No Team Has Ever Tried Harder To Lose Than The Cardinals

A Week 5 late-afternoon game between the Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals, by design, is supposed to get one live look-in and no more before everyone moves on with their day. The U.S. government has rules that prohibit anyone from thinking about this match-up for more than 30 seconds. Calling it a spiritual Thursday night game would be rude to Thursdays. A 21-6 Cardinals win would have been totally in line with these expectations. But that's not what happened.

The Cardinals did hold a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter, and the Titans did look like garbage, and yet Tennessee won, 22-21. The official highlight recap of this game starts to get pretty funny around the eight-minute mark, when an unexpected snap bounces off quarterback Kyler Murray's face. The Titans did not capitalize on that turnover, going three-and-out on the subsequent drive, but it was a sign of things to come.

The score was the same in the fourth quarter, when this bullshit happened:

What you see here is Emari Demercado running 72 yards for what should be a touchdown that all but seals an Arizona Cardinals victory—except he fumbled the ball before crossing the goal line. This gaffe was a closer call than Adonai Mitchell's blooper from last week, but honestly, if you're going to even make it a question, you don't deserve mercy.

This time, the Titans made the most of the turnover: Rookie quarterback Cam Ward put together an 80-yard drive that ended with a Tony Pollard punch-in. Hilariously, Tennessee head coach Brian Callahan opted for the extra point instead of a two-point attempt, and Joey Slye missed the kick. The Titans trailed by a palindromic 21-12, still down by two possessions. Arizona went three-and-out, and Tennessee had the ball again. This drive also ended in a Titans touchdown, just how they planned it.

Dadrion Taylor-Demerson picked off Ward and immediately fumbled the ball, which skittered around the turf until Titans receiver Tyler Lockett fell on it for a touchdown. What's incredible is that after committing two all-time blunders within one quarter, the Cardinals still led. They still could have won! But you already know what happened: Arizona got the ball back and punted. In the two-minute drill, Ward's 38-yard pass to Calvin Ridley got the Titans into field-goal territory for Slye, who nailed a 29-yarder as the clock expired for a 22-21 victory. Tennessee hadn't won a regular-season game since Nov. 24, 2024.

The postgame quotes from the Cardinals were as shell-shocked as you'd expect:

"I don't really know what to think about that," Murray said. "I don't even know. I really don't even know. That's 'How to Lose a Game 101.' I don't know. It was crazy."

[...]

Murray said he has never quite felt like he did after this loss: "This might be No. 1."

He added: "That was bad. That was bad. Bad. All around, it was bad."

After a 2-0 start, the Cardinals are 2-3, losing all three of those on last-second field goals. They need to exorcise whatever stench was left in the stadium after Charlie Kirk's memorial.