The last thing my 9-year-old daughter said to me before bed was "Go Cardinals!" This is unusual — and it might be the most important result of yesterday's game.
The first three quarters of the Cardinals 2019 season seemed like the logical continuation of the 2018 season. I was drinking heavily while watching a DVR'd game and the kids went swimming because nothing good was happening. But then we were all gathered around the game in the fourth quarter and I waived our ironclad "no screens after dinner" rule to watch the game to the end.
The Arizona Cardinals should've won the game yesterday. The had more than a few chances to do so. But they won over the young fans in my house, and that's a good start.
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– Absolutely nails, especially as the pressure mounted during the game and the kicks became more and more meaningful and important. He's going to miss some of these kicks during the season, but hopefully they'll be in lower-leverage situations as the season goes on.
Andy Lee – Eight punts averaging over 45 yards each, plus helped force a couple of turnovers AND pinned Detroit at the 5 in overtime. Andy Lee might be one of the 5 best players on the Cardinals right now.
Vance Joseph – A good plan to start off the game and excellent halftime adjustments to put the clamps on the Lions offense in the second half. Outside of the cornerbacks, this is a veteran group of players bordering on aging. They're going to need to do better than this in the coming weeks, but they came ready to play.
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– Budda Baker's reputation is way out of line with his actual production. Baker had 8 tackles on Sunday, but failed to make plays on the ball and was the guy running into the screen late whenever Detroit completed a deep pass.
KeeSean Johnson – Oof. Welcome to the NFL, young man. Five catches on 10 targets for an awful 46 yards. He was trusted with holding down the outside (Along with Demiere Byrd). Both will see their snaps significantly decrease next week when Michael Crabtree comes in.
Christian Kirk – Kirk would be the third-best receiver on a good team. He had 12 targets yesterday and managed 4 receptions for 32 yards. He seems to have a rapport with Murray, but he has to start bringing in some of these balls.
Has the future of football arrived?
Not yet! Kyler Murray looked like a pretty standard-issue rookie QB for three quarters and then managed to string together some plays at the end of the game. His accuracy — even when he was completing passes — was troubling and needs to improve. His decision-making in the running game wasn't great. Also, he had three passes batted down, which is bad!
That said, the
Cards ran 89 offensive plays yesterday(!!). We might have had 25% of those with 4 wide receivers on the field. San Francisco had 69. Only 18 of those plays were in overtime (I'm counting punts as offensive plays; I don't know if the NFL does or not). This was with at completely stinktastic offense for three quarters.
Kyler and Kliff are going to need better weapons. If Keim is around next offseason, he will need to make some strategic decisions about whether to invest in free agent offensive linemen and/or wideouts.
