The Cardinals are an extremely tough Defense.especially against the pass and for the Eagles to appear to be so dominant until the end through the air is a huge step forward.a lot of that falls on the wideouts. Bradford will be a mid-range QB2 against Washington in Week 16.
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Dolphins: QB Logan Thomas, WR Rishard Matthews, LB Jelani Jenkins, DE Jordan Williams, T Ja’Wuan James, DT Earl Mitchell. They got to Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford twice, but both were coverage sacks.
The Eagles (6-8) have to win at home next Saturday night against the Washington Redskins to remain alive for the NFC East title. Cardinals S Rashad Johnson (ankle) didn’t play…. The Cardinals had no issues dissecting the Eagles’ defense.
The 6-foot-1, 224-pound rookie ended his night with 187 yards and three touchdowns.
Coming off what fans of heart attack football would have considered season-saving wins over the Patriots and Bills, Davis’ boss Chip Kelly decided the best strategy to take against a better Cardinals team would be to put the heat on them by igniting a festering Eagles controversy into a full-scale, nationally televised inferno. He finished with 274 yards and one touchdown on the night, marking only the second time all season an opponent held him below 300 yards and two touchdowns in the same game. DeMarco Murray is 14 for 14 on third and fourth downs of 2 yards or less, but he didn’t get a carry until the third quarter.
They gave him more chances, and he responded with a touchdown in the third quarter.
After the game, Kelly said the plan was to “rotate the running backs” and attributed Murray’s lack of carries to the fact that none of his backs ran particularly well. Then Ryan Mathews fumbled away another blossoming drive that was close to breaching the 50. The second-year receiver had a team-high eight catches for a career-high 159 yards, an average of 19.9 yards per reception. He was only on the field for two plays in the first half. Cornerback Tyrann Mathieu went down awkwardly late in the game. The attention is starting to wane, so I’m going to cut this off. The Cardinals may be 12-2, but they haven’t wrapped up a bye yet, and the team chasing them comes to town this week. Here’s hoping for some good news on the Honey Badger front.
Without two key Eagles fumbles in the third quarter, and a pick-six thrown by Sam Bradford to literally open the fourth quarter with a turn-out-the-lights play, however, Palmer and the Cardinals might have had a more hard time breaking the stretched Eagles defense. “He got hit but he stayed in there and delivered the ball”.
No matter, the Cardinals drove methodically down the field and scored anyway, helped by a short pass from Palmer to tight end Brandon Fells, who then carried Maxwell on his back for another 15 yards or so before finally getting pulled down at the 7. Tony Jefferson takes Johnson’s spot.
The Eagles came right back with an impressive drive of their own. After a Cardinals field goal, the Eagles tied the game on Bradford’s 22-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz with 8:26 left in the first half.
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On that note, the Eagles and Cardinals are developing quite the little rivalry. Palmer’s numbers would have been loftier were it not for three drops from receiver John Brown, who came into this game with one drop on 75 targets. His second touchdown of the night covered 47 yards in a run that saw Johnson shed several tacklers on his way to the endzone. Arizona QB Carson Palmer set a franchise record with his 31st TD pass of the season last week vs. Minnesota, surpassing the 30 thrown by Kurt Warner in 2008….
