Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon is saying sorry to running back Emari Demercado for the way the head coach handled an encounter after Demercado made a boneheaded error by dropping the ball before crossing the goal line and costing Arizona a key touchdown.
The error occurred on what would have been a 72-yard touchdown run during Sunday’s surprise loss to the Titans and afterward, Gannon was seen on video tearing into Demercado while he was being consoled by a teammate.
Gannon told reporters, per ESPN, on Monday that 24 hours later, he “didn’t feel great about it.”
“I just told [the team], I kind of let the moment of what happened get the better of me there. Obviously, I try to be emotionally stable and calm because my job is to solve problems during a game and lead the charge on that. So, it’s not really who I am, who I want to be, and I told the guys that today.
“So, it’s a mistake by me, and it’s just like everybody in there, everybody made some type of mistake yesterday, which culminates to why we didn’t win the game, and we can’t let it happen moving forward.”
Gannon said there would not be any punishment for the mistake and at the end of the day, he was reacting to the frustration he had felt for most of the game due to his team’s mistakes.
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“I just thought it was a big play in the game that it needs to be executed,” Gannon said. “I’ve seen us do that before, execute those things, and we hold our hat on standard operating procedures about the ball, and I just would’ve liked to see it executed a little bit better there.”
Had Demercado scored, it would have likely sealed the victory, instead of allowing the Titans to rally and win the game.