He got away with a couple passes that could have been picked off, but Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer made yet another case for his league MVP candidacy this season.
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“That’s why I came back, because moments like this, you can’t duplicate those in life”, said Freeney, who joined the Cardinals a month into the season.
GLENDALE, Ariz. – The immediate taste will be bitter, in the hours after a game the Minnesota Vikings played well enough to take from the Arizona Cardinals and could have easily won. If it had not been for defensive end Dwight Freeney, we may have had to wait until next week to see the Cardinals lock up a postseason berth.
The Cardinals are now 25-1 under coach Bruce Arians when they out-rush their opponents.
“We didn’t have any timeouts, couldn’t afford to get tackled in bounds”, he said. The play call was created to at least push the ball down the field a little and allow the guys to make the catch out of bounds. Arizona just had to take one kneel-down after the turnover to run off the clock. “I was ready to throw”.
With the win, the Arizona Cardinals have secured a spot in the NFL Playoffs.
Adrian Peterson had 4 carries for 38 yards on Minnesota’s opening drive, ending with his 100th career touchdown. He got them, carrying 23 times for 69 yards, but had only 31 yards on 19 attempts after his 9-yard touchdown run on the Vikings’ first possession of the night.
The Cardinals are renowned for their speed and Palmer used it to his advantage once again, connecting with Brown on a 65-yard touchdown pass and a 10-7 Cardinals lead.
-Palmer set a franchise record with 31 touchdown passes this season.
With John Brown, Michael Floyd and Larry Fitzgerald all having big days through the air, and rookie running back David Johnson making contributions on the ground, Carson Palmer is operating arguably the most talented offence in the NFL.
Some back and forth followed until near the end of the first half, when Teddy Bridgewater, who was 11 of 14 for 162 yards, helped his team get into field goal range, with Blair Walsh tying the game at 10-10 before the half.
Arizona moved down field and left guard Mike Iupati caught a deflected pass for 11 yards in the drive to the decisive field goal. However it by no means came to that, “cause of the 35-year-old Freeney, who did not sign with Arizona until October 13”.
Peterson had one of the fumbles on what was supposed to be a reverse. The Cardinals were all over the play in the backfield, and Adrian Peterson still tried to toss the ball to Mike Wallace as Josh Mauro swarmed him.
The Cardinals blew a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead but got a 47-yard field goal from Chandler Catanzaro, his third of the game, with 1 minute, 28 seconds remaining to snap a tie and take the lead for good. He lost the ball when Deone Bucannon brought him down at the 15.
Almost everyone expected an Arizona rout on Thursday night in the Valley of the Sun, and almost everyone was wrong.
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Minnesota limped into the game without four starters on defense and without three others right behind them on the depth chart.
