THT for 50? Why Not.
A win’s a win…no matter how you get it. I suppose that phrase was never more true than it was after the Cardinals hung on to beat a shitty scrappy 1-win Rams team on Sunday. So on a day in which the Steelers fell to the Chiefs and the Bengals lost to the Raiders I’ll take what I can get and be happy with it.
The story of the game was obviously the first half head injury suffered by Kurt Warner. With Warner the Cards darted out to a 21-3 lead – without him the Rams were a well-placed goal-line pass and a two point conversion away from a tie ball game. Startling as it might be, the Cards are a better team with the two-time MVP under center. Other thoughts from a barely hanging on Sunday:
- Most important things first – the head injury suffered by Warner has not been ruled a concussion. All indications are that his removal from the game was mainly a precautionary measure and odds are he will play next week. Phew. When Kurt was in the game he was his usual sharp self – going 15/19 for 203 yards and a pair of TD passes. Since his 5 INT debacle against the Panthers, Warner has thrown 9 TD passes and no interceptions. With his performance on Sunday Kurt passed Roman Gabriel on the all-time touchdown pass list (202) and Steve McNair on the passing yardage list.
- The performance of Matt Leinart – while not statistically poor – left quite a bit to be desired. I don’t really see the point in piling on so if you want to read about his performance you can go here or here – but whether he is getting a bunch of reps in practice or not, Matty needs to be better. There were a couple of Leinart bright spots as he was driving the Cards until Anthony Becht’s fumble in St. Louis territory and he did find Early Doucet for a 20 yard completion late in the fourth quarter that all but ended the competitive portion of the game. But zero points against the Rams when you have Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Beanie Wells? Not going to cut it.
- How about that running game? For the 2nd time in three weeks, the Cards cleared the 180 yard mark in rushing yards (183) – getting 110 yards from Tim Hightower and 74 from Beanie Wells. It was Hightower’s second career 100 yard game, the first being last year when the Cardinals played at St. Louis. At least he’s consistent. If the run game can keep up production that is at or near this level…look out opposing defenses.
- Maybe Anquan Boldin should get benched more often. Since his injury scratch against Chicago, Q has caught 16 passes for 208 yards and a touchdown. He also looked to be running a bit more normally than he did last week – all good signs for the Cardinals attack as the season wears on.
- As if Jerheme Urban not playing last week wasn’t enough of an indicator that he had been passed by Early Doucet for the 4th receiver gig – Urban was a healthy scratch against the Rams on Sunday. How does this not end with Urban catching passes for the Chiefs? Todd Haley beckons.
- Weekly LSH update – LaRod Stephens-Howling made a nice special teams tackle and downed a punt inside the 5. So nice work there. Problem is he still can’t return a kick very well – averaging 22.8 yards per return on his 4 attempts. Is the week that he shuts me up with a good return coming? Because until then I’ll just say that they should keep LSH playing special teams, add someone who can return kicks, and drop one of the several other primarily special teams guys (Toler, Highsmith, Morey).
- Bryant McFadden went out in the 2nd quarter with a right knee contusion but was replaced admirably by Michael Adams. Adams doesn’t typically get a ton of playing time – as evidenced by the Rams throwing at him early and often – but he never looked terribly over-matched and set a career high in tackles (10).
- From a linebacking perspective, definitely nice to see Gerald Hayes back in the lineup after missing two weeks due to injury. The less I have to see of Ali Highsmith on defense the better. Chike Okeafor missed his second straight but rookie 6th rounder Will Davis seems to be coming along well as he recorded a sack of Marc Bulger early in the 3rd quarter.
- On the final drive of the game Darnell Dockett picked up a sack of Marc Bulger that seemed to cause Bulger not to know exactly where he was. The blank stare Bulger had going on the Rams final three plays made it pretty obvious that they wouldn’t be making a late game rally.
The Cards now have a 7-3 record for the 2nd consecutive year and due to a 49ers loss they hold a 3 game lead in the division with just 6 to play. As Kent Somers put in his game notes, if the Cardinals play .500 football the rest of the way (home v. Rams, @ Lions should help) the Niners will need to go 6-0 to win the division. I don’t know about you but I vote we don’t make this interesting – the 2-4 finish to last season should not be repeated.
Last but certainly not least…get well Kurt Warner.
