The Arizona Cardinals offense looked ghastly, the defense ran out of gas and the special teams didn't have to day we expected and all of that culminated in a bad, 35-23 loss to start the season against the Detroit Lions.
To make matters worse, the Cardinals best player, David Johnson, left the game with an apparent wrist injury.
For all the saving of Palmer during camp and the preseason, there was clearly some timing issues, as there was also the lack success up front on the offensive line.
It didn't start out bad on defense, as Justin Bethel returned an interception for a touchdown, but his day ended up being really poor, giving up two touchdowns to Kenny Golladay.
Carson Palmer looked… rusty. Finishing with three interceptions and one touchdown. However, the offensive line is a problem… still. Palmer didn't look great, but he didn't have time to execute Arians deep passing attack and it showed.
Meanwhile, Matthew Stafford turned it on in the second half as the Lions rattled off 26 unanswered points and made it look fairly easy to slice through the Cardinals defense.
The Lions defense, who is supposed to be bad, locked down the Cardinals rushing attack and harassed Palmer all day, with the big play happening in the fourth quarter as Palmer was pressured, threw behind Andre Ellington and was picked off by Miles Killebrew who returned it for a touchdown to run some salt in the wound.
It was not the start the Arizona Cardinals or their fans were expecting, but we are on to Indianapolis.