Arizona Cardinals beat Baltimore, improve to 5-2

“Forward progress was stopped”, Harbaugh said. This has further hampered the offense, pushing them into third-and-long situations.

“We understand what we need to do to clean up our game”, cornerback Patrick Peterson said.

“This is a tough story we’re writing right now”, Harbaugh acknowledged. It was just too much communication going on for the amount of time that we had left and guys were just confused. That’s possibly four points stolen right from them! Carson Palmer has made an early bid for both Comeback Player of the Year and MVP and he’s tied for the league lead with 16 touchdown passes.

Arizona were forced to punt again with two minutes remaining and Flacco engineered a drive all the way down to the four-yard line, but his pass down the middle was picked off by Jefferson to ensure victory for the home side.

Tyrann Mathieu is my player of the game. Joe Flacco knows that more than anybody. Those are the areas that we have to get better at. “We wanted this type of game, and we needed to be in one of these types of games – win it, and kind of exorcise that ‘can we win it at the end?’ type thing”.

The eight-point loss was the most one-sided of the season for the Ravens. That resulted in an illegal formation penalty that contributed to the Ravens settling for a field goal.

What was Ronald Torbert looking at, if not directly at Urschel? Offensive lineman John Urschel appeared to report as eligible in plain sight of referee Ron Tolbert when he entered the game and then caught a 6-yard pass. Flacco even pointed out Urschel for emphasis, but the flag still came after the play for an ineligible receiver. In the receiving end, Keenan Allen had 89 yards in nine receptions while Danny Woodhead added 75 yards and two touchdowns in 11 receptions. “That is something Arians teaches us, we always have to play to the whistle and have to finish”. “So I just assumed it was all good”.

Harbaugh and his Ravens have seen better days. Mathieu had seven tackles, three tackles for loss, a quarterback hit and a pass defensed. His status is uncertain…. Steve Smith, who has been the only reliable target for quarterback Joe Flacco with 36 receptions and three touchdowns, was mentioned as possible trade bait but Harbaugh steadfastly denied he would deal the veteran wideout.

Brown, 22, averaged 12 points in 19 games with the Lakers after being called up from the D-League last season. Kendrick Lewis, Maxx Williams and Terrence Brooks are questionable.

Meanwhile, a report emerged that Hardy irked the team by failing to show up on time for Thursday’s practice, without calling, and then skipped the practice, saying he was sick. However, Crockett Gillmore has returned to the starting after missing time with a calf injury and finished with five catches for 53 yards….