Jacoby Brissett will remain the Cardinals’ starting quarterback, for at least another week.
Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon announced today that Brissett will remain in the starting lineup on Sunday against the Seahawks. Kyler Murray has missed the last three games with a foot injury.
“Jacoby will start, and Kyler will keep working on his health,” Gannon said. “I do like what the offense is doing right now. We’ve operated well and we will go from there.”
Gannon said he is not ruling out the possibility of Murray being active for Sunday’s game, but if he is active he will not be starting.
After beating the Cowboys on Monday night, Gannon said Murray will start when healthy. But when asked today if he plans to go back to Murray, Gannon said he’s only focused on Seattle.
If Brissett plays well and the Cardinals upset the Seahawks, it might be hard for Gannon to stick with his stance that Murray is the starter when healthy. Gannon acknowledged today that Brissett is doing a good job leading the Cardinals’ offense.
“I do like how we’re operating as an offense,” Gannon said. “I think we’re doing a pretty good job on offense. I like what the offense is doing right now.”
And Gannon will hope the offense keeps doing it, with Brissett starting again this week.
Though a full weekend of college football and NFL action, ESPN and ABC were not available to millions of YouTube TV subscribers.
The first slate of missed games may not be the last.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, Google and Disney “remain far apart” in their positions. The major issue, as it always seems to be, is money. Google, per Karp, wants rates similar to what major cable providers like Charter/Spectrum and Comcast pay for the various Disney-owned channels. The fact that YouTube TV doesn’t have the same number of subscribers has prompted Disney to resist.
Meanwhile, ESPN continues to use its highly-compensated employees to spread the Gospel according to Mickey. The overt social-media shilling doesn’t seem to be resonating with the masses, who (correctly) are resisting the idea of pointing a finger at one side or the other and blaming both.
It’s not complicated. Get in a room, lock the door, and do the deal. It’s going to happen, eventually. Make it happen. Give a little. Get a little. Emerge from the negotiations with the best possible outcome: A compromise that leaves both companies equal parts satisfied and disappointed.
Caught in the middle are the consumers, who had to come up with alternative mechanisms for watching the Cardinals-Cowboys game on Monday night. And standing on the sidelines, apparently, is the NFL, which could pull a Moe Howard and clunk heads together, if it wanted.
Inevitably, ESPN will issue a P.R.-manicured announcement bragging about last night’s viewership. Whatever it is, it surely will be lower than it would have been. And that hurts the NFL, which wants maximum eyeballs on its games.
If the NFL is working behind the scenes to try to resolve the issue, the NFL is doing a great job of keeping those efforts quiet. Regardless, the league absolutely should be doing something.
There was no short-term agreement that allowed last night’s game to stream on YouTube TV. Karp notes that Disney had suggested a Tuesday pause for election coverage, but Google declined.
Disney’s motivation for making the election-day pitch is obvious. There are many other networks that will be covering the drip-drip of election returns. But there was no other way to watch Monday Night Football on YouTube TV.
We won’t take sides in any of these disputes, even if/when one of them involves NBC and Comcast. We just want people to be able to watch football, without having to spend time or money figuring out a workaround.
The sad, simple reality is that the major corporations don’t really care about the consumers. They care about maximizing profits. About pumping up the stock price. About winning the periodic showdowns with other major corporations.
We may have to accept it. We don’t have to like it. And we absolutely don’t have to silently take it. If we do, it will morph from the exception into the norm.
So make yourself heard. Blame everyone involved. If they want to get this done in time to minimize the inconvenience and expense that the consumers will experience, they will. More accurately, they would have — before the consumers were deprived of the football games they wanted to watch on Saturday and Monday.
Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison Sr. had some harsh words for the Arizona Cardinals offense that his son, wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. plays in. But Harrison Jr. said after Monday night’s win in Dallas that he doesn’t agree with his dad.
Asked about his father’s opinion that the Cardinals’ offensive scheme is a bad one for a wide receiver, Harrison Jr. said he doesn’t share that opinion.
“Everyone has their own opinions,” Harrison Jr. said. “He said that’s how he feels, not how I feel. I think that’s good to mention because I trust in all the guys.”
Harrison Jr. said he doesn’t talk to his dad much about football and that his dad saves his coaching for his younger son, Jett Harrison, a high school sophomore who also plays wide receiver and is receiving scholarship offers from top programs.
“He’s done a great job of just being a father. He’s more hard on my younger brother now. He just lets me go out there and play,” Harrison Jr. said.
Harrison Jr. did go out there and play on Monday night, catching seven passes for 96 yards and a touchdown. It was a performance that might have even impressed his hard-to-impress father.
Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett has played very well in place of the injured Kyler Murray, but head coach Jonathan Gannon says Murray will return to the starting lineup as soon as he is cleared.
Asked if he would reconsider and keep Brissett at quarterback, Gannon insisted he wouldn’t.
“Nothing’s changed on that,” Gannon said. “That’s how I feel.”
As reporters started to ask follow-ups, Gannon said he wouldn’t answer.
“I’ve got nothing to add on that, guys,” Gannon said. “Like I said, nothing’s changed, guys.”
But the question remains of whether Murray is actually a better quarterback than Brissett, who completed 21 of 31 passes for 261 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, in Monday night’s 27-17 win over the Cowboys. Statistically, Brissett has been better than Murray this season. Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who called the game for ESPN, said he believes Brissett should remain the starter even after Murray is cleared. Aikman is far from alone in that opinion.
Gannon’s opinion is the one that matters, however, and Gannon says that if Murray’s injured foot is healthy enough for him to play on Sunday against the Seahawks, then Murray will start.
The announced crowd at AT&T Stadium was 92,211. There were a lot of empty seats when the game started, and only Cardinals remained midway through the fourth quarter.
The Cardinals led from start to finish, blowing out the Cowboys 27-17.
Arizona improved to 3-5, ending its five-game losing streak, while Dallas fell to 3-5-1.
The Cowboys had 333 yards. They punted only once in nine possessions, but twice turned it over on downs across midfield, lost two fumbles, threw an interception and missed a 68-yard field goal. Dallas was 1-for-3 in the red zone.
The Cardinals gained 340 yards on Dallas’ 31st-ranked defense.
Jacoby Brissett, subbing for injured starter Kyler Murray, completed 21 of 31 passes for 261 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for a 1-yard touchdown.
Marvin Harrison Jr. caught seven for 96 yards and a touchdown, and Michael Wilson had three receptions for 61 yards. Emari Demercado had 14 carries for 79 yards.
The Cardinals had five sacks of Dak Prescott, including two each by Josh Sweat and Calais Campbell, and they forced fumbles by Jake Ferguson and George Pickens in Arizona territory. Denzel Burke intercepted Prescott’s final pass of the night when the game was already decided.
Prescott was 24-of-39 for 250 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Javonte Williams ran 15 times for 83 yards. CeeDee Lamb caught seven passes for 85 and Pickens six for 79.
