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Arizona Cardinals:
Hoping to find an oasis in the desert
The Arizona
Cardinals aren’t
exactly the quintessential winning franchise like other
National Football League teams might be. The Cardinals
have an all-time winning percentage of .419. It only
seems to have gotten worse in recent years. Since 1986
the team has finished with a record above .500 only once,
have won no divisional titles and have only earned one
postseason appearance. During the ’98 season the
Cards rode the strong arm of Jake Plummer to a 9-7 record
and their first postseason appearance in 16 years. The
first round matched them up against the NFC East champion
Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium. The Cardinals went on
to handily win the game 20-7 stunning the Cowboys and
their hometown fans. In the second round the Cardinals
were clearly overmatched by the Minnesota Vikings and
lost the contest 21-41.
Last season was like most seasons
the Cardinals have… without
much success. The team finished with a 4-12 record and
not even the great Emmitt Smith could help the team get
onto the right track. There were some bright moments
in the season despite the fact that they only won four
games. In the final game of the season Arizona matched
up against the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings needed
to win the game against the lowly Cardinals to get into
the playoffs making the game more dramatic than most
people would think. The Vikings found themselves up by
13 with 6:48 left in the game. The Cardinals scored a
touchdown on a desperation thrown from Josh McCown to
Steve Bush with 1:54 left in the game. The Cardinals
recovered an onside kick and after a pass interference
call they found themselves within striking distance of
the end zone. With the final seconds ticking off the
clock Josh McCown rolled right and hooked up with wide
receiver Nate Poole who caught the ball in the end zone
while falling out of bounds. After the referee’s
reviewed the play they ruled it was in fact a touchdown.
Vikings players were stunned so that some were just lying
in the field not wanting to get up.
In the off-season the Cards knew
they needed to make some big changes and they did make
one huge change. They fired coach Jeff McGinnis and
brought in Dennis Green. Green was one of the central
reasons that the Vikings are still a very good team
despite not having much of a defense. They didn’t
make any big moves as far as personnel goes, a few
back-ups were brought in to help out their depth at
some positions.
The draft is where the Cardinals
off-season starts to get exciting. The team has a great
deal of gaping holes in its team so it went with the
goal of getting the most talented players and building
around them. With the number three pick in the draft
they got Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald
who had a close relationship with Dennis Green while
coach Green was in Minnesota. Fitzgerald’s father is a sports radio personality
in Minneapolis and introduced his son to the then Vikings
coach. Fitzgerald was made a ball boy and would go through
the same drills that Randy Moss and Chris Carter would
go through. It wasn’t surprising to see Green or
any of the other players out at Fitzgerald’s high
school football games. With their second round pick the
Cards snatched up Auburn outside linebacker Karlos Dansby
who is a freak of nature. He played safety at Auburn
before being moved to linebacker. He is a 250 lb. outside
linebacker that can run a 4.56 40-yard dash and has a
32.5” vertical.
Next year the Cardinals’ offense won’t
look quite as unpleasant as they did in 2003. Josh McCown
is an up and coming quarterback with a great deal of
talent and shouldn’t have any problems getting
the ball up to his three stud receivers Anquan Boldin,
Bryant Johnson, and Larry Fitzgerald.
The Arizona defense hopes to keep teams scoreboards as barren as the desert
that they play in. They finished 24th overall in total defense last year and
should be improving due to the new coaching staff and rookies that will step
in and play this season.
All Images, Content
and Design © 2004
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