Arizona Cardinals
Three to Focus On: Cardinals @ Bengals, Week 16
When I was growing up, watching a matchup between these two teams would’ve been terrible. In the 1990’s, these teams were consistently near the bottom of their divisions and just not great football teams. Both franchises have slowly turned their fortunes around, and now are having good years mixed with the bad. This year both teams have been very average and with two weeks remaining, both are still alive in the playoff hunt.
Instead of it being a boring matchup like my inner child would think this would be, it is now basically an elimination match. The winner will likely keep their playoff hopes alive and the loser likely having their shot at the playoffs dissipate. There might not be as many stars on these teams to give the game more national attention, but there are plenty of good players that you may not have heard of. You can’t ask for much more than that, so here are the three matchups that will determine who might be playing into January.
Re-Focused: Browns @ Cardinals, Week 15
On the surface of things, a Cleveland Browns versus Arizona Cardinals contest didn’t appear to be something that would provide much excitement. Indeed you only needed to look at the respective quarterbacks on display to think this game could go down as one of those instantly forgettable end of seasons.
Well credit to John Skelton, Seneca Wallace and their respective teams, because in front of a sellout crowd at the University of Phoenix stadium, we were given a match up that delivered more quality, tension and excitement than anyone could have predicted. Ultimately that was to the joy of the home fans, who saw their team overcome a 10-point deficit, with the Browns finally losing their battle to reign in the explosive Patrick Peterson’s punt returns.
That said this game deserved to be remembered more for a break down in coverage or overtime punt return. No, this was a game that featured several impressive performance (and some not so), and it’s only fair we do our bit to highlight them.
Three to Focus on: Browns @ Cardinals, Week 15
When you’re this late into the season, there are three kind of games. There are the ones between two teams fighting for playoff seeding, the one between a future playoff team and a team playing for pride, and then there is the game between two teams who are out of the picture already.
This game is somewhere in between the second and the third, as the Cleveland Browns have no playoff shot, while the Cardinals need a miracle. The miracle has already started with wins over the Cowboys and 49ers. If they can handle two of the better teams in the NFC, then Cleveland who has lost six of their last seven should be no problem. Quarterback Colt McCoy could very well miss this game as well, which should make things even easier. Read the rest of this entry »
Re-Focused: 49ers @ Cardinals, Week 14
A drubbing to the 49ers just three weeks ago must have woken Arizona up, because the Cardinals showed plenty of heart and fire this time around. Arizona was on a quest to put together a three-game winning streak after a slow start to what has been an up-and-down season.
For the 49ers, their offense found rhythm at times, but overall, Alex Smith had a day to forget. Frank Gore had a nice 37-yard TD run, but outside of that, San Francisco failed to score touchdowns in the red zone, settling for field goals instead.
Let’s take a look at some of the individual performances that propelled the Cardinals to their sixth victory of the season. Read the rest of this entry »
Three to Focus on: 49ers @ Cardinals Week 14
The battle for the No. 2 seed in the NFC between the San Francisco 49ers and the New Orleans Saints continues to heat up with the Saints looking better and better each week and the 49ers continuing to show their impressive defense with the best front seven in all of football.
They’ll expect to have more success this week against an Arizona offense with very few highlights this year. Defensively, however, the Cardinals have at least seen some impressive and encouraging performances, most notable on their defensive line in Calais Campbell. The Cardinals would surely love to spoil the 49ers’ chances of a bye week to start the postseason with a win here. Read the rest of this entry »
Re-Focused: Cowboys @ Cardinals, Week 13
OK, raise your hand if you saw this one coming. Dallas with a chance to take control of the NFC East blows the game to the Cardinals who were just grateful they didn’t have to start John Skelton anymore.
In a game that went down to the wire (actually beyond the wire as we hit over time), Jason Garrett showed some impressive coaching calamity as he successfully iced his own kicker, negating a kick Dan Bailey put straight down the middle with a late timeout only to see him shank his next try.
Arizona got the ball in overtime and worked their way to midfield before a moment of magic sealed the win with a touchdown. So how did it go down?
Three to Focus on: Cowboys @ Cardinals, Week 13
A long week for the Dallas Cowboys followed by a trip to the desert to face an Arizona Cardinals team that isn’t exactly setting the league alight. With their NFC East competition falling over themselves to hand the division to them, things are looking rosy for the Cowboys. The question for Dallas now becomes are they just going to take advantage of a poor year from their NFC East mates to just claim the division, stumbling along with their rivals, or can they make something more of this season?
For the Cardinals, this season was rapidly turned into irrelevance by a string of games in which they couldn’t finish while their division rivals in San Francisco romped away with the NFC West. For now, this season is about damage limitation, playing the role of spoiler and trying to get some longer term answers as to what they have at the quarterback and running back positions and how they shape their offense moving forward. The defense is showing signs of life under new defensive coordinator Ray Horton but this has merely been another rudderless season on offense as the Cardinals still struggle to find an identity long after the departure of Kurt Warner. Read the rest of this entry »
Re-Focused: Cardinals @ Rams, Week 12
There were a few audible sighs of relief around the office when I asked for this game last week. Many of the analysts can’t bear the thought of negatively grading yet another game chock full of John Skelton over throws, but I knew better and so it proved. It’s not that Skelton suddenly morphed into Peyton Manning – there were plenty of those passes for his critics to savor. Here was a close game, with an all-time Cardinals record (rushing yards in a game), two punt returns for touchdowns, lead changes, a close finish and most importantly some really good and bad performances on both sides. Throw in Chad Pennington making a good, if understated, showing in the commentary box and it was fun for the entire family. Here’s a few of those more noteworthy performances:
Three to Focus on: Cardinals @ Rams, Week 12
Before the season began, both these teams would have hoped this game would have had serious playoff implications. Sadly, their struggles, coupled with the dominance of the 49ers this year, have wiped away to those hopes and dreams. Instead, this is a divisional matchup with little more than pride on the line.
After being pipped to the division crown at the last hurdle last year and Sam Bradford’s impressive rookie year, the Rams looked primed to win a weak NFC West but poor offensive line play, the lack of a playmaker for Bradford, and he himself not being at the same level, left the Rams out of it very quickly. Read the rest of this entry »
Re-Focused: Cardinals @ 49ers, Week 11
With a short week and a cross country trip to Baltimore for the “Harbaugh Bowl” on deck, the 49ers had this game pretty much over with midway through the third quarter. This may have been more of a result of some poor performances from the Cardinals players, especially the quarterbacks. This is not to say the 49ers played badly at all, they just didn’t dominate quite to the level I expected them to.
For the Cardinals, it was sadly the same story as we’ve seen for most of the year as opposed to a repeat of last week’s upset win over Philadelphia. Arizona has simply lacked quality quarterback play on a consistent basis since Kurt Warner retired. That’s what this game showed about the Cardinals more than anything else.
Despite the lack of drama in this one, there were still a few performances that stood out from the rest. So with that in mind, let’s take a look. Read the rest of this entry »
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