Arizona Cardinals Prove It Only Takes Nine To Win

Sep 21, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; San Francisco 49ers kicker Phil Dawson

Although this isn’t the suggested way to go about winning football games in the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals proved you can be successful at times with only nine players on the field.  If you have the right guys, who needs 11?  Well, let’s just say the Cards got away with one against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in their 23-14 victory.

In the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game, the Niners were attempting a 45-yard field goal by Niners kicker Phil Dawson.  Dawson has a great leg but there was still a degree of difficulty to the kick.  In situations like that though, you expect the kicker to prevail.  Not Sunday.

Cards defensive end Tommy Kelly managed to break through and get an arm on the ball and block the attempt.  The score was 20-14 Cards at the time and definitely helped the momentum change at a crucial time.

Here’s the problem for the Niners, and well the Cards quite frankly, there were only nine Cards players on the field on the block.  Nine.  Not even one short at 10, but nine.  Someone forgot to count their personnel.  I’m glad they did.  They may have had to burn the only timeout left and then maybe the kick never gets blocked as both teams re-set.

For the Cards to be able to come through at a crucial time like that with only nine players is something else.  I don’t know who that speaks more to though, the Cards as a great kick blocking team or the Niners as an awful kick protection team?