PHX Reporter

Garrett Williams will always be a player that Jayden Daniels will remember.

In the second quarter of Sunday's game against the Commanders, the Cardinals cornerback leaped in front of a streaking Terry McLaurin to intercept Daniels, the Commanders rookie quarterback, for the first time in his young NFL career.

"I haven't even checked my phone yet," Williams said after the Cardinals fell to the Commanders, 42-14.

It was an impressive athletic play, with Williams jumping in the air, juggling the football, and still managing to come down with it. It was the first time in 16 straight offensive possessions -- excluding kneeldowns -- that the Commanders offense didn't put points on the scoreboard. With the Cardinals only down seven, momentum could have shifted.

Instead, it did not amount to anything more than putting a dent in Daniels' impressive stat line -- 26-of-30 for 233 yards with a touchdown and 47 yards on the ground.

"I feel like that's always been one of my strengths in college, and even going back to high school, is making timely plays," Williams said. "That's something I try to pride myself on is when the team needs a play, make the play. I feel like that time period our energy was kind of down. So when I made that play it's not really about more than interception and more about flipping the script and getting everybody back engaged and back on the same page."

Williams spent part of his 2023 rookie season rehabbing from a torn ACL. He made an interception in his debut against the Seahawks but has flown under the radar since.

The interception in Sunday's game proved Williams still has the ability to make a splash play. But overall, the Cardinals defense struggled to stop the run as they allowed 216 yards on the ground. Coupled with a 28-point loss at home, defensive-minded head coach Jonathan Gannon wasn't thrilled.

"We haven't done a good enough job at stopping the run so we're playing behind eight ball on defense all day and it's a hard way to go," Gannon said. "We've got to tweak some things in run game to make sure we're doing better job."

"We have to do little easy things better: set edges tackle get off blocks be in right spot I know we'll be able fix those things."

Gannon was asked if there were any positive takeaways from Sunday’s game but lamented that there weren't many.

He mentioned that how they regroup from Sunday would be important—something Williams is eager to learn from when they return to Tempe on Monday.

"The biggest thing is just come tomorrow and be honest with yourself about not really what you're doing well because if you're getting beat by 28 you know you really need focus on what you're not doing good at," Williams said. "Then go from there and make your point how that's not going happen again."

"If every individual does that then we come together as team talk about things we need fix collectively together I feel like when you go into San Fran next week it's clean slate."