Tale of the tape: Arizona Cardinals victory over the New York Giants

A big road win.  A statement game.  A culture change.  Cris Collinsworth even said it was the biggest regular season victory in Cardinals history.  Now, I don’t know about all of that, but it was a HUGE win.  When I went through the Cardinals schedule before the season started, I chalked up a win against the 49ers at home and a loss to the Giants on the road - I was wrong on both accounts, but nonetheless still have Arizona at 4-2 and on track to win the division.

There was only one offensive drive the entire game in which I had to yell at the team, so overall, I’d call that a success from where I sit as armchair quarterback.  Once again, the balance was pretty good and Beanie Wells had a pretty solid showing.  In my mind, Whisenhunt is doing all the right things and the Cardinals are on the right track.  Let’s take a look at the offensive tale of the tape.
Drive - # of Plays - Time of Possession - Result of Drive

1st Drive - 4 Plays - 2:04 - Fumble (Hightower)
Run - 2
Screen - 0
Pass - 2

Hightower hardly ever fumbles, but even the most reliable can make mistakes.  That said, this was actually one of the nicest opening drives I have seen this Cardinals team execute.  They came out of the locker room into a very hostile environment and drove the ball down the field.  Unfortunate result, but not a horrible start.

2nd Drive - 3 Plays - 1:41 - Punt
Run - 1
Screen - 1
Pass - 1

This was one of the few drives that the Cardinals used Beanie Wells as the lone running back.  Check out these statistics: in a two-back set (with a counterpart to Beanie, usually fullback Dan Kreider), Wells carried 8 times for 52 yards and a touchdown.  As the lone back, Wells carried 6 times for 15 yards.  I guarantee the coaching staff saw that pattern as well.

3rd Drive - 6 Plays - 1:44 - Punt
Run - 0
Screen - 1
Pass - 5

Up to this point, I was starting to get a little worried.  Very little time of possession and a drive in which they didn’t physically run the ball one time in 6 plays - I was praying that they weren’t getting away from the balance that is so key for this team.  Fortunately, the defense had been playing so well, I knew it wasn’t time to panic yet.

4th Drive - 4 Plays - 1:20 - Interception (Warner to Fitzgerald)
Run - 2
Screen - 0
Pass - 2

Although this wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world and though it didn’t end the way the Cardinals had hoped, I had to applaud Whisenhunt for going back to the run, even while nothing offensively was working.  This is important to set up later touchdown drives when the Giants still had to respect the run.  And once again, Wells showed us all why he will be very valuable to this team.

5th Drive - 3 plays - 1:34 - Punt
Run - 1
Screen - 0
Pass - 2

Ben Patrick caught a nice pass over the middle on this drive and it is definitely nice to see him catching balls.  If Jason Wright simply falls on the punt that careened off of a Giants player and landed “wright” in front of him (sorry, I had to), the Cardinals get the ball back deep in Giants territory.  Instead, the defense had to continue to save this game, which they did.

6th Drive - 3 Plays - 1:29 - Punt
Run - 0
Screen - 0
Pass - 3

Very interesting that the longest drive was their first drive and was just over two minutes long.  Usually, that’s a very bad sign, but truly, the drives look worse on paper than they were.  In fact, that first drive was a thing of beauty until a rare Hightower fumble.  I still was not all that worried even though there wasn’t a whole lot of offensive momentum - this is the “new” Cardinals after all.

7th Drive - 7 Plays - 3:09 - Touchdown (Wells)
Run - 1
Screen - 0
Pass - 6

Here’s a great example of a good time to pass.  For the most part, the Cardinals had shown a tendancy for balance, with a mixture of running and passing.  Then, at a pivotal point in the game, they passed six times, moved the ball close to the goalline, and then finished it off with a great run.  Here’s a cool fact: Beanie Wells caught the first pass of the drive and ended it with the ball in his hands.  It is important to note too, that Wells is consistently catching balls out of the backfield.  This is an important part of what a running back needs to do in Whisenhunt’s system.  Good drive and great finish.

8th Drive - 4 Plays - 1:54 - Field Goal (Rackers)
Run - 1
Screen - 0
Pass - 3

Finishing out the half with some points and going into half time down only 4 after a pretty lackadaisical offensive first half wasn’t a bad thing in the least.

1st Half Totals - 8 Drives
Run - 8
Screen - 2
Pass - 24

HALF TIME

9th Drive - 7 Plays - 3:42 - Touchdown (Hightower)
Run - 4
Screen - 0
Pass - 3

This was the most important drive of the game (and if Cris Collinsworth is right and this was the Cardinals greatest regular season victory of all time, this was the most important regular season drive of all time as well).  This drive put the Cardinals on top in front of a hostile crowd immediately after coming out of the half.  They set the tone and ran the ball effectively, which is not easy to do against the Giants…especially in New York.

10th Drive - 5 Plays - 2:27 - Punt
Run - 0
Screen - 2
Pass - 3

One word.  Penalties.  Even though the trick play with Antrel Rolle was incredible, it wouldn’t have counted even if Fitzgerald would have made the catch because of a hold.  And then a chop block from Levi Brown took the Cardinals even farther away from the line of scrimmage.  And that is when I decided to give a little yell at the offensive line (Brown got the brunt of it).  But like I said, one yell in an entire game is a pretty good ratio.

11th Drive - 3 Plays - 1:37 - Touchdown (Warner to Wright)
Run - 2
Screen - 1
Pass - 0

This is a real-life indication that Beanie Wells is going to be an asset to this team.  Man, I can’t wait for him to really break out.  If he can keep on learning the playbook, keep catching the ball out of the backfield, and protect Warner when asked, he’ll be a huge contributor teh rest of the year.

12th Drive - 3 Plays - 1:13 - Punt
Run - 2
Screen - 0
Pass - 1

A mistake was made on this play to throw the deep ball to a hobbling Anquan Boldin.  It didn’t work and the Cardinals had to punt earlier than they wanted to.  Still, a 10-point lead is a good place to be in the fourth quarter.

13th Drive - 5 Plays - 3:26 - Punt
Run - 3
Screen - 1
Pass - 1

Nothing special here.  The Cardinals had a 7 point lead and needed to run some clock.  A three and a half minute drive late in the fourth isn’t bad with a defense that was playing as well as Arizona’s was.

14th Drive - 3 Plays - 1:00 - Punt
Run - 0
Screen - 0
Pass - 3

Dumb.  Throwing the ball three times this late in the game with the lead was just stupid.  Especially when the run game hadn’t been terrible.  This should have been rethought and Whisenhunt knows it.

15th Drive - 3 Kneel-downs - 1:08 - Kneel
N/A

2nd Half Totals - 7 Drives
Run - 11
Screen - 4
Pass - 11

END GAME

Game Total - 15 Drives
Run - 19 - 31.7%
Screen - 6 - 10%
Pass - 35 - 58.3%

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