Cardinals keep giving teams headaches, shock Cowboys for first win

The popular consensus around the 2023 NFL season is that the Arizona Cardinals are the worst team in football and that their front office might even be tanking the season for draft position after gutting the roster of veterans this offseason.

They might not be very good overall, but they are also not going away without a fight and the Dallas Cowboys found that out the hard way on Sunday.

Arizona was a 28-16 winner over Dallas to give first-year head coach Jonathan Gannon his first NFL win and hand the Cowboys one of the most stunning losses of the season. 

Dallas came into the game as a 12-point favorite after completely dominating the New York Giants and New York Jets in the first two weeks. 

But it was the Cardinals that ended up taking over this game and controlling it from start to finish. They jumped out to an early 9-0 lead and never looked back.

They had a bend-but-don't-break defense that got tough in the red zone, Joshua Dobbs and James Conner carried the offense, and Marquise "Hollywood" Brown looked like the reliable receiver they expected him to be with five catches on seven targets including a touchdown.

It continues an early season trend that has seen the Cardinals give all of their opponents plenty of headaches when they might have been expecting an easy game. 

The Cardinals have a fourth quarter lead in Washington to open the season before letting it slip away late, and held a huge lead over the New York Giants in Week 2 before a dreadful second half turned into a late loss. They have been right there in every game this season. On Sunday they finally finished it. 

It is also a nice reminder that even though front offices might strategically position rosters to "tank" for draft pick position, the players on the field will never tank themselves. 

Not only are professional athletes simply not wired that way (you could never get to the NFL if you were), but they are also fighting for jobs and their careers. They are going to be bringing it on every snap and in every game. 

The Cardinals players have been doing exactly that, and through three games they look to be significantly more competitive than anybody expected.