Friday, October 19th, 2007...10:37 am by Lee Gibbons
This Week’s Victim: Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a very tough team to read. Up until last week all their games had been decided by seven points or fewer. They’ve at times shown good defense (holding Pittsburgh to 14 points) and bad defense (giving up 31 points to St. Louis), they’ve scored a bunch of points (34 vs. St. Louis) and they’ve been held in check by mediocre defenses (10 points against Carolina last week). Despite these up and down performances they appear to be the very definition of an average team and one you’d expect a decent Redskins team to beat at home.
When Arizona has the Ball:
Excitement has been building in the Cardinal fan base (if such a thing exists) that Kurt Warner may actually be able to start this week at quarterback despite suffering ligament damage in his non-throwing arm last week. Cardinal fans should consult New York Giants fans about playing an injured Warner. When completely healthy Warner is still a decent QB, but when banged up he completely falls apart – avoiding stepping up in the pocket, fumbling every time he’s hit and just plain sucking. Tim Rattay was terrible last week (3 interceptions), so either way I wouldn’t expect a prolific passing attack despite Arizona’s strong receiving corp.
Edgerrin James has had a solid year rushing the ball this season. He’s up over 500 yards for the season and has scored 4 touchdowns. Like Clinton Portis, he’s become more of a grinder of a runner as his career has gone along and isn’t a huge threat to bust off a long run. The Cardinals’ offensive line is much improved. They have most of their success running left or directly up the middle. The Redskins defense has been solid on up the middle runs but runs around left end is their biggest weakness. Expect to see the Cardinals attempt to exploit that match-up.
Despite some decent numbers, Football Outsiders’ metrics are down on Larry Fitzgerald this year but very high on Anquan Boldin. These guys are actually a good match-up for the Redskins as they are both big and can play physical much like the Redskins cornerbacks. Tight End Jerheme Urban isn’t note-worthy besides the oddly spelt first name. The Redskins secondary has been very good this year and are actually the best in the league at handling number 2 wide-outs. Unless Warner plays like he’s healthy or Rattay improves immensely, the Cardinals may struggle in the passing game.
When Washington has the Ball:
The Cardinals’ defensive line doesn’t have many big names, but they rank 6th in the league in sacks. Tackle Darnell Dockett leads the team with six sacks (2nd in the league), while defensive end Antonio Smith is second with 3.5 sacks. Both those sack numbers are career highs already, so a lot of the credit has to go to the pressure scheme that Arizona is using on defense.
Besides the sacks, Arizona’s defense, much like their offense, is a middle of the pack unit. They currently rank 16th against the run and luckily for the Redskins are weakest on runs to the left, which just happens to be the better and healthier side of the Redskins’ offensive line. There has been a lot of talk this week about getting the running game going, which when combined with Arizona’s strong pass rush and the Redskins’ gimped-up offensive line, sounds like a pretty good idea to keep Jason Campbell healthy going forward. Karlos Dansby is the leading tackler on the Cards.
The Arizona secondary is a tale of two units. The safeties, led by Sean Taylor clone Adrian Wilson, are solid, while the corners are not very good. The Cardinals have struggled to stop wide receivers all year long, highlighted by 100+ year performances by Deion Branch, Santonio Holmes and Steve Smith. If Santana Moss is looking for redeem himself, this is a good match-up.
Special Teams
Neil Rackers is no longer the phenom field goal kicker of a few years back, but he’s still decent (10 of 14). He is an animal on kickoffs however, with 10 touchbacks already this year. He’s averaged more than a touchback a game since joining Arizona (oddly he was nothing special on kick-offs in his Cincinnati days). Punter Mike Barr has good gross punting stats, but the Cardinals give up a lot of yardage on punt returns (opponents are averaging 17.1 yards/return).
Returns are handling by rookie Steve Breaston, who has scored a TD on a punt return this season, and J.J. Arrington.
Outlook
This game looks like it has all the makings of the Redskins special. A game that they can control, yet still comes down to the last minutes. The big difference maker in this week’s game is going to be at quarterback. Jason Campbell has looked extremely good these past few weeks, while Arizona’s QB situation is a big question mark. I tend to believe that Arizona’s pass rush is performing over their heads at this point in the season and the beat-up Redskins offensive line should be able to hold up. It’s going to be close, but with the edge at QB and home-field advantage, this is going to be a win for the Redskins.
Washington Redskins 20 Arizona Cardinals 13
1 Comment
October 20th, 2007 at 9:59 am
THe Cardinals have traditionally given fits to the Redskins over the years; during their old NFC East years, they could be counted on every few years to perform an upset of the Redskins, and nearly every other game was a barn burner. Since leaving the East, the Cardinals have done nothing to stop that odd “Keep it Close” relationship, as most of the games over the last decade plus have still been relatively close. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said as strongly for the Cards hurting the Giants and Dallas during those years.
In addition, many of the classic coaching staff of Gibbs (and quite a few of the current coaches) have strong connections back to the Cardinals; Joe Bugel, of course, was a one time the Cards head coach (post Gibbs 1.0), but he also orignally CAME from the Cards to the Redskins; reportedly, on hearing the Coach Joe was the new rookie head coach of the Redskins, and was offering him the Offensive Line position, Buges said something along the line of “I can’t believe I might go work for our biggest rival.” In short, while as FANS we may not be happy with the Cards, we owe a debt of thanks to the Cards for many of our finest coaches over the years (and of course, they owe us right now for their current coaches, Wisenhunt and Grimm).
I guess I’ll finish this with saying that the Cards are the only classic NFC East team that no Redskin fan ever HATED; Redskins fans “Hate” the Cowboys; they “Detest” the Eagles; they “Despise” the Giants. But the Cards were always “Hey, their the Cards; I hope they whip the Giants next week”.
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