Dan Bickley

azcentral sports

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In a city known for banks and barbecue, you can put your money on the Cardinals to get smoked.

The big question: Will a loss to the Panthers, by a score of 30-20 on Sunday, mark their graveyard for a third consecutive season?

Obviously, the math says no. The Cardinals have eight games remaining. They’re only 1½ games behind the Seahawks in the NFC West. The upcoming bye week offers a chance to forget all the failures and foibles of a 3-4-1 start, a record that looks more like an area code than a team with Super Bowl standards.

“This game didn’t kill us,” safety Tony Jefferson said.

But the eyes are starting to believe otherwise. These Cardinals are soft. They are known for starting slow, as if the game should be played at their pace. They are no longer a tactical nightmare, which is a kind way of saying that they’re getting outcoached on a regular basis.

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They always say the right things. But their collective desire does not jump off the football field, certainly not like it did last season.

“We played harder than them in the fourth quarter,” Cardinals star Patrick Peterson said. “Just not the first three.”

It’s too convenient to blame the referees for this loss, even though they might’ve handed Carolina a touchdown on Arizona’s first possession of the game. The controversial play made it seem like we were somehow watching a tape of last year’s NFC Championship Game. It proved that head coach Bruce Arians might want to kick off the next time his team wins the coin toss, and not stubbornly believe his offense will roll down the field like it’s 2015.

The play was also another indictment of the NFL’s officiating system, and even linebacker Thomas Davis thought his fumble recovery for touchdown was going to be overruled.

“I did,” Davis said. “I did for a second think it was going to be (ruled) incomplete. But the way we practice here, we take everything to the end zone and then let the refs make the decision on whether it’s incomplete or a fumble.”

BOX SCORE: Cardinals 20, Panthers 30

It’s also easy to blame referees in 2016 because they are ruining most every game with their cavalcade of penalties.

Twice, an official had to throw his hat because his flag had already been thrown. Even the mild-mannered Carson Palmer had enough of the zebra manure, getting flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, thereby putting the Cardinals in a rarely-seen 3rd-and-44.

Palmer swears he didn’t swear at the official, and that he’s said a lot worse in the past without getting penalized. Yet if you think your team got jobbed, you should’ve heard Panthers quarterback Cam Newton explode after the game, a player who believes referees will not protect him the way they do Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers.

“It’s really taken the fun out of the game for me, honestly,” he said. “It really is because at times I don’t even feel safe. Right? And enough is enough. I plan on talking to Commissioner Roger Goodell about this. But it’s not fun and I don’t know what I have to do.”

These are all salient talking points, but once you focus on the actual competition, you’ll discover some uncomfortable truths: The Panthers dominated the line of scrimmage, particularly against Arizona’s offensive line. Palmer was under extreme pressure from the first snap of the game, and was sacked eight times. I don’t remember the Cardinals throwing a single screen pass to negate the rush of incoming traffic.

After the controversial start, the Cardinals punted four consecutive times. Once trailing 24-0, they finally found a better approach. Sorry, but that’s way too late.

Palmer finished with gaudy statistics and looked unstoppable over the back half of the game, at least until his fourth-quarter interception killed the idea of some magical comeback. But it’s easy to succeed when the other team has already established an enormous lead.

At times, it feels like Arians has lost his magic touch. He didn’t review a key completion to Greg Olsen, even though replays showed the Panthers' tight end did not get two feet in bounds.

“Did you see anything on the screen where I could do that? On the big screen?” Arians responded to a reporter’s question. “What television monitor did your coaches have that you could see that?”

Strange response. I’m guessing at least one Cardinals coach is assigned to watching the television feed for reviewable plays. If not, they’re doing it wrong.

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To a man, the Cardinals claimed they are not losing belief. It’s a different story among a growing number of fans, some of whom believe that (a) the team didn’t prepare properly for the season; (b) their team got big-headed because of their appearance on the hero documentary, “All or Nothing”; (c) their team isn’t getting the calls because of Arians’ brusque treatment of officials; or (d) their team is destined to break our hearts because that’s what ultimately happens in Arizona sports.

The last point is really all that matters. Only the Cardinals can prove that notion wrong.

“We’re getting hit in the mouth,” linebacker Kevin Minter said. “We’ve just got to stop the bleeding before it’s too late. ... Do we want to be pretenders or contenders, like coach always says?”

A good question. And another ugly loss in Carolina doesn’t help the matter one bit.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to “Bickley and Marotta,” weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.