On Saturday night in Charlotte, the Arizona Cardinals gave football fans the latest example of why football games are won on the football field and not on paper. Depending on where you looked, the Cardinals were considered as much as 10-point underdogs going into their game against the Carolina Panthers, and rightfully so. After all, during the regular season they went 3-7 outside of their own division, 3-5 on the road, and 0-5 anytime they had to fly across country to play a game on the east coast.
Throw in the fact that wide receiver Anquan Boldin was in street clothes on the sidelines, and that the Carolina Panthers were 8-0 at home this season, and there really wasn't any point in the Cardinals showing up at Bank of America Stadium. They did, though, and once they got there they began a thorough undressing of the Panthers.
Things started out according to plan. The Panther jumped on the board first only three minutes into the game when Jonathan Stewart scored on an 8-yard touchdown run, but from that point on it was all Cardinals. Of course, the most valuable player on the field for Arizona was Carolina's quarterback Jake Delhomme. You see, apparently Delhomme is French for "turnover machine" because that's exactly what Jake was on Saturday night.
Carolina committed five turnovers on the night and every single one of them came courtesy of Delhomme. The first turnover took place right after the Cardinals tied the game at 7-7 when Delhomme had the ball stripped from his hand in the backfield by Antonio Smith, who then recovered the fumble. A few plays later the Cardinals were taking a 14-7 lead on an Edgerrin James touchdown run.
Jake would go on to throw four more interceptions -- two of which came in the red zone -- and all were quickly turned into points by the Cardinals.
Aside from Delhomme, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald had a big game for Arizona as well. Fitzgerald stepped up his game a notch with Boldin sidelined and finished with eight catches for 166 yards and a touchdown. Conversely, Carolina's star receiver, Steve Smith, didn't record his first reception until late in the third quarter and was never a factor in the game.
The Cardinals defense also deserves credit as well. While causing four Delhomme turnovers helped a lot, the fact that they kept the Panthers from getting any kind of ground attack going to force the Panthers to air it out was a big reason for the interceptions. The Cardinals now await the winner of Sunday's Giants/Eagles game to see who and where they'll be playing for a chance to go to the Super Bowl next week.
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A Giants win will have them travelling to New York, while an Eagles victory would mean the Cardinals would go back home to face Philadelphia. A scenario more shocking than the victory in Carolina.
