Cardinals can salvage season if they take care of business vs. Seahawks, Rams and 49ers

It’s put up or shut up time for the Arizona Cardinals.

After falling to 3-5 following their 34-26 loss to the Vikings on Sunday, they are in a precarious situation with not much of a margin for error. They know it and they want their fans to know that they know it.

“I think right now it’s just time for everybody to put your egos to the side, let’s put our head down and go get what we really want,” linebacker Isaiah Simmons said Monday from the team’s Tempe training facility. “At the end of the day we all have the same goal. We all want to play here. We want to be the last ones playing in our stadium (in Super Bowl 57). We don’t want anybody else playing in our stadium, in our locker room.

“I feel like it’s just time to wake up and everyone now is on the same page and it’s time to fight for what we want.”

The best way to get there would be by taking advantage of what’s right in front of them. That means finding a way to stack three straight solid efforts against their next three opponents, all of whom just happen to be NFC West rivals.

The critical three-game stretch starts Sunday at State Farm Stadium against the Seahawks (5-3), followed by a trip to Los Angeles to face the Rams (3-4) and it ends with a Monday night matchup in Mexico City on Nov. 21 against the 49ers (4-4).

And yes, coach Kliff Kingsbury said he’s already addressed the importance of this swing with his players.

“If you’re able to win all three, there’s an opportunity right there to at least have a piece of first place at the end of this deal,” Kingsbury said Monday. “Our guys understand after starting where we did that that’s a great carrot out in front of you. So, let’s take it one week at a time and try to get better.”

The Cardinals haven’t won three games in a row, let alone two in a row, since they went 7-0 to start last season. And so far, this year’s team is playing nothing like that team did a year ago through the first half of the season. It’s playing more like the club that lost five of its final six games, including a brutal display in the NFC Wild Card round against the Rams.

“The mindset is to go 1-0 every week and obviously we didn’t do that yesterday,” wide receiver Rondale Moore said Monday. “It’s just coming in and work at work, whatever you’ve got to do today to get ready to be fresh Wednesday, flush the toilet and reset your mind and get ready to go play.”

Some of the same problems continue to haunt the Cardinals, such as their inability to get plays called in time before either getting hit with a delay of game penalty or being forced to call a timeout. With the recent decision to go to a full huddle before most plays as opposed to Kingsbury’s previous up-tempo, no-huddle approach, the process hasn’t improved.

Kingsbury said the huddling, which is new for both him and quarterback Kyler Murray, has led to “overcommunicating some things” and added, “We’ve just got to keep working through that and find what fits us best. … We have to streamline the process.”

Another new addition was having Murray wear a play-call wristband, which he wore against the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. He wound up passing for a season-high 326 yards and three touchdowns, but it’s unclear just how much the wristband may have helped.

“I think it helped him with a few concepts,” Kingsbury said, “and we’ll continue to try and finetune that whole process and see how we can expedite it really.”

An ongoing issue has been the failure to execute on critical plays, especially on third downs, where the Cardinals rank 27th overall (34 percent). Turnovers, rarely a problem for Arizona, were costly on Sunday. Murray was intercepted twice, one of which led to a Vikings’ touchdown, and Greg Dortch muffed a punt in the fourth quarter, which also resulted in a Minnesota TD.

“I gave him a little tap and told him, ‘Hey, you’re good.’ But he knows. He’s been in this league for a while,” Moore said. “He knows what it’s like to be at the top of his game and obviously to be at the bottom in that moment. I’ve been there. You guys know. Against Green Bay I was in that same situation. Similar game like that, so I know how it is and I know I wanted space.

“As a competitor, you want to go out there and go make a play and go figure it out. But for me, it’s just like, ‘Yo, just go be you, bro. That’s enough. We’re good and still runnin’ with you.’ He’s a strong-minded guy so I don’t worry about him thinking about that at all.”

If the Cardinals hope to salvage their season by trying to sweep the Seahawks, Rams and 49ers, they’re going to have to clean up a pretty lengthy laundry list of items. That includes limiting the number of penalties, re-igniting the rushing attack and finding a way to operate with a lead, which has been elusive all season.

“It’s basically one day at a time at this point,” Kingsbury said. “(Sunday) is a huge division game and like I said, three coming up, so Wednesday at practice it’s just get back to basics, focus on the little things and things we can control. Our guys understand that the division is still wide open really with where it sits. There’s a lot to play for.”

That fact isn’t lost on anyone, especially the leaders on the team, whom Kingsbury expects will be fully engaged with their teammates in the run up to this three-game divisional stretch.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Kingsbury said. “There’s obviously not a lot of wiggle room left with three division games and where we’re at record-wise. Guys understand that we’ve got a great locker room and they’ll continue to push each other, so the sense of urgency will pick up.”

Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic.com and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live on Fox Sports 910-AM every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Upcoming 3-game stretch against NFC West foes is critical to Cardinals