Kliff Kingsbury Says Cardinals' Penalties 'Unacceptable' in TNF Loss vs Seahawks

Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury lamented that his team was penalized 10 times for 115 yards in Thursday night's 28-21 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

According to Kevin Zimmerman of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, Kingsbury said: 

"You're not going to win in this league doing that, especially against a quality team against Seattle. That's unacceptable to have that many and we got to clean that up. Just got to refocused and be better moving forward. The guys, when that occurs, they're always feeling bad about the situation and so you just try to make sure we get past it and not allow it to happen against and not allow it to affect us moving forward."

The loss was Arizona's second in three games, dropping it to 6-4 on the season. The Seahawks took sole possession of first place in the NFC West with the win at 7-3, while the Cards now find themselves in third behind the Seahawks and 6-3 Los Angeles Rams.

Despite the fact that there were no fans present at Lumen Field in Seattle, the Cardinals were remarkably called for four false starts, which put them behind the eight-ball on several occasions.

Arguably the most costly penalty, however, was a taunting call against Cardinals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick after Arizona stopped Seattle on third down in the third quarter. That penalty gave the Seahawks a first down, and they went on to score a touchdown on the drive and extending their lead to 23-14.

Arizona was also called for a penalty in the fourth quarter that led directly to points, as guard J.R. Sweezy was flagged for a hold in the end zone, resulting in a safety against the Cardinals.

Quarterback Kyler Murray and the Cardinals offense took a step back following their miraculous win over the Buffalo Bills last week, and Murray agreed with Kingsbury that penalties played a significant role in their struggles: "Probably just the little self-inflicted penalties. Just really shooting ourselves in the foot. It wasn't a clean game by any means—easier said than done to play those—but that's just...we got to be better."

The Seahawks were penalized quite a bit themselves with eight penalties for 79 yards, but Arizona's penalties kept the Seattle offense on the field longer, as evidenced by Seattle winning the time-of-possession battle 35:07-24:53.

Thursday's win was a huge one for the Seahawks since they had lost two in a row and three out of their last four, including a loss at Arizona.

Losing to the Cardinals for a second time would have given Arizona an all-important tiebreaker over Seattle, but head-to-head record will not come into play now that they have split the season series.

The Cardinals will look to bounce back from Thursday's ugly performance when they go on the road again to face the New England Patriots next week.