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A total stinkfest, Cardinals lose to Tampa 17-10

For those of you who always want to say ” same old Cardinals” you certainly got your ammunition watching the disgusting display of football put on by the Arizona Cardinals this afternoon in Tampa. The Cardinals couldn’t run the ball, couldn’t convert on third downs, looked over whelmed on special teams, dropped passes and couldn’t stop a Tampa Bay running game that was down to it’s third string running back. Mix in some questionable clock management, poor officiating, poor tackling and zero run blocking and you have the ingredients for one of the ugliest Cardinal losses in a few years.

Where do we start on this one?

1. The Cardinals couldn’t run the ball on offense and couldn’t stop the run on defense. Chew on this one people, the Arizona Cardinals had 23 yards rushing against a very average Tampa defense. What in the world was Elton Brown doing at right tackle today when our top 6, first round pick Levi Brown is sitting on the bench? Also, it’s becoming more and more obvious that Al Johnson is not a power run blocker at center and that rookie Lyle Sendlein might be the better choice, but the Cardinals have SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS invested in their free agent center so he stays on the field. Edge was getting hit in the back field all game and it looked more like the 2006 Cardinals today running the ball.

2. The Cardinals defense was just totally chewed up by the Tampa offense. Time of possession was 43 minutes for Tampa and 17 for the Cardinals. I don’t ever recall a game where I saw a bigger differential in time of possession. They made third string special team running back Ernest Graham look like Ernest Byner today. Tampa was almost as incompetent as the Cardinals and was trying like hell to give the game away, but the Cardinals hung on for the loss by making stupid penalties, using up time outs so they didn’t have a challenge left under two minutes and keep Jereme ” no hands” Urban in the game as the forth wide out no matter how many drops he has. I shouldn’t pick on Urban as Larry Fitzgerald had a sure touchdown to start the game and for reason’s known only to him he veered out of bounds as he ran down the sideline, causing the team to settle for 3 points.

3. Special teams was consistently inconsistent. Field position was horrible all day and poor decisions on fielding punts, blocking on kick offs and punting in general plagued the team for most of the game. Mike Barr looks more and more like a guy who needs to be in NFL Europe and the lack of blocking on punts is probably going to get Steve Breaston killed eventually.

4. Kurt Warner at one point missed on ten consecutive passes. It wasn’t until midway through the forth quarter that the Cardinals finally converted on a third down. If they were playing anyone other then Tampa Bay they would have lost this game by 40. Warner and his receivers looked badly out of sync all game, with the exception of the one touch down drive in the 4th quarter, and the lack of true 4th and 5th receivers is killing this team in certain situations. Urban, Morey and Beaston just aren’t getting the job done and while they all have value on special teams it’s becoming apparent that if other teams bracket Fitzgerald and Boldin our 3rd, 4th and 5th receivers aren’t real threats. Lets not even talk about the tight end position where Leonard Pope once again gave up on a route leading to an interception and was called for an illegal shift on what should have been a converted third down.

4. Ken Whisenhunt and Jon Gruden were in a contest to see who could give the game away to the other. Where do I go to get back the three hours I wasted watching this game? It’s fundamental that you always leave a time out in your pocket for under 2 minutes but Coach Whisenhunt burned his last one with 2:40 to play so as to stop the clock for the final series. This followed closely after Jon Gruden decided to THROW twice in the last three minutes when all Tampa Bay had to do was run the ball and each time killed the clock. The lack of a time out killed the Cardinals when a play called an interception for Tampa was clearly incorrect but due to having no time outs left it couldn’t be challenged by the Cardinals. Just a bone head move and not the coaches finest moment this year.

In summary, the Cardinals were out muscled, out hustled, out coached and out played in every aspect of the game. The only Cardinals who played with any fire and heart was Darnell Dockett who has got to be a Pro-Bowl pick if there is any justice in the league.

Also, for all of you who continue to say Levi Brown was a better pick then Adrian Peterson how about today as exhibit A that you don’t know what your talking about? We had a healthy Levi Brown and he sat behind Elton Brown for most of the game, while up in Minnesota AP ran for almost 300 yards against the best defense in the NFL. Yeah we really needed an average tackle instead of the next Eric Dickerson didn’t we? Do you think AP and Edge might have been the best running back tandem in the NFL if the Cardinals had picked AP and then traded up to get Tony Ugoh or Ben Grubbs instead of wasting a pick and a 4th round draft choice on Alan Branch when we already had Gabe Watson? I get sick to my stomach every time I see Peterson play, and it’s further proof that until the Cardinals start drafting IMPACT players in the top ten instead of drafting for need they will be a 500 or less team.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 2:37 pm and is filed under game analysis, Regular season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.