Arizona Cardinals wide receivers have been major disappointment

TEMPE, Ariz. -- What was supposed to be their major position of strength - the wide receiver group - has been an unsuspecting failure for the Arizona Cardinals this season.

Larry Fitzgerald is still getting it done, amazingly, at age 33. But short of that, it's been a disappointment all the way around. Michael Floyd has been up and mostly down, dropping passes in key situations much of the year. Jaron Brown, who had been climbing up the depth chart, was lost a month ago to a torn ACL.

J.J. Nelson had risen to a starting role because of the previous two receivers' situation, but he's turned into Floyd and has been dropping passes left and right for the past three games and now head coach Bruce Arians isn't sure what he can expect moving forward from Nelson, either.

To top it off, there's now the ongoing health concerns regarding quarterback Carson Palmer's favorite deep threat - the speedy John Brown. Since being diagnosed with the sickle-cell trait, Brown's hamstring has been ailing so much that he's missed practices, missed games and had to leave games in which he was starting to make a difference again.

That's what happened in last Sunday's 38-19 loss at the Falcons and on Wednesday, Brown wasn't able to practice after his hamstring cramped up upon trying to run sprints beforehand. It isn't yet known if he will be available for this Sunday's make-or-break game against the visiting Washington Redskins.

"We will just wait and see on John Brown," Arians said Wednesday. "He was able to run today and then it tightened back up. Just continue to see doctors and see what protocols we can get for him."

Asked if Brown's injury likely will linger until he has time to recover after the season, Arians shrugged his shoulders.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said. "I've never seen it. We saw every specialist that we can see and he was fine, and then it just comes back."

If the Cardinals can't count on using Brown as one of their primary weapons, it weakens the Cardinals' offense considerably.

"You take 1,000 yards out and about 50 explosive plays," Arians said. "Yeah, it hurts a bunch."

Palmer took Brown under his wing during the receiver's first two seasons in the league, moving Brown into his California home to go over routes and play concepts. But Brown, who went for over 1,000 yards a year ago, clearly hasn't been himself.

"It obviously hurts not having him," Palmer said. "He's been in and out of the lineup and made some really nice plays, and then obviously we lost him somewhere there in the second quarter (at Atlanta). It's definitely been a loss, big loss in production and some of the stuff we do. Everything looks good going forward it sounds like, with all the tests and all the stuff he's got going. Hopefully they can get it under control."

As badly as Palmer wants to win, he can't help but feel for Brown and worry about his friend's long-term health.

"It's been a tough year for John," Palmer said. "He had a really severe concussion the second week of training camp, maybe the first week of training camp. Getting diagnosed with a disease that you don't know anything about and you've never heard of, and it's a scary disease to have; it's been a difficult year. He's handled it flawlessly. He's always asking, 'Should I try this, should I try that,' talking to doctors, talking to (head athletic trainer) Tom Reed and his group.

"It's been a tough year away from football. Trying to figure out what his workload is in the week and what his workload is on Sundays, how to stop what happened last Sunday from happening again. He's in the learning process trying to figure it out. You can just pray for him and be there for him and do whatever you can for him."