comments n stuff on the ARZ game from around the net

from off the net

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Prime Time

What Cardinals Fans Are Saying After Their Loss To The Rams

many of us are curious how the Cardinals fan base feels about the Rams now and how they explain their loss. In my reading on their many different forums this week, I found that for every goofy, troll-like post there are 2 or 3 members in a thread that will point it out. They’re the enemy but still a pretty good fan base.

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http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/f4/quick-reactions-226781.html

Quick Reactions

* Hard to imagine the defense playing this poorly—worst game by them in a long time. Still can’t believe, however, that neither of the two Ram fumbles resulted in turnovers on the 5 yard line.

* Interesting that the Rams’ defense, which could put pressure on Palmer with a 4 man rush, threw blitz after blitz at Palmer. I thought I was watching a Todd Bowles defense against us.

* Clearly the offense looked intimidated by the Rams’ defense and so did BA whose third down and short calls were consistently questionable, as were some second half decisions to just kick the FGs. I think BA is going to rethink his choices in this game.

* Still can’t believe Carson Palmer threw 3 bad passes after the 2 minute warning—been so used to his accuracy. But—this is what relentless pressure can do, as we saw when Bowles was our DC.

* I think it was a mistake to start Iupati in this game and thought so at the time because his weakness in pass pro isn’t his man head on it’s on being quick enough to switch on twists and inside blitzes and Laurinaitus ate him up.

* Still can’t believe Larsen was made inactive. He should have been in there at the end when we need the best pass pro possible.

* Team MVP was Chandler Catanzaro—not only for his 5/5 FGs, but for making tackles on kickoffs, which remain another weakness, kick coverage.

* Still think there are better options on key third downs than passing to Jermaine Gresham. I hope I am proved wrong. But that play still bothers me the most. David Johnson missing the TD catch, I can attribute to inexperience and that the pass came out quicker than he expected. But the Gresham drop was at a time when the Cardinals could have taken the lead and control of the game. Was really surprised, to see BA concede that field position on 4th and 2 and go for the FG.

* I still maintain that for the Cardinals in 2012 draft, Tavon Austin, would have been better pick than G Jonathan Cooper. Yes, we have a good speed WR in John Brown, but Austin is so versatile and electric and imagine if we had them both. If BA had had Austin the last three years he would be a Pro Bowler by now.

* Still worried about the Cardinals lack of speed at LB all across the board. I would like to see Steve Keim make a trade—

* But two things stand out to me at this point: one is that Carson Palmer can’t keep getting hit like this or he is not going to last 16 games and two is that without edge pressure, QBs like Nick Foles can stand in the pocket and deliver even off double clutches.

* It should be interesting to see how the Cardinals respond this week. I think we will learn a lot. It sure looked like the team lost complete focus at the end of this game.

* Good performances from Fitzgerald (despite the fumble), Floyd, Chris Johnson, John Brown, Frostee Rucker, Calais Campbell, Patrick Peterson and Carson Palmer (save the late throwback bomb INT to John Brown, which is a throw that has to be made early, otherwise Brown will slow down and let the defense adjust as they did, and the rushed inaccurate three throws to end the game).
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Arians wet the bed in this game. What’s up with the 3 consecutive pass plays needing only two yards too keep game alive?
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Austin is garbage and has done nothing.
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7 catches for 96 yards and 2 scores while adding 20 rushing yards is far from garbage. And remember, his QB’s throughout his career have been Sam Bradfors, Kellen Clemens, Austin Davis, and Shawn Hill throwing at time for 2 seasons. Foles is the best QB he’s had in his short career.
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Now that he has an OC and a QB who seem to know how to create space for him—he is going to be tough for any team to defend.
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Yesterday was BA’s Birthday , did he over celebrate , I don’t know , but this was the worst prepared I have seen from BA or the team in his 37 games coached .
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Except for playing the Rams again, we will not face a better defense in my opinion. Glad in the perspective we got that first loss out of the way… just wish it would not have been at home against a divisional opponent lol
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The Seahawks are just as good if not better—but the Rams are loaded—CB Jenoris Jenkins is a stud, so is Laurinaitis—their safeties are tough and very under-rated—and their pass rush is the most talented, better than the Seahawks’.
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this is the first game I’ve ever been disappointed by an Arians team. I literally can’t remember another game I believed we should win hands down only to come out and lay such a huge egg.

sucks. Will be interesting to see how they respond on the road next week.
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If the Cards can play a game this badly and almost win that’s something.

There were 6 or 7 individual plays that if any one of them doesn’t happen we win this game.

Considering a FG wins this game if…

DJ doesn’t fumble the kickoff,
Fitz doesn’t fumble,
DJ catches the the TD pass,
The non called fumble ( what a BS call that was),
The fumble we didn’t recover (how did we not???),
Greshams drop ( may have turn 3 into 7),
and there is more.

Even with all the defensive breakdowns we still could and maybe even should have won this game.

Hats off to the Rams. They played a great game and were very opportunistic.

Let’s lick our wounds and rebound next week on the road. We are 3-1 and still lead the division. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s time to come back down to earth and accept the fact that we were not going to go through the whole season without a loss.

There have been games we made mistakes and learned from them but the didn’t cost us the game. And then there are games where you make mistakes and it cost us a loss.

This was one of those.
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Said this before, but you sound like Jeff Fisher. We mocked him for saying the same thing in his presser during the week.
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agreed.

and the whole “it says a lot that we almost won”… is this THREE YEARS AGO, when we didn’t expect to win games? We just played a thoroughly mediocre team at home and lost. All that says to me is we laid a huge freaking egg and wasted an opportunity to go to 4-0 overall, 4-0 in the conference and 2-0 in the division. Nothing about that makes me feel good in any way shape or form.

this was a pretty pathetic loss to a pretty mediocre team. that’s all. gotta get it back and going next week.
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If this were Detroit(say what you want but they still have a potent offense), Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or Seattle then I’m with you but it was the Rams. A team that scored a combined 16 points the previous 2 games. It’s a bitter pill to swallow and now I know how Seattle feels.
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I can see why you might say that. However, they spoke of one play in one game and one play in another game. I’m pointing out seven or eight plays in ONE game.

As I said , hats off to the Rams. They beat us and they have beaten the Seahawks so kudos to them.

The key to beating most teams is turnovers. The Rams simply do not have the offense for the long run without getting help with turnovers. I believe we have the ability to do just that, however, today we didn’t.

The cream will rise to the top…and it will be red and white.
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The Rams are a different offense this year—they just need time to settle into their new schemes and QB—but with a bell cow RB in Gurley, a game changer in Tavon Austin and a top TE in Cook, once their young o-line settles in, their offense could be very good.

The Cardinals failed to rattle Nick Foles—that was a big reason why they won.

On the other hand, the Rams threw the kitchen sink at Palmer and while Palmer was one tough cookie, he and the offense couldn’t finish drives or the big drive at the end of the game.

from off the net

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vinny1717

went to the game here in AZ today…..wasn’t expecting a win but was very pleased walking out of the stadium amongst the sea of red. Quite a few Rams fans here as well, which there always are.

Not going to jump off the deep end and proclaim a “turning point” or “playoff” scenario but they really played well. Much better than anticipated.

My takes watching it live:

*TA showed what he can do if he is out there all the time. He has to be on the field all the time. Really good in the passing game today and had a couple nice runs

*Gurley is going to be great. If the knee holds up we have a gem. Big, strong, fast kid that actually has a mind for the game. He waited for holes to develop and showed veteran presence on the last play where he went down instead of scoring. I’ve seen other posts in this forum saying he should have scored and we would be up by 9 with :40 but with this year’s extra point being 33 yards I could have easily seen a missed extra point, Cards go down and tie the game up scenario. By him going down that completely eliminated that scenario. He’s probably watched this train wreck on film from past years. At any rate, great game and hope to see more of that

*Foles is solid. Not great but solid. Watching from up top there were a few plays developing that he missed but with a suspect O Line it wasn’t too often that he was really comfortable in the pocket. Very efficient day with no turnovers. I would have liked to see Cig do a few more fakes/bootlegs off the stretch play….AZ was really crashing down hard and there were some opportunities but I thought the second half game plan was great. Imagine that, an OC making adjustments at halftime

*Defense was good, not great but good enough. Cards racked up almost 500 yards but the Johnson dropped TD early and Palmer throwing 2 balls high on that last drive helped out quite a bit. JJ was great, Tru was very ordinary, giving huge cushions to Michael Floyd…he also had a game winning INT taken out of his hands

*The guys I personally feel like we can move on from: Cook, JL, Britt. Cook was awful as usual. I know the throw as a little fast but he had that jump ball in his hands a 5’9 Honey Badger tore it away. Enough said. I was watching JL closely because I have been critical of him and he really isn’t an NFL MLB…just not fast enough and doesn’t have the instincts. Britt was targeted once that I can remember. These are just my opinion, that’s all but I would like to see Quick, TA and Bailey be the starting WR’s.

Overall it was a fun game to watch. The AZ crowd was loud and into it and Foles and the boys stayed solid and delivered. They earned this win and deserve it. Tough game next week but lets see if Gurley can provide some spark for the offense in the weeks after the bye.

Good game, good win

from off the net

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fearsomefour

Barnes was good in the second half. Watching the first long run by Gurley Barnes and Brown double teamed Campbell and destroyed him (Brown drove him into the ground) Barnes broke off and got in the way of a DB to really bust that play open. Beautiful play. Robinson, while still not a smooth blocker, has been getting better with his pass blocking. Haven’t really thought about the blind side rush that much the last two weeks.

I was muttering about Cunninghams sort of bad playing yesterday….then he made that great blitz pickup allowing Foles time to get the ball to Austin. Each RB can contribute in his own way. A three headed monster. I think we all saw yesterday why the hype was so high with Gurley.