Last season, all the Arizona Cardinals heard about was how they couldn’t win on the road, they couldn’t play defense in crunch time and they couldn’t win a game at night when the moon was in full view and there were precisely 50,139 visible stars in the sky and not 49,349.
On Sunday night, the Cardinals went into Giants Stadium and beat New York, 24-17. It was Arizona’s third road victory of the season in as many tries and its third straight win since its 1-2 start. The Cards won largely with defense, as they forced four turnovers, including three Eli Manning interceptions.
Down 24-17 with less than five minutes remaining, the Giants had two opportunities to tie the game. But Arizona’s defense stymied them twice — once after Ahmad Bradshaw fumbled at midfield and another when Antrel Rolle intercepted Manning along the sideline to end New York’s chances.
Pundits were ready to crown the 49ers the new NFC West champs after their 3-1 start, but they look awfully overrated these days after two straight losses. Suddenly, everyone is fixing their eyes on the Cardinals again.
They still can’t run the ball and their passing attack doesn’t seem as potent as it was last year, but the Cards currently have the best run defense in the league and their running game is starting to show signs of life with rookie Beanie Wells. If they can continue to play defense the way they did last night in East Rutherford, they’ll once again become the team to beat in the NFC West. (If they haven’t already.)
It’s hard to figure out what kind of team the Giants are right now. They’ve been decimated by injuries on the defensive side of the ball and just like most teams, they can’t overcome turnovers and still eek out victories.
It might be a good idea to take a wait-and-see approach with the G-Men. It stands to reason that if this team was healthy they could have beaten the Cardinals last night, although again, they weren’t going to overcome four turnovers – not even with all of their defensive starters. And I don’t want to take anything away from the Cardinals, because they played more inspired and executed better in the second half. They deserved to win.
It stands to reason that this is a good Giants team trying to cope with injuries and make it through a rough part of their schedule the best they can. But unfortunately for them, things don’t get any easier. They play at Philadelphia next week and are home against San Diego before their bye in Week 10. After their bye, they face Atlanta t home, at Denver and then home against Dallas and Philadelphia.
They better get healthy in a hurry.
