Sunday Night Disaster

It's bad enough when your team lays an egg, but it's even worse when they lay an egg on national TV. But there where the Cardinals on Sunday night, getting haplessly destroyed by the Indianapolis Colts as a national audience watched and thought "I knew they were just a fluke." It's not a game that is easy to break down, but there are a few things we need to discuss. Let's start with the good.Alright, now that that's out of the way onto the bad. DRC- Paging Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie, please pick up the white courtesy phone. It's three games into the 2009 season and I don't think DRC could tackle me right now. Not that he was ever much of a tackler, but he could always fall back on his superior athletic ability. That isn't helping him this year, he is constantly getting beat. Last night it was someone named Pierre Garcon that carved up the second year player that is redefining the term "sophomore slump". Not only did Garcon badly beat Cromartie on a fly rout, he threw a stiff arm that practically knocked DRC into the next time zone. DRC looked like one of those hapless tacklers in Tecmo Bowl trying to tackle Bo Jackson. You hear that DRC? I just compared Pierre Garcon to Tecmo Bo because of you! That's how bad you have been in 2009.The O-Line- Earlier today I tweeted "Mike Gandy was blocking the way to my car this morning, luckily I beat him off the edge." Last night was this unit's worst performance in the Ken Whisenhunt era. The Colts could have rushed two and dropped nine and got to Kurt Warner, actually I think they did. Dwight Freeney abused Mike Gandy so badly it was hard to watch. People critical of Warner for the loss need to realize that when a team can get pressure rushing only three our four players, it makes it almost impossible to be successful throwing. Usually a team gets pressure by blitzing, which leaves a receiver open somewhere. No only was Warner getting pressured, he had no receivers open because the Colts didn't have to blitz. Warner, who's lighting quick release and pinpoint accuracy makes him a danger to blitz, never had a chance. The fact that he was 30-52 for 332 yards shows how good he actually is. A lesser QB would have been a disaster. That being said, Warner has to make that pass to Fitz on the play-action in the 3rd quarter. That was a TD and would have made the game 21-17. Turnovers- Two redzone turnovers will kill a team, and it did last night. The Tim Hightower fumble hurt because the Cardinals were up 3-0 and about to go up 10-0. When Hightower fumbled there was no doubt that Peyton Manning was going to drive the length of the field and score. Later in the game the Cardinals had 1st and goal on the 1 and threw an interception, which I will talk about more later. Those two plays coupled with Warner's overthrow of a wide open Fitzgerald left 21 points on the board, which happened to be the victory margin for the Colts. Pass Rush- The Cardinals defense looked pretty decent early in the game, forcing punts and a turnover on the Colts first three possessions. Sadly, the Cardinals offense could only capitalize with a field goal. After that Peyton Manning tore up the Cardinals, mainly because there was no pass rush. Give Manning time to throw and you wont win. The same goes for Warner, but obviously the Colts were able to get pressure on him. I don't recall the Cardinals blitzing that much. Adrian Wilson might have been better served blitzing a few times instead of following Dallas Clark around the field. Ken Whisenhunt- I never thought the Cardinal that would suffer from a Super Bowl hangover the most would be their head coach. Whisenhunt hasn't had his A game this year. As a play caller he has been average. His decision to pass on 1st and goal from the 1 last night was awful. He had some other questionable play calling decisions. Even though the team was getting blown out, Whiz has to find a way to get Beanie Wells more than two carries. Last week he made another bad decision when he took out starters in the third quarter of a football game. I thought that sent a terrible message, you are trying to teach a team to have a killer instinct but you are playing 2nd stringers in the third quarter? Whisnehunt's play calling responsibilities may be detracting him from his head coaching duties. He is 0-2 this year at home after being 14-4 the last two years, unacceptable. The bye week comes at the perfect time for this team, they have a lot to work on. I think it is a little ridiculous to write this team off. 1-2 isn't a death sentence, they are only a game out of first place. I still have faith in Whisenhunt and you all should too.