The Cardinals had an up and down victory against the Niners yesterday. It was an impressive win against a team fighting for a playoff spot. The Cards surprisingly finished with the best division record in the NFC West with that win which brings up some more what-ifs but we shouldn’t get into that now.

The offensive line was solid again and Edgerrin James had yet another 100+ yard game in the second half of the season. It looked like the Niners would make a run though once Leinart was sacked and went down on his shoulder, an injury that finished his rookie season, but Kurt Warner came in and played pretty well (9-13 passing). The Cards were outscored by eight in the 2nd half but held on for a 26-20 win. The trio of receivers was spectacular. Even though each one of the three only had 4 receptions, they made the best of it combining for 210 yards. The defense also did a fine job of putting pressure on the quarterback and they ended up with 4 sacks.

Players of the Game: Monty Beisel  and Karlos Dansby 
Even though Larry Fitzgerald put up the nice receiving numbers, it was Beisel and Dansby who came up big. Frank Gore has been having a spectacular season and was expected to run over and torch the Cardinals defense with over 100 yards easily, especially with Arizona’s MLB Gerald Hayes out of the game with a rib injury. That wasn’t the case though. Beisel took Hayes’ spot and the Cardinals didn’t miss a beat. He got 8 tackles. Dansby had 7 tackles and a sack and both were a big reason why Gore only managed to gain 51 yards.

It was a great performance overall by the Cardinals. It’s unfortunate that all three parts of their team (offense, defense and special teams) couldn’t have shown up earlier like they have been recently. Again we can ask, what if…

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