photo courtesy of azcardinals.comWell it was a bitter sweet win for the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. Sweet because the Cards won 34-31, but bitter because they looked ugly and lost their starting quarterback Matt Leinart for an extended period of time due to a collar bone break. For the time being Matt is listed as out indefinitely. Luckily for the Cardinals they have Kurt Warner who has gotten plenty of reps this year and can still be a quarterback that leads this team without missing a beat.

When your a Cardinals fan there’s no such thing as a bad win. So you won’t be hearing me say that about Sunday’s game, but I will say that was not very pretty and maybe there were some excuses for it. The O-line was beat up and had to use some back ups. Elton Brown who was filling in for an injured Levi Brown went down with an injury himself early in the game forcing left guard Reggie Wells to play right tackle. Rookie free agent center Lyle Sendlein had to play left guard to fill in for Wells spot. So the whole line was out of order and did an ok job but were not as effective as the previous games obviously. Despite an O-line that was having some issues, Edgerrin James had 88 yards rushing and Kurt Warner was still able to make plays with guys in his face. The Cardinals did score 34 points even though the offense was not at its best. Some of those points were courtesy of Rod Hood who had a career game with 2 interceptions including one taken for a touchdown to give Arizona the lead.

Yes the Cardinals defense did force Gus Frerotte to throw 3 interceptions but who couldn’t. With an extremely injured Rams offense the Cardinals should have held them to fewer than 31 points. The Arizona defense has been great this year but it was a struggle for them to contain rookie running back Brian Leonard who was the first player to rush over 100 yards on the Cardinals this season. This was one of those games where the Cardinals could not execute very well but were still able to make plays and get breaks when needed. That’s what winning teams do, they find a way to win a game when everything seems to be going poorly.

The Cardinals are now 3-2 and at the top of the NFC West. This is the first time Arizona has had a winning record this late into the season since the 2002 season. This means we can finally call the Cardinals playoff contenders for the first time in a long time. I like where the team is headed even though their starting quarterback will be out for a while. This whole Matt Leinart injury might be a blessing in disguise. First it gives the offense some consistency having only one quarterback instead of two, that one quarterback being the most accurate in NFL history Kurt Warner. Second, this might be good for Matt to sit back and grow a little, the way it looks he needs more time before he’s ready to become the franchise quarterback. You never wish a guy to get injured and I hope Matt comes back soon because they do need him, but for the time being this might not be so bad.

A few notes from the game

Larry Fitzgerald had another huge game with 9 catches for 136 yards and a touchdown. If Fitz or Anquan Boldin didn’t have to split catches these guys would lead the league in every category.

I have to say it was frustrating watching that bum Richie Incognito holding Darnell Dockett the whole game. Incognito was called for quite a few holds and other penalty’s but should have been flagged every single play. If anyone watches the replay of that game keep an eye on that match up, it will drive you crazy how much holding Richie was getting away with.

Also thank you to the refs for giving us a break on that terrible Reggie Wells/ Edgerrin James touchdown. First Edge was clearly down and second the Rams recovered the ball. I guess the Cards were due for a good break.

Fox sports another terrible job covering the game. I’d go into detail about why they were so bad but it’s a lot easier to just say they were horrible in every aspect of covering a game.

Original post by Eli Wahlstrom

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