Week 12 Preview: New York Giants (9-1) at Arizona (7-3)
By Scott Allen
It’s a possible playoff preview on Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium. No one has told the oddsmakers in Vegas though as the Giants are 3 1/2 point favorites on the road. A little surprising, but not entirely. People still have a hard time believing in the Cardinals, mostly because of the division they play in. People have an easier time believing in Sarah Palin as a vice-president than the Cardinals are a good team – except for those who follow them and the Cardinals themselves.
This team is winning games even when they aren’t at their best. However, that was against St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle over the past three weeks. On Sunday, in order to stop Brandon Jacobs and the New York Giants, they will have to play their best. That means no turnovers, no mental mistakes, no costly penalties. If the Cardinals can dedicate themselves to stopping the run and getting Eli Manning into a passing contest with Kurt Warner, then they may have a chance to limit the Giants scoring. That will be a tough task though given they ran up over 200 yards on Baltimore last week, a great run stopping team.
Giants receiver Plaxico Burress will be a game time decision. For the Cardinals, linebacker Clark Haggans, corner Rod Hood, and defensive end Travis Laboy are all questionable.
I think the Cardinals will still get their share of ridiculous penalties as usual. They must be careful of not coming in too confident to start the game. The last thing the Cards need is to lose the coin flip and allow the G-Men to take the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown. That movie already played this season and its a show quite franly I prefer not to see again. Many say the Cards will need to be perfect in order to have a chance. They don’t need to be perfect because even good teams make at least a couple of mistakes. It’s just a matter of when the mistakes occur on the field and what the situation is.
I say if you are going to not miss a game this season, this would be the one. At the very least, this could be one of the better games of the day most definitely and if you can’t get to a television to watch it, then as George W. Bush tells us to do, make sure to recordify the game, it’s worth the effort of recordification. Cardinals will prevail 28-24.
Go Cards!
Scott Allen
AZScott