Last week the Cardinals clinched an NFC playoff berth with their victory over the Vikings at home. Afterward both coach Bruce Arians and Larry Fitzgerald made it known that the team was getting tired of seeing fans of the opposing team in their home stadium week in and week out. Sadly the Cardinals will find only perhaps a dash of red sprinkled around the heavy sets of green and white as the Philadelphia Eagles look to keep their division title hopes alive against Arizona in this week’s prime time battle on Sunday Night Football.
Going Down Memory Lane
Last season the Cardinals and Eagles met in a contest that was tightly contested and it seemingly had an Arizona loss written all over it. The Eagles had put the Cardinals deep in their own territory with a three point lead and only 90 seconds left in the game before a stunning 75-yard touchdown pass from Carson Palmer to John Brown ended up stunning the Eagles. In that game Fitzgerald and Brown combined for only 279 yards, yet this season the two have almost reached 2,000 yards receiving with still three games to go. Not to mention perhaps the hottest receiver in the NFC with Michael Floyd going off for over a hundred yards in four of the last five games. The Eagles secondary is nothing compared to what it was last season with Byron Maxwell still struggling to find his comfort zone and Walter Thurmond still adjusting to the switch from corner to safety. Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator Billy Davis has also put safety Malcolm Jenkins into the slot coverage spot and the leading tackler for the Eagles says he finds himself feeling “more productive” in that position but now he will be matched up with Fitzgerald in that position. We’ll see how the defense of the Eagles fares against the three headed receiving monster of the Cardinals this season.
Heading to the Deep End
Carson Palmer is the NFC dark horse in the MVP race. Cam Newton gets a lot of the chatter right now with his team being undefeated and Tom Brady gets his votes simply because people want to assume that the quarterback who has led his teams to six Super Bowls during his tenure is clearly the best player in the league. But Palmer has an argument for his candidacy and like a lot of candidates for these kinds of awards while he may be the clear choice he is getting blurred out by the others in the spotlight. The Cardinals to date have the most passing plays of any team going over 20 yards or more with a grand total of 59 thus far. Ten of those have gone for scores which includes the two 40-plus yard passes that Palmer tossed last week against the Vikings defense. The offense collects 417 yards a game which tops the league and is third in passing yards with just under 300 yards per outing by this Cardinals squad. To say that Palmer isn’t responsible for the current 11 wins with a potential 12th on the way, which would set the franchise record for wins in a season set by the old Chicago Cardinals back in 1925, is absolute madness. This team put a lot of money on Palmer’s arm to lead them to the promised land and if the former USC Trojan can find those deep routes to his receivers that journey might pan out exactly the way the front office imagined it would.
Bradford and the Backs
The way the media has addressed it and lambasted the Eagles’ run game you would think it ranks somewhere in the low twenties in the league. It actually isn’t as bad as it would seem. Currently Philadelphia rakes in around 115 yards on the ground which gives them the 12th best rushing attack in the league. The reason why people think it is worse than that is because how how this squad is doing it. The Eagles have put a lot of faith in DeMarco Murray and Sam Bradford, both former Oklahoma teammates in college, to become the backfield of the future. While Bradford has struggled and certainly must show improvement against a strong defensive backfield like the Cardinals have, the criticism that Murray gets is almost to the point of bullying considering what a terrific job he has done adjusting to his new scheme. For years in Dallas the tough runner in Murray was told to put his head down and just barrel into the line of scrimmage for yards. Now he is being asked to start running sideways before cutting up the field. The same goes for all the running backs in Philadelphia and all have struggled at getting consistent rushing yards throughout the year. Yet Murray has only carried the ball 174 times and yet he has accumulated 603 yards, which leads the team among a talented crop of running backs. The scary thing is that Murray can just turn on like an emergency light out of nowhere and blind you with his speed if given the chance, and the same goes for Ryan Matthews, Darren Sproles and Kenjon Barner if any are given the chance. Bradford takes advantage of those moments with the run-pass option the Eagles use and finds his targets running underneath coverage often and getting the clutch first downs they need. The criticism this offense gets, while some of it is founded, actually masks what it is truly capable of doing if given the chance to really explode out of the tunnel. If the Cardinals let any of those running backs get started early the defense may be running on their heels before the second quarter.
The game kicks off in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this Sunday night at 6:30 PM on NBC. The Cardinals have a good head of steam right now and seem to be getting better as the season is progressing. If they win this week they not only clinch the NFC West, but they also have a chance to clinch a first-round bye if the Packers lose to the Raiders earlier in the day. If all the cards line up for Bruce Arians, this week may be the last the Cards will need to take seriously before the playoffs start. But knowing the coach and the team, there will be no resting yet for the boys in red.
Cardinals – 33 Eagles -18