Arizona Cardinals Can’t Look Past Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders may be 0-5 but their quarterback, rookie Derek Carr hasn’t played like a quarterback of an 0-5 team.  He currently has eight touchdowns against just five interceptions on the season.  This weekend former Raiders and current Arizona Cardinals quarterback Caron Palmer will be on the other side with his four touchdowns and no interceptions in two starts thus far.

If you look at the Raiders results, the only game you could honestly feel like they were out of it early was against the Miami Dolphins in their game in London a couple of weeks ago.  If a few plays went their way they could make a case for 3-2. They are still young and learning though, thus they are 0-5.

They lost by five to the New York Jets in week one.  They had a 7-3 lead going into the second quarter before losing 19-14.  They were never really in the loss to the Houston Texans.  They were down 27-0 before getting a couple of late touchdowns.

However against the New England Patriots, they were down 13-9 late in the fourth and running back Darren McFadden appeared to score the go-ahead touchdown with just over two minutes left in the game.  There was a very questionable penalty call made and they never scored.  New England added a field goal and won 16-9.

Then there was a couple of days ago at home against the San Diego Chargers.  The Chargers were down 28-24 until 1:56 remaining in the game.  Carr threw four touchdowns in the game.

Palmer will never say he wants any kind of revenge on the Raiders for trading him but anyone will tell you it would feel good to beat your former team and show them they made an error in letting him go.  So, I don’t think the Cards go in over-confident.  They will go in with a good game plan.  Cards coach Bruce Arians won’t let them go in and think they can walk all over the Raiders without much effort.

Carr is getting better week by week.  The Raiders have some weapons.  They’ve almost beat the Patriots and Chargers, two of the best teams in the NFL.  This game will be anything but easy.  With the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys looming after the Raiders, they can’t go in with any other attitude other than the Raiders can beat you just as easy as anyone.