With their 34-10 win over the St. Louis Rams in Week 14, the Arizona Cardinals clinched the NFC West for the first time since the league realigned the divisions in 2002. At 8-5, the Cards secured home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs and essentially felt pretty good about their chances of making a deep postseason run thanks to their explosive offense.
Then all hell broke loose for two weeks.
Arizona was hammered by the Minnesota Vikings, 35-14 at home in Week 15 and were trounced 47-7 by the New England Patriots in Foxboro the following week. In those two losses, the Cards turned the ball over four times and averaged just 43.5 rushing yards. If it weren’t for their salvaging 34-21 win over the Seahawks in the final week of the regular season, ‘Zona would have limped into the playoffs losers of three straight.
While NFL purists love to note how explosive the Cardinals’ passing game is, the key for them beating the Atlanta Falcons on Saturday in the opening round of the playoffs is creating offensive balance. If they can’t run the ball, the Falcons should have no problem sitting back in coverage and allowing defensive linemen John Abraham, Kroy Biermann and Jonathan Babineaux to pin their ears back and get pressure on Kurt Warner.
The Cardinals have averaged just 73.6 rushing yards per game this season, which ranks them dead last in the NFL. While Tim Hightower demonstrated his powerful running style at times this season, his inconsistency has forced Ken Whisenhunt to give veteran Edgerrin James more carries in efforts to try and revive his team’s dead running game.
Led by Warner and a trio of 1,000-yard receivers in Anquan Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald and Steve Breaston, the Cardinals are going to move the ball through the air on Saturday. But if the Falcons are able to stop the run using just their front seven, it’ll allow safeties Erik Coleman and Lawyer Milloy to stay back in coverage and help corners Dominique Foxworth, Chris Houston and rookie Chevis Jackson blanket the Cards’ talented receivers. Arizona must run the football effectively and force Atlanta to bring Milloy up to help in run support, or else the Cardinals will be one and done this postseason.
The Falcons offense ranks sixth in the league in yards per game and is scoring 24.4 PPG, so they’re equipped for a shootout if one were to break out on Saturday. Given how poor the Cardinals’ defense has played at times this season, it would be a mistake to think ‘Zona will go anywhere this postseason if they can’t run the ball and strike balance on offense.
While every year has its own host of surprises, there are always those stories that simply fit the trend. Sure, it can get repetitive, but if we don’t look back at history aren’t we only doomed to repeat it? Every year has its fair share of stories that fell into this category, and 2008 was no different.
Our list of things we already knew this year includes the BCS’ continued suckiness (Texas-Oklahoma), how teamwork wins championships (KG, Pierce and Ray-Ray), and the #1 rule for carrying a handgun into a nightclub – don’t use your sweatpants as a holster. (Come on, Plax. Really? Sweatpants?)
The biggest story of the summer was all the drama surrounding Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. This saga has been covered to death, but there’s one detail that never seemed to get that much play. At the start, it looked like the Packers were making a bad decision by moving on so quickly even when Favre decided he wanted to return. But when the news broke about Favre’s near-unretirement in March, the Packers stance became much more clear. They were ready to take him back after the owners’ meetings, but he called it off at the last minute. At that point, the Packer brass was understandably finished with Brett Favre, much to the chagrin of a good portion of the Packer faithful. – John Paulsen
The Chicago Cubs’ title drought is not a fans-only phenomenon.
The 2008 Cubs were easily the best team the franchise has assembled in decades, but they still couldn’t win a single game in the playoffs, and the reason is simple: the pressure finally got to them. Sure, they said the right things to the press about how they didn’t care about what had happened in the past, but don’t believe a word of it; there wasn’t a single person in that dugout that wasn’t fantasizing about being part of the team that finally, mercifully, ended the longest title drought in sports history. Once ESPN picked them to win it all, however, they were doomed. Ryan Dempster walked seven batters in Game 1, which matched his total for the month of September. The entire infield, including the sure-handed Derrek Lee, committed errors in Game 2. Alfonso Soriano went 1-14 with four strikeouts in the leadoff spot, while the team as a whole drew six walks and struck out 24 times. The team with so much balance in the regular season suddenly became the most one-dimensional team in baseball; take Game 1 from them, then sit back and watch them choke. And now that this group has lost six straight playoff games (the team has lost nine straight dating back to 2003), it isn’t about to get any easier. Get a helmet, Cubs fans. – David Medsker
If you’re going to wear sweatpants to a nightclub, leave the gun at home.
If winning a Super Bowl is the pinnacle of an NFL player’s career, than shooting yourself with your own gun in a nightclub has to be rock bottom. Case in point: Plaxico Antonio Burress. Just 10 months after helping the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a nightclub. Apparently the (unregistered) gun was slipping down his leg and when he tried to grab it to keep it from falling, the lucky bastard wound up pulling the trigger and shooting himself. And that wasn’t the worst of it because as Plaxico found out, New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. He was arrested, but posted bail of $100,000 and is scheduled to return to court on March 31, 2009. If convicted of carrying a weapon without a license, he faces up to three and a half years in jail. He shouldn’t expect special treatment, either. The mayor of New York wants to be sure that Burress is prosecuted just like any other resident of NYC. The Giants, meanwhile, placed him on their reserve/non-football injury list and effectively ended his season. While “Plax” definitely deserves “Boner of the Week” consideration for his stupidity, what’s sad is that in the wake of Washington Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor’s death, most NFL players feel the need to arm themselves when they go out. Maybe players can learn from not only Taylor’s death, but also Burress’s accident so further incidents can be avoided. – Anthony Stalter
It turns out you can take something that’s not on the list of approved substances and get away with it.
A Minnesota judge on Thursday extended his preliminary injunction against the NFL’s suspension of five players for violating the league’s anti-doping policy, clearing the players to play for two more weeks.
“This is consistent with the approach the judge has taken in giving careful consideration to these issues, which we fully respect,” an NFL spokesman said.
Given that the parties have been asked to propose a schedule to file pleadings by Dec. 22, which precedes the actual pleadings, the hearing of the case and then the decision, it’s likely all of the players involved will be done playing by the time any decision is made. What it means is that the five Vikings and Saints players who tested positive for a banned diuretic are probably good to play for the rest of the season and the playoffs.
From a fantasy point of view, this is very bad news for Tim Hightower this week, Michael Turner next week and Brandon Jacobs/Derrick Ward in Week 17 (for those leagues that have playoffs that last that long).
Comments Off on Ignorance is an excuse: Williams Wall cleared to play the rest of the season
There has been some talk recently of Edgerrin James having his workload reduced by the Cardinals, with Tim Hightower getting the extra work. Paola Boivin of AZCentral.com dug into the story.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt never said Hightower was supplanting James. He simply said Monday, when asked, that he is open to the possibility.
“I think we’ve shown we’re going to play with the players that we feel give us the best chance to win,” he said. “We’ve done that with the quarterbacks, we’ve done that with linebacker, with the offensive line.
“At a point we feel Tim gives us the best chance to win, then absolutely. Just don’t think we’ll judge it based on just yesterday’s game. It’s a process.”
After averaging 20 carries in the Cardinals’ first three games, James has carried nine and seven times, respectively, in the past two.
Hightower carried seven and six in those games but has six touchdowns overall to James’ three.
The scenario is complicated by a recent offensive shift to a pass-heavy attack. Against Carolina, the Cardinals had 14 carries to 51 pass attempts in part because the Panthers frequently had seven or eight players in the box, creating situations such as one of the touchdown passes to Boldin, when he was covered by only a linebacker.
On the season, James has 118 touches (108 carries, 10 receptions) while Hightower has 65 (49 carries, 16 receptions), which represents a 65/35 split. However, over the last two games, James has 16 touches to Hightower’s 19, a 45/55 split. Lately, it certainly seems like the Cardinals are intent on giving Hightower more work. But as long as James is on the roster and able to play, I don’t think we’re going to see him get 6-7 touches to Hightower’s 20.
This looks like a RBBC for now, and Hightower has more fantasy value because of his receptions (in PPR leagues) and goal line work.
Comments Off on Is Tim Hightower taking over in Arizona?
