’ve just got to play cleaner when we need to play cleaner.”

The best way to avoid stacking up the penalty flags, according to Rallis, is simple. It’s by playing with better technique, whatever your position happens to be on either side of the ball.

As for penalties such as the one handed to Johnson, the Cardinals’ first-round pick out of Ohio State, it was a lesson well learned.

“I grabbed him right when he came to the sideline and talked to him,” offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said Tuesday. “It’s hard. There’s the emotional aspect of the football game and he felt like someone was lying on the quarterback for too long, but we’ve got to teach him that and he’s got to understand that, ‘Hey, no matter the circumstance or the emotion behind the game, we can’t do that. We can’t put the team in that position.’

“He knows that. He responded really well to that, so we got that corrected going forward.”

As for the special teams units, they were virtually penalty-free and the overall operations went smoothly, coordinator Jeff Rodgers said.

“We try to stay penalty-free and Week 1 it’s always faster than what it is in practice. It’s always faster than what it is in the preseason,” Rodgers said. “I’ll take that kind of penalty performance over some other ones I’ve been a part of.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The Arizona Cardinals can't keep racking up the penalties