TEMPE, Ariz. -- When Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray lost the ball at the 18-yard line with 5:43 left in Sunday's 34-13 blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers, it was one of the worst losses in the Jonathan Gannon era.
Little went right for Arizona (2-4), from offensive inefficiency to a plethora of penalties to uncharacteristic turnovers. Murray described the game as sloppy with miscommunications.
"We play like that, we won't beat anybody," Murray said. "We can't shoot ourselves in a foot against a good team."
That's what Arizona did time and time again Sunday.
Coach Gannon, who was hired in February 2023, thought this squad was "juiced up" and "ready to go again" a week after knocking off their NFC West rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, for a critical division win. Arizona's performance at Lambeau Field, however, was the opposite of Gannon's claims. The 21-point loss was the fourth largest margin of his tenure.
The Cardinals didn't score on their opening offensive drive for the first time this season. From there, the offense continued to sputter with three three-and-outs in its first four possessions. Arizona also struggled on third down, going 4-for-10.
They were in the red zone three times and a yard out of it on another drive. While there, Arizona produced a touchdown, two field goals and a fumble.
Gannon also said the running game needed to get going faster than it did. Trey Benson, Emari Demercado and James Conner finished the game with 26, 25 and 24 rushing yards, respectively, and no one had more than seven carries. The Cardinals had 13 rushing yards after the first quarter and just 31 at halftime before finishing with 89.
Arizona's offense also took a blow when Marvin Harrison Jr. was lost for the game with a concussion in the second quarter. The rookie had just two targets without a catch up to that point, but Demercado said Arizona had to just plugging along without Harrison.
"We just gotta keep operating," he said. "There's things we can control and things we can't. That's something we can't, so we just gotta keep playing. [Wide receiver] Mike [Wilson] made plays, [tight end] Trey [McBride] made plays. Everybody's just gotta step up and make plays."
The Cardinals' last three possessions all ended with fumbles, which the Packers recovered.
"That's uncharacteristic," Murray said. "Since J.G. [Gannon]'s been here, I haven't felt like we've played a game like that where we've made bonehead mistake after bonehead mistake and haven't taken care of the ball.
"I feel like we've been fairly good about taking care of the ball and today we didn't. And in the NFL that'll get you beat."
After the game, the message from Arizona's locker room was consistent: They need to execute better. Murray said that could help turn field goals, including the two on Sunday, into touchdowns. They'll try implementing that against the Los Angeles Chargers on "Monday Night Football" in Week 7 (9 p.m. ET, ESPN+).
"There's no magic wand to wave or anything like that," Murray said. "We just gotta execute. We didn't execute today."
The areas that lacked said execution, Murray said, were obvious to Arizona. But Murray, who threw for 214 yards and a touchdown on 22-for-32 passing with a quarterback rating of 97.7, added that everything was fixable.
"That's the big thing, is it wasn't anything about performance or athlete on athlete," Murray said. "It was just mental breakdowns. My part, everybody's part. We gotta be better."
Arizona came into Sunday's game with the fewest penalties in the NFL at 19 with a game high of five. They eclipsed that mark by halftime and set a new record for penalties under Gannon with 13 in the game.
Six were presnap penalties, which irked Gannon more than other in-play penalties.
"Those are non-negotiables for us," Gannon said. "So, uncharacteristic of us. That's why we gotta look at why those things happened and do a better job there because bang, bang plays happen. You don't want to go backwards before the ball snapped."
The Packers got Arizona a few times with a hard count, Gannon said, but he said Sunday's penalties will be used as a "teaching moment."
"We haven't had a lot up until this point," Gannon said. "But there's obviously a breakdown of what we're doing, so we gotta play with better technique and make better decisions and focus a little bit better."