| Authored by Jeff Risdon - 12th January, 2009 - 11:22 am
 Much to the surprise of pretty much everyone, the Arizona Cardinals are in the NFC Championship game. Interestingly, most folks are putting the blame on the Falcons and Panthers for choking, rather than giving the Cardinals credit for playing well. While the Panthers certainly laid an egg, Arizona showed me enough that they deserve a lot of credit for helping to hatch that egg. And, the Cards have the ability to make the Eagles lay the same giant, messy egg.
Arizona has won thanks in large part to their defense. The gap-shooting quickness of the guys up front has presented major problems to the Falcons' and Panthers' offensive lines, which are built for mauling, not finesse. Darnell Dockett, Bert Berry, and Antonio Smith have consistently penetrated and broken up running plays before they get started, not to mention the QB pressure they generate. That disruptive ability sets up the secondary to make big plays, and they sure have delivered.
Defensive Coordinator Clancy Pendergast deserves a great deal of credit for preparing his defense to win. The Cardinals have clearly been the better prepared team in both their matchups, and it goes back to work in the film room and designing new schemes that exploit the findings of the film work. As an example, look at the interception by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie on the first play of the 2nd quarter. With the Panthers driving for a touchdown that would have leveled the score at 14, Jake Delhomme drops back and sees what he thinks is over-under zone coverage. All that Delhomme has seen on film is that when the Cards use this coverage, the under corner (DRC in this case) will pass the wideout to the safety and then slide up to cover the back in the flat flaring out to that side. But the Cards threw a curveball, thanks to some excellent studying of the Panthers tendencies. The Cards picked up on the fact that Delhomme isn’t going to throw that short route in the red zone, but rather try to gun it to Steve Smith before the safety rotates over. Arizona made the adjustment to have DRC feign moving short, but then break back towards Smith. Delhomme had no idea that was coming, as it’s a wrinkle the Cards haven’t shown before. The result was the most crucial play in the game, in my opinion, as it killed a successful drive and took all momentum away from the home team. The damp crowd never recovered, Delhomme never recovered, and the Cards cruised to a surprisingly easy blowout win. Chalk that up to superior film work and coaching acumen for Arizona.
Also helping the unprecedented success in Arizona is the improved running game by the offense. They still don’t net the yards per carry teams want to see, but Edgerrin James and Tim Hightower have shown a better ability to grind for yardage that wasn’t there down the stretch in the regular season. Their increased success has served the necessary purpose of keeping the opposing safeties honest, freeing up a little more room for the receivers down the field and over the top. That is critical against the Eagles, who have one of the best safeties in the game in Brian Dawkins. The left side of the offensive line has fired off the ball better, getting out into the linebackers and maintaining their run blocks much better. It’s precisely that type of relative improvement that makes the difference between 2nd and 8 and 2nd and 6, and when Kurt Warner gets the latter, this offense is as dynamic as any in the NFL. Warner has had time to stand tall and survey the field, and he even flashed some heretofore unknown wheels with a 4-yard scamper that extended a drive. He is playing with the confidence of a former Super Bowl MVP, and his excitement and savvy is rubbing off on his teammates.
Will it all be enough to beat the Eagles and land the first Super Bowl berth in franchise history? Time will tell, but I’m very encouraged by the fact the game sold out in 6 minutes. That means there is life and fire in a normally apathetic fan base, and that can be infectious. The Eagles feature the same oversized OL the defense has torn up in the playoffs, and a return by Anquan Boldin will only make the offense more potent. It’s a great time to be a Cardinals' fan, a statement that has almost no historical precedent. Enjoy the ride, even if it ends this coming weekend.
Jeff.Risdon@RealGM.com |
