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The Arizona Cardinals wrapped up their week 12 with a drubbing of a much talked about Indianapolis Colts team bound for the playoffs. Final score, Cards 40, Colts 11. With that kind of score there must be all kinds of good to talk about, and in watching the game it was apparent.
Carson Palmer looked like the QB the Cards envisioned him being when they pulled the trade trigger. 26/37 for 314 yards and 2 touchdowns is pretty good. Carson found 21 different receivers on the night, spreading the ball around. His deep ball was accurate. It must be the mustache, because The nefarious Captain Interception hasn't reared his ugly head lately.
Speaking of the 2 touchdowns that Palmer threw, and we have to bring Larry Fitzgerald into the mix. He was the target for both touchdowns, making a Fitzgerald grab on one beautifully placed ball. Oh, and let's not forget that Fitz became the youngest player to reach 11,000 yards yesterday. That's pretty good.
Continuing with the good, we have to mention the defense as a whole. They're starting to get the credit they deserve, and yesterday they kept their foot on the gas pedal. To single someone out for their play though, and perhaps something that broke the challengers' backs was the Karlos Dansby pick six, returned for 22 yards.
Where do we go from good? The bad. In a 40-11 routing there weren't many examples of the bad, but there were a few. One of note is the fumble attributed to Carson Palmer, however, in looking at the play Bradley Sowell has to do a better job of keeping the edge rush from the QB.
Lastly, we visit the ugly. As noted above in the bad, with a 40-11 win, the ugly aren't as readily noticeable. The ugly I took from the game has to be the penalties, committing 9 for 84 yards. Most noticeable was the holding penalty on Jim Dray that negated a second rushing touchdown by Rashard Mendenhall.
Heading into week 13, a bunch of good to build off of, some bad to squash and a bit of ugly to bury in the backyard hopefully. For the Cards to continue to be contenders they need to build off the success of this game.