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Every so often, you are fortunate to be in front of the TV at just the right time to see something memorable sportswise. Course, when you watch as much sports as I have over the years, you will see your share of good stuff. Still, when an unexpected classic unfolds that you watched from the jump, all the better. Previously, the best playoff NFL game I was ever privileged to see was probably the Chargers at Miami game in 1981 (the Winslow game). I will need to reflect on it, but what just came to pass in Glendale may surpass that for me. At the least, it rivals it.

Arizona, up 24-10 at halftime and 31-10 early in the third quarter, had no answer for Aaron Rodgers the rest of the half and a massive choke from ex-Bengal (naturally) Neil Rackers put the game into OT tied at 45. And then Green Bay won the toss. And you would figure it was their game. Only in a game that was marked by offensive brilliance from both teams, it ends on a defensive TD from the Cardinals finally making a play.

Just a fun game. Hard to imagine that the Cardinals/Saints game could be more entertaining than what just got played, but maybe it will be in the ballpark.

Forget about Arizona’s success over the last two weeks running the football. That era is over. The Cards will need screen passes and other short, creative routes to get them through first down. But only that can take them so far, and so the Cards’ best chance really comes down to how well they manage second / third and longs.

The first time these two played, the Eagles were effective with their zone blitzes. But on a surprisingly high number of plays, they also chose to drop 7 into coverage and rush four. This was presumably done to manage how much ground they were going to give Fitzgerald, but it also showed that the Eagles could get pressure on Warner by just rushing four linemen.

If Philadelphia can do that again, on top of their always effective zone blitz schemes, they should be packing for Tampa by the end of the day.

For the Eagles, they will need to again understand that Arizona’s first down is like everyone else’s third down. To an extent, the Cards’ drives and possessions are dictated by how well they do on first down. Arizona throws a lot there, and the Eagles should run-blitz those downs with a lot of different fronts. After that, the Eagles can go back to what they did in the first game on those second / third and long downs.

When the ball is with the Eagles, we’ll again all be watching how well they perform in the red zone. When Philly converted their first quarter INT of Manning last week into an early touchdown, I knew it was going to be a good day for the Eagles. During the regular season, 63.6% ( 35/55 ) of Cards opponents’ red zone possessions ended up as touchdowns. During the postseason, that number is 62.5% ( 5/8 ). They ranked 28th in that category during the regular season.

The red zone, especially for Philly – a team that has produced top numbers and ratings all season but has been held down by poor conversion of red zone chances and key short yardage plays – is where their road to Tampa runs through.

Eagles -3

Since there’s a pretty wide consensus that the Panthers are going to win this game (I’m looking at you, Keyshawn Johnson), I’m mostly going to focus here on if the Panthers will cover.

Last week, when I picked the Cards to beat the Falcons I closed with the following statement:

The Cardinals special teams aren’t playoff worthy, their pass defense is very susceptible, and they can’t run the football against most defenses. But they will move the ball on the ground against Atlanta and I just think all of that will hurt them next week, when they are 10 point underdogs to either the Panthers or the Giants.

I was really only half joking when I said they would be 10 point dogs, but here we are with a Saturday night game in Carolina and the Cardinals facing that very point spread.

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In this week’s Audilbles at the Line for the Arizona / Atlanta game, the Football Outsiders guys talked a lot about the Cardinals first touchdown of the game.

It came on a flea flicker play that followed three straight Edgerrin James runs, yet the Atlanta secondary wasn’t fooled. Warner threw a nice corner route pass into the end zone and Larry Fitzgerald went up over two defenders – a safety and a corner – to grab the ball.

And in the FO thread, they talked mostly about the success rate of flea flickers and how Fitz’s catch was a great one.

But it wasn’t just a nice catch. It was also poor ball skills by both Atlanta defenders.

Which brings me to a question I’ve long wondered. Why do most cover 2 schemes give safeties the deep responsibilities. They are usually less talented than corners when the ball is in the air, and less used to playing talented receivers one on one deep.

And that’s exactly what we saw here with the Cardinals’ first touchdown. Fitzgerald just played the ball better than the two players around him, mostly because the player responsible deep, the safety, misjudged the ball in the air and cut both himself and his teammate off on the play.

The conventional wisdom with this game seems to be: the Cards can only pass and Atlanta’s biggest weakness is against the pass but the Falcons are a much more rounded team and will win on the road despite the fact that rookie QBs can’t win a road playoff game.

But here’s the truth: Atlanta needs Matt Ryan to have a big game to win this game and Atlanta’s run defense is probably more of a weakness for them right now than any other part of their game. In looking at the Falcons last five games – four of them wins – I was stunned to see how many yards they were giving up on the ground. Below is a table of those five games:

To me, that’s a lot of yards to be giving up in games you’re winning. It’s important for Arizona to follow what the Saints did (5 of New Orleans’ first 6 offensive plays were run) in order to keep Atlanta’s safeties honest.

I suspect Mike Smith’s Falcons defense will continue to allow teams nothing over the top and leave plenty of underneath stuff open (Smith came from Jacksonville, where his defenses regularly gave the Colts deep game fits).

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