The Arizona Cardinals travel out to Buffalo to take on the Bills. Last week, the Cardinals forced six turnovers on Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston. They’ll try to do the same against Tyrod Taylor this weekend.
Arizona’s defense sacked Winston three times and kept him from throwing over 250 yards. He threw four interceptions and fumbled the ball twice. Most importantly, they bounced back to get their first win of the season after a tough opening loss against New England. With that being said, the Cardinals just two weeks into the season I mind you, look like the team we expected to compete for a Super Bowl title.
Now, we won’t really find out what this team is made of until reach the postseason, presuming they do so. Quarterback Carson Palmer has had a solid start to the season, throwing for five touchdowns and no interceptions. Despite the no picks, Palmer has struggled a bit with his accuracy as noted by Pro Football Focus.
Palmer is the best quarterback the Bills have faced up to this point, and will be in for a long game if their defense repeats their performance from last Thursday night against the Jets where New York had 374 passing yards and 123 more via the ground. As potent as the Cardinals offense is, they’re more than capable of succeeding those numbers.
The Bills must generate some sort of pass rush on Palmer. Palmer has been sacked four times already, with three coming in the first game of the season. The Bills have nine quarterback hurries and five sacks. Even just getting some pressure that will affect Palmer is better than nothing. This offense is so high powered, so anything to slow it down in the slightest bit is a win for Buffalo.
Film Room
Let’s take a look at four plays from both teams. Both on defense and offense. We’ll start with the Cardinals.
While it’s no secret the Cardinals love to air it out and cut up their opponents defense with the long quick strike, they also run the ball extremely efficiently and have one of the best young backs to do that with, in David Johnson. When they Cardinals have the ability to run the ball, it opens a lot more windows of opportunities for this offense and also exposes the defense.
On this particular play, the threat of the run brings up the Bucs linebackers. Their weak side linebacker Kwon Alexander gets moving forward to respect the run but is late to cover Johnson who sneaks out into the flat. It’s just a check down for Palmer but Johnson picks up close to 16 yards on the play.
Against the Jets last week, Taylor had touchdown passes of 71 and 84 yards respectively. In one instance, he threw it up for his receiver Marquise Goodwin who was one on one with Darrelle Revis. This week against a very good Arizona secondary, Taylor must be leery of his deep throws.
Here Winston launches one downfield to his 6’5″ receiver in Mike Evans. The strong safety Tyrann Mathieu’s shoots up at the snap to take away the middle of the field. With the Cardinals in cover 3, the free safety is tending to the deep middle, leaving Patrick Peterson one on one with Evans. It’s a great play by Peterson on the ball.
For the Bills, the offense is averaging just 3.5 yards per carry thus far. Part of it however is on the suspect play from the running backs. Karlos Williams showing up to camp overweight at out of shape really hurt this team because he was close to taking over at running back. Anyway, with him out of the picture, LeSean McCoy must do a better job running the ball.
This run is purely in part to the blocking up front. My Grandma could run through this wall between the defense. The offensive line has actually done a decent job this season, it’s not Oakland good but it’s not Seattle bad either. More runs like this will be needed against Arizona to not only wear out their defense, but keeping Palmer off the field and controlling clock.
On defense, OLB Jerry Hughes is one of their few really productive players. He has been quietly really good so far this season, especially rushing the passer. He is off to a quick start this season, tallying two sacks, three QB hurries, and a stuff. Here’s a look at his sack against the Jets.
Nothing special here but pure, brute strength from Hughes. The Bills drop eight in coverage bringing only three pass rushers. The Jets have five offensive lineman and Hughes still gets the sack, impressive to say the least. If the Bills plan on hindering the aerial attack of the Cardinals, they’ll need Hughest to continue his gritty play.
Odds
Oddsharks prediction for the game is 22-18 Cardinals with the Cardinals four point road favorites. Just 22 points ey? We’ll just see about that. This Cardinals offense is flying high, the defense is coming around, and they’re playing a team that just fired their offensive coordinator after scoring 31 points. Crazy right?
Next: 2016 NFL season: Record predictions for all 32 teams
Prediction
33-17 Cardinals. Sorry Bills fans, I feel your pain over the last 15 years (I’m a Raiders fan) but I don’t see it this week. I’ve seen enough bad football over the years to expect a bad performance. Right now, the Bills are in a bit of a whirl wind and it doesn’t appear that wind is close to dying down.
Clearly, the better team come Sunday is the Cardinals but in order to pull off the upset, the Bills will need to do the little things right that will make a big difference in the end result.