GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Kyler Murray walked to the podium inside State Farm Stadium an hour after the Arizona Cardinals lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-17, still in full uniform.

While his teammates showered, changed and hustled out of the locker room, the quarterback sat at his locker, despondent.

The Cardinals (2-3), after their sixth scoreless first quarter in a row, had fought back to put themselves in a position to potentially knock off the last undefeated team in the NFL -- or at least take the game to overtime.

Their last drive ended with a missed field goal on fourth down from 43 yards by Matt Ammendola. But the plays that led up to his kick were full of confusion.

Arizona took possession at its own 25 yard-line, with no timeouts left, behind by 3 and 1:45 left in the game.

The Cardinals ate up yards in a hurry. Murray took off for 15 yards on the first play and then hit tight end Zach Ertz for 7 on the next. Two plays later, Arizona was across midfield with less than a minute on the clock.

With 37 seconds left and the Cardinals at the Eagles' 34, Murray spiked the ball on first-and-10 to stop the clock.

Then, on second-and-10, the drama commenced.

Murray took off on a keeper. He slid, avoiding a hit and potentially saving the offense some time. Murray thought he had run for a first down. So did many inside the stadium, including the Cardinals’ coaches and the scoreboard operator, who changed the down-and-distance from second-and-10 to first-and-10.

Even though Murray slid through the first-down marker, the officials marked the ball behind it. Murray had gained 9 yards.

“In hindsight, would have loved to get a couple more yards -- 1 yard or whatever it was,” Murray said. “You got the rule when you slide, when you start to slide that's where they stop the ball.”

It was third down on the field but the Cardinals’ coaches thought it was a first down. As Murray scrambled back to the line of scrimmage, coach Kliff Kingsbury was yelling “clock” into his headset. Because that was all Murray heard, he thought he had the first down.

“I was right there,” Kingsbury said. “Thought he was clearly past, and they brought it back, and by that time, we committed to clocking it.”

The Cardinals lined up in their formation for spiking the ball before they found out it was actually third down. Ertz said there’s so much going on in that moment that the players just assumed everyone was on the same page. He said the safest way for the players to know what down it was was to look at the sticks on the sideline.

“From there, the operation was so far gone that we had to,” Ertz said. “We didn't really have another choice with the clock winding down.”

Kingsbury felt the play should have been reviewed, saying he’ll look into it.

The Cardinals would have been better off running a play on third down, according to ESPN’s win probability model. Had Arizona run a play on third down instead of spiking it, its win probability would have been 43.9%. After the spike, it was 34%. However, there were obvious caveats: time would’ve been consumed to get the play in, line up and so on.

As Kingsbury put it after the game, the Cardinals felt they were at a point of no return when they lined up to spike it.

Ultimately, the Cardinals were going to kick a field goal from some point on the field, Kingsbury said, citing the risk-reward analysis of the situation.

He explained that if the Cardinals had checked into a run, they could’ve been scrambling to get Ammendola on the field with about 20 seconds left for a “hurricane” field goal. If they wanted to throw it, then they ran the risk of an interception or a sack, which would’ve essentially ended the game.

And if the Cardinals had thrown the ball, Kingsbury said they weren’t going for the end zone, instead opting for “maybe something safe.”

“It would have been some conservative throws to try and get closer,” Kingsbury said.

There wasn’t any solace in coming close to beating the best team in football. It was quite the opposite in the locker room after the game. Safety Jalen Thompson said players were “a little bit heated.” While Ammendola was getting interviewed by a media scrum, left guard Justin Pugh walked over, put his arm on his shoulder and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade about how one player isn’t to blame for the loss.

“We're not pleased at all,” Ertz said. “We're not happy. The mood is low and, particularly, because we haven't won at home in a while, and we're all frustrated.”