Last week we charted the Arizona Cardinals running game and I had planned to have cumulative totals for the running game this week, but since the running game was virtually non-existant we'll swith gears. I may still post the cumulative totals tomorrow, but for now I was more interested in when and where Warner was throwing the ball on Sunday. Warner's mistakes will (and should) overshadow the gaudy numbers that he was able to put up, but it's still pretty interesting to see where he went with the ball and the success of the receivers. Here is Warner's final line from Sunday's game:

Check out the complete breakdown after the jump.....

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Youth is hot commodity in today's NFL, especially at the quarterback position so it's not everyday you see two quarterbacks with as many years between them as Arizona Cardinals' Kurt Warner and the Jets' Brett Favre. With 75 years of age and 28 seasons in the NFL between them, it's fair to say that Warner and Favre have seen it all. Both quarterbacks have been to two Super Bowls, winning one of them and they're both with their third team. They've both been the league MVP multiple times (Favre with 3, Warner with 2) and have combined for 12 Pro Bowls. They've combined for over 87,000 yards and 606 touchdowns over the course of their careers and both are still putting up really good numbers.

While Warner and Favre took very different paths to NFL stardom, they ultimately become very similar 'gun-slinger' quarterbacks. One thing that makes Warner and Favre even more similar is how much their current day teams depend on them. The Cardinals and Jets aren't going to win many games running the football or playing "lights out" defense.

It will be interesting to see how each defense plans to attack their opposing quarterback considering that the game could very well come down to which quarterback has the better game.

With that in mind, here a breakdown of Warner vs. Favre:

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We haven't talked much about Football Outsiders and their stats here at ROTB yet, but they do great work and with three weeks of football in the books, I figured we'd take our first weekly look at their stats. My goal is to eventually present not only the Cardinals' stats but also their opponent for that week. It'll give us another way to, not only, evaluate our own team and key players but preview the upcoming game.

First, let me introduce Football Outsiders again. I gave a quick introduction when I interviewed their president Aaron Schatz, but their work isn't easily explained and frankly unless your a bit of a football nerd (like myself) you might not be interested at all. The simplest explanation of their mission is to provide an advanced statistical analysis to the game of football. If anyone is familiar with saber metrics and the other advanced statistics that baseball nerds compile, then you'll have some understanding what Aaron Schatz is trying to accomplish.

For a quick explanation of what we'll be looking at this season, here's a look at the methods to their madness (click on this link to read the full explanation):

DVOA is a method of evaluating teams, units, or players. It takes every single play during the NFL season and compares each one to a league-average baseline based on situation. DVOA measures not just yardage, but yardage towards a first down: five yards on 3rd-and-4 are worth more than five yards on 1st-and-10 and much more than five yards on 3rd-and-12. Red zone plays are worth more than other plays. Performance is also adjusted for the quality of the opponent. DVOA is a percentage, so a team with a DVOA of 10.0% is 10 percent better than the average team, and a quarterback with a DVOA of -20.0% is 20 percent worse than the average quarterback. Because DVOA measures scoring, defenses are better when they are negative.

Digging a bit deeper into DVOA:

The majority of the ratings featured on FootballOutsiders.com are based on DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. DVOA breaks down every single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent.

The NFL determines the best players by adding up all their yards no matter what situations they came in or how many plays it took to get them. Now why would they do that? Football has one objective-to get to the end zone-and two ways to achieve that, by gaining yards and getting first downs. These two goals need to be balanced to determine a player's value or a team's performance. All the yards in the world aren't useful if they all come in eight-yard chunks on third-and-10.

DVOA does a better job of distributing credit for scoring points and winning games. It uses a value based on both total yards and yards towards a first down, based on work done by Pete Palmer, Bob Carroll, and John Thorn in their seminal book, The Hidden Game of Football. On first down, a play is considered a success if it gains 45 percent of needed yards; on second down, a play needs to gain 60 percent of needed yards; on third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success.

That's probably enough introduction for one week so let's take a look at the numbers. Check ahead after the jump....

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The Arizona Cardinals had several chances to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat yesterday, but in my mind, one play coaches decision stands out. First, please don't construe this as me calling for our coach to be fired because no one is a bigger fan of Ken Whisenhunt than myself. I admired what he was able to do in Pittsburgh and I'm positively giddy about what he's building here in Arizona. I think the future is bright and this franchises' best days are in the very near future, but we can still disagree with a decision right? After all, if we're not dissecting each and every decision the day after a loss, then we wouldn't be real fans? So with all that being said, here's the decision that irked me at the time and continues to itch my 'what if' button.

Scenario: The Cardinals get the ball in great field position (thier own 42) after the Redskins miss a field goal that would have put the game away. There's plenty of time on the clock (3:23) and they're down by seven points. The offense takes the field, knowing that they need a touchdown but with all three timeouts, there's plenty of time to run any kind of play. The first down play call is a nice six yard gain by Edgerrin James and the Cardinals switch to a no-huddle offense and the next pass is incomplete on a dump off pass to Tim Hightower. Facing a third-and-four the Cardinals again drop back to pass and again misfire on a short pass to Hightower. So what you want about the play calls leading up to this point but the decision comes down to this: a 4th-and-4 with at mid-field with 2:46 to go in the game.

Decision: Coach Whisenhunt decides to forgoe a fourth down attempt and instead punts the ball back to the Redskins. On one hand, I understand that he trusts the defense to give the offense one more chance. After all, they've got all three timeouts and the defense has done a decent job of holding Portis in check most of the day. On the other hand though, the Cardinals haven't exactly shut down the Redskins offense during the second half and they hadn't forced a three-and-out since the second quarter.

Result: Following the punt, the Skins' offense runs four plays (3 runs, 1 pass) and gains two first downs. The Cardinals use all of their timeouts and the game ends on two 'victory formation' kneel downs.

Why I Disagree With the Decision: We all know that hindsight is 20/20 so it's easy to sit here this morning and second guess a decision made in the heat of battle but I still think that Whiz should have played to his strengths. The strength of this Arizona Cardinals team is the passing game and if they can't pick up four yards when you need them the most, then this team is destined to fail. The defense is an improved unit, especially the front seven, but the passing offense is one of the top five or six units in the league and that's not something the defense can not say. In the end, it looked like they were 'playing not to lose' instead of 'playing to win.'

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree?

The Arizona Cardinals' east coast road trip didn't start out the way that we had hoped and they failed to start the season 3-0 for the first time in a quarter century but Sunday's loss to the Redskins wasn't all bad. In the end a loss is a loss and that's ultimately what a team and a coaching staff are graded on, but the Cardinals played a one score game down the wire against a team that was in the playoffs last year. This wasn't a game that they gave away, like last year, but there were certainly some missed opportunities and we'll take a much deeper look at the game over the next couple of days but for now here are some quick observations.

Positives

1. Running Game: Edge and Hightower had their best game of the season
   yesterday, averaging five yards a carry. Both of them had a gain of at least ten yards and did a really good job of cutting back and taking what the defense was giving them, while getting every single yard that they could. It was obvious from the very first drive that the game plan was centered around moving the ball on the ground. They finished with 23 carries for 116 yards (5.0 ypc) and only one carry for negative yards. By the end of the game though I was torn between being encouraged by the running game and at the same time wondering if that success was coming as a detriment to Kurt Warner and the passing game.
2. Run Defense: Looking at the overall stats, this may sound like a backhanded slap, but I thought the defense did a good job of limiting the Redskins running game. Clinton Portis was held to just 68 yards on 21 carries (3.24 ypc) and if it weren't for a couple of Jason Campbell scrambles (4 for 26) and a Devin Thomas reverse (16 yards) the overall stats would have looked better. Limiting Portis seemed to be a big key and his 87 total yards were well below his average.
3. 'Gadget Plays': Ken Whisenhunt made a name for himself with the 'gadget play' in Pittsburgh and they're starting to become a regular part of the offense. We saw a WR pass, set up by a backward lateral, and Antrel Rolle caught a pass (although it was negated by a Washington penalty). I've always loved the 'trick' plays because even if they don't work, it forces a defense to spend time during the week preparing for them.

Negatives

1. Turnovers: We knew it was going to happen eventually and several guys predicted that it would happen his week, but turnovers finally bit the Cardinals. Two turnovers (one pick and one fumble) led to ten Redskins points and both turnovers came at inopportune times and at bad spots on the field. The first, an Edgerrin James fumble, gave the Skins the ball at the Arizona 34 and they'd gain only four yards before kicking a field goal to take a 10-0 lead. The second turnover was even more discouraging and deeper in Cardinal territory. One drive after the Cardinals tied up the score and seemingly had all the momentum, Warner under threw a deep pass to Breaston, leading to an interception that was returned to the Cardinal 15 yard line. Breaston acknowledged after the game that he didn't do much to try and break up the interception, but regardless of whose fault it was the Skins scored the winning touchdown just 48 seconds later.
   
2. Penalties: The Cardinals six penalties for 42 yards doesn't seem like a big problem when you just glance at the numbers but if you look at when and how each one occurred, they killed the momentum of this game. They had one touchdown called back because of a delay of game penalty and those seven points ended up being the difference in the game. Three of
   the penalties were on punt or kick returns ending up in 32 yards of lost field position and each time pinned the Cardinal offense inside their own 20. 
3. Defensive Pressure: I was hopeful all week that the Cardinal defense would come out blitzing early and keep Jason Campbell under duress all game long, but that didn't seem to be the game plan. Late in the first quarter the Cardinals picked up their first sack and a couple of plays later Antonio Smith hit Campbell as he was throwing. For the rest of the half he looked nervous and uncomfortable in the pocket, but it felt like the Cardinals were more concerned with limiting the big play instead of coming after Jason Campbell. After the sack, Campbell misfired on five of his next six passes to end the first half, which is pretty amazing considering that he finished with just eight incompletions. 

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree? Are you more encouraged by the good things that you saw or just bummed that the Cardinals let a close game slip through their fingers?

The Arizona Cardinals offense took to the air early and often on Sunday and were in complete cruise control by the fourth quarter. Anytime you have a QB with a perfect game, two receivers with 100 yard games and multiple big plays (6 plays of 20 yards or more) you can't help but be pleased with the offensive production. Here's a position by position breakdown for those on the offensive side of the ball.

Quarterback: What else can you say about ole 'grey beard?' A perfect QB rating, 361 yards, three touchdowns and most importantly a second straight game without a turnover. Warner hasn't gone two consecutive starts without a turnover since weeks 2 and 3 in 2004 and his ability to stand in the pocket and deliver a perfect pass is amazing at times. His most impressive pass of the day was the third TD to Boldin when he threaded the needle between two defenders and placed the ball perfectly on Boldin's back shoulder. All in all, Warner could not have had a better game. Leinart even got in the game with his mop in hand and completed one of two passes for 15 yards. Grade: A+

Running Backs: After rushing for 108 total yards in week one, the Cardinals looked more like last years' group with just 81 yards on 31 carries (2.6 ypc). The Dolphins, for whatever reason, seemed intent on shutting down the running game and forcing the Cardinals to pass, but you'd still like see more production from the running game. Edge ended up with a hard fought 55 yards on 18 carries and Hightower chipped in 24 yards on 10 carries. Hightower scored his second rushing touchdown in as many games and continues to pick up the critical yards when they really need them. He also chipped in with a beautiful 20 yard screen but his day was dampened by a fumble. It was another workman-like day for the Cardinals backfield but they'll have to get better for this offense to be truly balanced. Grade: C

Wide Receivers: The duo of Boldin and Fitzgerald gave the Dolphins secondary fits all day long and to be honest, I didn't understand their game plan at all. It's possible that the Phins knew they couldn't contain the duo so they instead chose to all-out blitz and hope that they got to Warner. The result though wasn't pretty as Q and Fitz combined for almost 300 yards and both posted new career highs in terms of longest reception. Boldin followed up his impressive second half against the Niners by posting a new career high with three touchdowns. Fitzgerald had a great game as well and his biggest improvement this season seems to be his ability to run after the catch (although he may never live down getting caught from behind). With the Q and Fitz having such big games, there weren't too many scraps left on the table but Ben Patrick made his first appearance of the season with four receptions and Leonard Pope also checked in with a nice catch. Grade: A+

Offensive Line: The offensive line did a decent job of protecting KW, considering that Warner was sacked twice and hit several times. Miami's game plan seemed to center around blitzing Warner from multiple angles and at times they got through untouched, but overall they held thier own. The line did have problems opening up holes in the running game though and this team will not be successful against better opponents if they continue to average less than 3.0 per carry.  Hopefully as youngsters Levi Brown, Deuce Lutui and Lyle Sendlein continue to gel, they'll get better at opening holes and taking some pressure off the passing game. Grade: C+

Play Calling: After watching the game, my initial thought was that the play calling
was really good. They did, afterall, score 31 points right? After watching the game again though, one thing kept standing out and after looking at some stats it became even more clear. The Cardinals run too much on first down and I think opposing defenses are picking up on it. Consider this, they ran the ball 18 times on first down for 32 yards (1.77 avg) and they ran it 11 times on either second or third down for 52 yards (4.73 yards). I understand that the play calling was effected by the score but at some point the game plan needs to be adjusted. That's my only real complaint and even that is explained away when you consider that the Cardinals led by at least three scores for over half the game. Grade: B+

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Overall, the offense was impressive to say the least and should give Washington plenty to worry about this week. There are some areas that need improvement but overall, I think they stuck to thier game plan while also exploiting Miami's flawed plan and weak secondary. Thoughts? Agree/Disagree? What would your grades have been?

With the initial analysis of Sunday's big win for the Cardinals already up, here's a quick look at some significant accomplishments by the Cardinals as a whole and a few by individual players. 

• The Cardinals have scored at least 20 points in 10 straight games dating back to last season. That's the longest current streak in the NFL.
• Kurt Warner posted his third career perfect QB rating and first since 2000.
  He joins Peyton Manning as the only quarterbacks in league history with three 'perfect' games. He's also the first Cardinals' quarterback to post a perfect rating since 1975. Edit: After some research, Ben Roethlisberger also has three career perfect games.
  
• Edgerrin James added another bullet point to his impressive resume when he topped 15,000 yards from scrimmage. He's just the 14th player to do that in league history.
  
• Anquan Boldin's big day marked his 22nd career 100 yard game and that ties the franchise record, currently held by Jackie Smith. Boldin will certainly take that record down sometime this season. It was also the sixth time that Q and Fitz both had 100 yards in the same game.
  
• Boldin's three touchdowns were the most by a Cardinals' receiver since Rod Moore in 1997, but two short of the franchise record held by Bob Shaw (1950). 
• Tim Hightower is also the first running back in Cardinals' history to score touchdowns in his first two career NFL games.
• The last time the Cardinals were 2-0 was 1991 but the last time the team was 3-0 was 1974. That's something that team will look to rectify this week when they travel to our nation's capital to tangle with the Redskins.

Wow, any questions or concerns that the Arizona Cardinals had heading into Sunday's game with the Dolphins were answered by the end of the first quarter. They came out of the gates firing on all cylinders and by the time the final seconds ticked off the clock, the game wasn't even as close as the final 31-10 score. It's tough to imagine that the Arizona Cardinals are 2-0 (first time in 17 years) and not only do they lead the NFC West, they've also scored the most and allowed the fewest amount of points in the division.  You can talk about the quality of their opponents through two weeks but at this point, all they can do is play the teams that are on the schedule. The next two weeks should be much more difficult but for now all we can do is bask in the glory of two consecutive wins to open the season.

The Good: 

Passing Game - I wish there was a way to break this down and just talk about one guy but the fact is that the entire passing game was nothing short of amazing yesterday. Kurt Warner was unstoppable, completing 79% of his passes for 361 yards and posted a perfect QB rating. Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald were open all game long and ended up with almost 300 combined yards receiving (293). Yards after catch was their specialty and both had receptions of 75 yards or more. Ben Patrick, Leonard Pope and Tim Hightower all had impressive receptions and the offensive line did thier part allowing just two sacks and one of those led to first down after Warner was brought down by his facemask.

Defensive Dominance - Allowing just ten points is impressive enough but when you consider that the Phins only touchdown didn't come until there was just over two minutes left in the game, it's down right amazing. The Dolphins couldn't get anything going on the ground and it didn't help that they were down two touchdowns by the middle of the first quarter. Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams combined for just 53 yards (2.4 ypc) and Pennington completed only 50% of his passes (career 65.3%). The Dolphins converted just 25% of their third downs and averaged just 4.1 yards per play. 

The Bad:

Penalties - It's tough to find something not to like in a 21 point win but the Cardinals did have eight penalties for 45 yards. Most of the penalties were minor infractions but they still need to play smarter football if they want to be successful against better teams. The penalties included a delay of game, illegal formation, illegal block above the waist, defensive off sides (twice), ineligible down field and defensive holding (twice).

The Ugly:

Neil Rackers - Rackers continues to test the patience of fans and the coaching staff. he started the game by booting the opening kickoff out of bounds and later in the game missed a 47 yard field goal (wide left). He was saved on the field goal by a Miami penalty but his inconsistencies keep surfacing. It's too early to start surfing the free agent wire for kickers but I'll feel awful nervous if Rackers has to line up for a meaningful kick with the game on the line.

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We'll dive much deeper into this impressive win today and tommorrow but for now doesn't it fill nice to be atop the division, looking down at the mess that is the rest of the NFC East. Thoughts for the game?

The Arizona Cardinals strolled into San Francisco and used brute force to get the first win of the season and even though the offense wasn't spectacular, they did what they had to do to win the game. It was a workman-like performance with no one player sticking out as the key to the offense but a good job of every player doing his part.

Quarterback: If you had told me going into the game that Warner would throw 30 passes but less than 200 yards, I'd have been awful worried about the outcome of the game. Efficient would be the best way to describe his game though, with 63.3% completion and a QB rating of 93. His yards per attempt (6.6) was a full yard and a half below his career average but the best stat of the for Kurt was zero turnovers and if he's not turning the ball over, this team will difficult to beat. The Niners seemed content with sitting back and trying to take away any kind of down the field passing game and Warner did a good job of taking what he was given. Grade: B

Running Backs: Edgerrin James is the epitome of a blue-collar back these days. He carried the load again yesterday and finished with his sixth 100 yard game as a Cardinal. His longest run was only 10 yards and his yards per carry wasn't great (3.8), but when the offense needed to grind out some yards and let the clock run, he was at his best. Together he and Hightower just kept pounding out the tough yards and putting the offense in manageable third down situations. Hightower only added 13 yards on 8 carries but his fourth down TD run in the third quarter was crucial. He also added 3 receptions for 21 yards. With the Niners defense focused on making the running game beat them, Edge and Hightower did enough to make them pay.  Grade: B

Wide Receivers: The receivers ended up playing less of role than we thought going into the game but we saw some promising things from each of the big three. Anquan Boldin was the leading receiving in both receptions and yards, but his biggest contribution was being Kurt's go-to receiver in the second half. The Cardinals finished the game with ten first downs via the pass and Boldin had six of them on his eight catches. Fitz didn't get many opportunities with only four passes thrown his way but he hauled in three of them, including a beautiful one yard TD on a perfectly thrown fade route. Steve Breaston had a really good game as the #3 receiver and is proving that he's better than Bryant Johnson already. His forty yard reception was the biggest play of the game and he had a crucial third down catch in the third quarter on the drive that the Cardinals took the lead. The tight end duo of Pope and Patrick were virtually non-existent. Grade: B+

Offensive Line: This is obviously the hardest unit to judge when watching a game and if anyone really broke down the play of the offensive line, please chime in with your observations. From what I could tell though watching the game at full speed, it was a mixed bag. I wasn't overly impressed with the group but they stepped up when they were really needed, after all it's nearly impossible to dominate the time of possession like they did without a good offensive line. The team as a whole only averaged 3.2 yards per carry (not counting Warner's four kneel downs), but they also only allowed one rush for negative yardage. While they weren't spectacular in the running game, I thought that they were good enough to give Edge and Hightower a chance to succeed. In the passing game, they struggled more than I thought they would giving up three sacks but overall they gave Warner enough time to get rid of the ball more times than not and at least one of the sacks could be a result him not wanting to force the ball. Grade: C+

Play Calling: Overall the play calling was more conservative than I would have imagined and I'm not sure if that was the gameplan going in or if Todd Haley just decided to take what the Niner defense was giving them. The first down play calls were pretty even with 15 rushes (not counting Warner's kneel) to 12 passes and my only real complaint is that the offense seemed to get even more conservative as the offense neared the end zone. Hopefully it was just some opening day jitters or it could have been the Niner defense forcing Warner to take check downs, but they'll have to improve in the red zone if they want to make a run at the West. Grade: B-

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Overall not bad for the first game out of the gate and there were definitely some bright spots and areas that need to be improved. Thoughts? Agree/Disagree? How would you grade each unit?

We've looked at the key match-ups this weekend and how our Arizona Cardinals have fared against the Niners in the past, and in one last ditch effort to preview the first game of the season, here are my keys to coming home with a 'W'.

Shut Down Frank Gore: Well to be more realistic, contain Frank Gore. Gore has only had one truly great game against the Cardinals, which happened to be the last time that they played (214 total yards). Outside of that game though the Cardinals have done a decent job of at least containing him considering he hasn't rushed for over 
90 yards in any other game and he's only topped 150 total yards once. One thing that he has done against the Cardinals though is score points (7 TDs in four starts) and with an unproven quarterback, the 49ers are likely to depend on Gore even more than normal this Sunday. Someone recently mentioned in the comments that holding him under 150 yards would be acceptable and given that he'll likely be the focal point on the offense, that's probably a reasonable estimate. In an effort to give a number that would guarantee a Cardinal win, I'd say that holding Gore to anything under 125 total yards would be enough to shut down the 49ers' offense.

Establish the Run: Now before anyone points this out as being generic, let me narrow the scope a bit. In both losses to the Niners last season the Cardinals had the ball with the lead in the 4th quarter. In the first game, their fourth quarter drive amounted to one pass for a first down and four Edgerrin James runs for three yards. That drive would last one minute and 31 seconds and the Niners would get the ball and score to win the game. In the second game last season, the Cards got the ball with a late lead and they didn't even attempt to run the ball and five plays and one minute later they handed the ball back to the Niners who would score on the next drive and win the game in overtime. Anyone notice a pattern? If the Cardinals are able to run the ball in the fourth quarter, they will win this game and with Hightower running with authority and giving Edge a breather, there's no excuse for not being able to move the ball on the ground.

No Special Teams Miscues: This encompasses several aspects of the game but I will say that the Cardinals special teams isn't going to win any awards this season.  They do need though to at the very least, not get in the way. With an opponent like the Niners, who will likely to 'offensively-challenged,' the Cardinals need to avoid handing them a short field by shanking a punt or allowing a big return. I do believe that the Cardinals are the better team but if we give the Niners a short field, or easy points off of a return this could be another disappointing loss. They also can not afford to leave points on the field via missed field goals, (cough) Neil Rackers.

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree? What are your keys?