“The pockets were just ideal all day, it was just one of those games, like I said, we couldn’t wait to play for seven days”. Obviously, these are just drills, and it leaves out the fact that Winston is a big, physical player. He started the game miserably, 3-7 with an interception, but then turned it on from the second quarter on ending up with 281 yards at a almost 70% clip, four touchdown passes to four different receivers, and a QB rating of 122.1. Johnson gained 89 yards on 16 attempts and caught four for 43 yards.
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He was discussing the Arizona Cardinals’ mindset last week, after they were embarrassed on national TV by a New England Patriots team without its star quarterback, star tight end and two starting offensive linemen.
Improvement starts with identifying failure, though, and that’s what we’re here for: to point out a whole lot of people who lost yesterday’s game, and the few who can walk away feeling like winners after their individual performances, if not the team performance.
He was reflecting on a lopsided loss to Arizona that not only denied the team’s bid to begin a season with consecutive wins for the first time since 2010, but will test the resiliency of Winston and a largely young supporting cast. The score was 0-0 at the end of the first quarter.
Winston, who had four touchdown passes against Atlanta in the opener and was NFC player of the week, threw 51 passes, the most in his two National Football League seasons, completing 27 for 243 yards.
The dynamic second-year running back joins a long list of prominent Cardinals to be called out publicly by his coach.
The four turnovers led to 17 Arizona points.
Arizona opened the scoring by driving 67 yards on 11 plays, capped by a 4-yard scoring pass from Palmer to Fitzgerald on the second play of the second quarter. While the 50-yard pass was slightly overthrown, Peterson read it the entire way to haul in a one-handed interception.
Anger is the first Tampa Bay punter to post a gross average of 45.0 or better in consecutive games since Michael Koenen did so over the last three contests of 2013.
– Bruce Arians wasn’t happy that David Johnson ran the wrong route in the end zone, not only possibly costing the Cardinals a TD pass but almost costing Carson Palmer an interception when Brent Grimes dropped the ball. Defensively, the Buccaneers are yielding 32.0 points and 395.0 total yards (318.5 in passing and 76.5 in rushing) per game against the opposing teams.
What happened to John Brown? Vincent Jackson contributed 44 yards in four receptions. This week against the Bucs, he managed one grab on just three targets for 14 yards. The coach said the team will know more about the status after the fifth-year pro, the NFL’s second-leading rusher last season, has a MRI on Tuesday. In Week 1, playing in only his 13th game, Mariota played extremely well, throwing for 271 yards and two scores while completing over sixty-one percent of his passes.
After the Week 2 “feel good” win to calm fans, the Cardinals are set to take on their first road game against Rex Ryan and the winless Buffalo Bills.
By the way: Johnson will be the Cardinals’ guest Monday night at the Big Red Brew Haus at UOP Stadium beginning at 6 p.m. Cooper returned it to the Tampa Bay 19 and the Cardinals ended that possession with a field goal for a 10-0 lead.
The coach gave game balls to safety Tony Jefferson and cornerback Marcus Cooper. Like and follow vikings32 on Facebook and Twitter.
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Jameis Winston and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are learning how hard it is to win consistently in the NFL.
