Cardinals vs Chargers: 10 Things to Watch for

by Andrew602 on Aug 22, 2009 5:00 AM MDT in 2009 Camp & Preseason Comment 4 comments

It's game day and the Arizona Cardinals are set to take on the San Diego Chargers only hours from now. The Chargers have come to Arizona, ~~hoping to establish themselves as one of the most dominant teams in the NFL in 2009~~ okay they're just hoping to take part in this preseason match up and evaluate rookies. Either way it's football action and more importantly, it's Cardinals football. So before you watch the game later today, here's 10 things to watch for during the game in no particular order...

The Cardinals return to University of Phoenix Stadium. It's been 8 long months since the Cardinals last played at home and the reunion should be great. The atmosphere should be intense as it always is. We might just get a glimpse of those banners that get hung up.
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie vs Antonio Cromartie. The cousins match up against each other for the first time in their careers. Although it's only a preseason game, can we expect some family rivalry to happen? Both want to establish themselves as two of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, and they're getting close.
Shawne Merriman vs Mike Gandy. As mentioned yesterday, Gandy needs to step his game up, especially against the top pass rushers in the league. Merriman also has something to prove as he missed the entire 2008 season with an injured knee. Will the Gandy that was solid all 2008 show up, or will the Gandy that got owned in the Super Bowl show up to this game?
Kurt Warner's return to being 100%. We saw last week what the recovered hip was doing to Warner. He was seen grimacing at times, and even had a limp as he walked away from an interview. The Cardinals success for 2009 is riding on Warner's hip as of now. He will likely play to the second quarter, and the Cardinals will need him to stay as healthy as possible.
Lyle Sendlein vs Jamal Williams. Lyle already faced a tough tackle in Casey Hampton last week, and things don't get much easier as he faces a huge Jamal Williams today. This is a very interesting match up to watch for, as Lyle has been regarded as too small at times.

Gerald Hayes vs LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles. In the playoffs last year, the Cardinals gave Gerald Hayes one job and one job only; mirror the running back. After re-watching last weeks game, I noticed that on every run play, Hayes had his eyes always on the running back. I'm not positive about this, but it could be a possibility that Hayes job in '09 is to mirror the running back every game. Watch for this.

How LaRod Stephens-Howling handles his second game. Much of us were anticipating LSH's first game, and although he showed some promise, he virtually did nothing. It may have been the bright lights,or that it was his first ever game, but this week, LSH gets a chance to not only run the ball, but we should see him return some kicks as well.

The battle at the tight end position. It's been an on going question mark on the offense for years, and Whiz hopes to solve it this year with the 5 tight ends that are currently on roster. All possess their own skills, but no one can multitask. Only one tight end needs to stand out to be named the starter, but which one will it be?

Chris Beanie Wells finally in action? We thought today was going to be Wells first NFL game, but after aggravating his ankle again in practice, it's now a toss up. If he does suit up, and actually play, then this has to be one of the things to watch for. It should also be interesting to see how he does against a talented defense in the Chargers.

The rookies on defense. Last week, many of us expected much more from the 4 rookies that were added to the defense through the draft. The only player that stood out was cornerback Greg Toler. When the second and third string defense hits the field, watch for Cody Brown, Rashad Johnson, Will Davis, and Toler to make any sort of impact on this game.

Well there you have it...10 things to watch for in today's game versus the Chargers. The best thing to watch for is just seeing our redbirds in action. What are you looking most forward to seeing? Is there any interesting match ups? Or are you looking forward to seeing the Chargers in action?

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This One Should be Exciting

Your matchups and keys are excellent…the one that intrigues me the most is seeing how well the Cardinals can defend Sproles…man that guy runs on jet fuel.

What would excite me is to see Michael Adams force the run to his side versus Sproles, if he gets that chance. Adams is one nifty little tackler. I’d love to see him knock Sproles on his butt the way he did with Mendenhall last week!

I think we are going to get a stronger sense of whether the defense has improved or not. The Chargers have one of the elite offenses in the NFL, and it will be interesting to see what new DC Bill Davis throws at them. If he doesn’t get pressure on QB Philip Rivers, the trio of WR Chris Chambers, TE Antonio Gates, and WR Vincent Jackson might be very difficult to stop.

Interesting stat the ESPN Crew highlighted last week: the Cardinals were 13-0 in games where they won the turnover battle.

Last week: 0 sacks and 0 turnovers…and what’s interesting about that stat was the fact that Davis did not run a vanilla defense. He was blitzing regularly. But, really the Cardinals were only able to generate good pressure a handful of times at most. More like three times in the whole game.

This is why it’s still difficult to understand why the Cardinals were not more focused this off-season in improving their pass rush. They were a decent pass rush away from winning the Super Bowl. And having seen what the Steelers do for pressure, one would think the Cardinals would have come away saying, “We gotta get us somma that.”

Losing DE Antonio Smith didn’t help the cause, although there is reason to believe that Calais Campbell can possibly even be a better player in time.

Re-signing Clark Haggans was questionable…because of age, injury issues and lack of pass rushing prowess.

The whole off-season weirdness with Bertrand Berry makes his re-signing questionable as well. Berry says he was just resting…but that’s totally out of character for him. Unfortunately, he started his off-season rest in the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl. If you watch him on the tape, he even stops moving his feet on several occasions…with the Super Bowl on the line.

Adding two rookies in Cody Brown and Will Davis was necessary…but, typically rookies are going to have a hard time making a strong impact in the first year. And the haunting question may be: should the Cardinals have taken a DE/OLB at #31 and possible still taken another at #63, where they took Brown?

All this being the case, the only real threat as an edge rusher is Chike Okeafor, who oddly enough wasn’t asked to rush on a consistent basis last year.

Davis was smart to move Okeafor back to the weak side…but what is going to happen on the strong side? Or when Okeafor needs a breather?

The only answer is that Davis is going to have to find ways to rush Adrian Wilson, Antrel Rolle and Karlos Dansby as often as possible. Look as well for a few CB blitzes a game from DRC and BMF.

NFC Champs

by Mitch09 on Aug 22, 2009 1:24 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

They’re streaming it live over at http://unlocksports.com/watch28015.html for free if you wanna watch it online.

Also if you miss the live stream you can go download the replay at http://unlocksports.com/file2018451.html (it takes them at least 20 minutes to upload the replay though fyi)

by Nors on Aug 22, 2009 7:46 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

young D

I am hoping for a repeat from Toler, and for Davis, Brown and Rashad to show up! Lets go Cards

http://undrafteds.blogspot.com/

by Undrafteds on Aug 22, 2009 5:04 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Definitely saw some good things again from Toler.

Davis wasn’t bad either as he got pressure a couple times. Still looked raw though.

Didn’t see a whole lot again from Cody Brown just having 2 tackles. Will go back and look at the repeat to see if he did anything else but I don’t remember seeing a lot of him.

I don’t remember seeing a whole lot of Rashad either but again I will look at the repeat to see if he did anything.

by Pyromnc on Aug 22, 2009 11:16 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs