NFC Championship Recap

Well that sucked. I know I gave you a little snipit of how I felt on Sunday but I definetely need to provide a little bit of an analytical approach. So as to keep what little journalistic integrity I still have intact. From the Cardinals point of view, it was a perfect storm. No one was ready to play (accept maybe David Johnson), Palmer had really his only bad game of the year (yes it was historically bad) and the turnovers, oh gawd the turnovers. If you play this game over, I think we still lose but fuck if we give up 9 turnovers. Like that was just the culmination of everything that can go bad for a footabll team. The facts are we need a consistent pass rush (this must be addressed in the offseason). We need another corner, Behtel is a great backup and one hell of a special teamer, nothing more. Those were the biggest weaknesses for the team all year and fuck if Carolina didnt know that. As far as the Panthers are concerned, this is one hell of a team. The play calling on offence was genius: misdirection runs to divert the cards blitz heavy defence and deep shots down the field to exploit our pass rush. On defence they had consistent pressure with their front four, which allowed them to drop their backers into to coverage. This allowed them to mask their weakness (secondary depth) by using Davis and Keuchly in coverage. Overall, this might be the most disrespected 15-1 team in the history of the league. The reason is they arent sexy when you look at them on paper. What they are is a team built for the playoffs. They have a great defence and running game and a hell of a quarterback. They dominated this game and they deserved to win. If this game gets played ten times, I think the Cardinals win maybe one time.

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