Arizona Cardinals at Buffalo Bills Winners and Losers From the Week 3

Another slow start, more mental errors, and the Cardinals are 1-2 in a season where they are playing wildly inconsistent football.

Despite the loss, some players played well and this is an article to highlight the positives and negatives among the team. So let's start with the good.

Winners-

Marcus Cooper and Patrick Peterson-

The corners both played well. Granted, the Bills were missing Watkins and relied more on the running game, but Cooper and Pat Pete notched 10 combined tackles and PP21 had an impressive pick. Hard to fault these two.

Chandler Jones-

3rd straight game with a sack, and added 3 tackles for a loss and was in the backfield often. He hasn't had a Von Miller type effect but he's been solid.

Chandler Catanzaro-

Nice 60 yard field goal to get us within 2 scores. Also was called on to punt with the Butler injury, and had a nice 47 yarder. Yes, he botched the 2nd punt for just 19 yards, but all together he did his job.

Tony Jefferson-

With Tyrann Mathieu rehabbing and playing more of a deep safety role, it's been Tony Jefferson who's been playing shallow and in the box, and he's been another solid guy. Another 9 tackles in the game, including a sack, giving him 30 tackles on the year.

David Johnson-

Just 22 touches, but 111 total yards and 2 TDs. Buffalo was keying on him and he still made yards where there looked to be nothing. Special kid.

John Brown-

Had a nice little kick return, and led the team in receiving yards. Yeah, it was just 70, but it's nice to see him involved.

Walter Powell-

The former Cardinal draft pick was thrust into a starting role with injuries to the Buffalo WRs, and was able to record his first catches of his career. Congrats to him.

Losers-

Carson Palmer-

Ugh. Sacked 5 times, 4 picks, 2 fumbles, a completion rating around 50 and a QBR at 13.4. Oh, and zero TDs. Some throws were awfully short, while others were late, and even others were just poor decisons. Hope to see a bounce-back game from CP3, because this was just ugly.

Kameron Canaday-

I used to just write "Special Teams", but Bruce called out players by name, so here I'll do the same. What an awful snap, Canaday. It was a 10 point swing and a major letdown. You have one job. Please do it better.

Front Seven Run Defense-

Despite missing their best offensive lineman, Buffalo just opened up huge holes for McCoy and Taylor to run through. That's poor gap assignments. Each player is assigned a gap. Between the center and guard, between the guard and the tackle, and the edge guys set the edge. Was poorly executed today. 32 attempts. 208 yards. 3 TDs. I don't know exactly who to blame, but hopefully it gets corrected.

Offensive Line-

Wildly inconsistent. Decent pass protection on some plays, only then to give up 5 sacks on others. Some of that was on Palmer, some of that was Rex Ryan's blitzes. Struggled to open up room for DJ in the running game too, as Buffalo really owned the trenches on both sides of the ball today.

Chris Johnson-

Only got 2 touches. That's not right. "Juice" has a lot of savvy and would love to see him get more looks on offense.

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There's a line between playing confident football and playing cocky. This team came out week 1 and expected New England to lay down. They didn't.

So they work hard, beat Tampa, then what? Champs of the world?

Face a desperate Bills team, and I saw zero urgency, save for a couple class acts like Larry and David. Another gut check. So what's next?

A resounding win next week versus LA, before getting spanked in SF by Gabbert? Would love to see this team leave it's ego at the door, because through three weeks, i don't see a championship team. We're lucky if it's a playoff team.