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From start to finish, the Cardinals refused to let up on the Texans and continued to pile on the misery with a shut-out victory in the pre-season opener.
Carson Palmer and the first team got things going, and when JJ Watt sacked Palmer you feared for the offensive line, but he rallied and was a perfect 5-for-5 afterwards, throwing for 84 yards and a score in the redzone to Larry Fitzgerald, and that was their work done for the night.
Drew Stanton took over for the rest of the half, and after a shaky start, he threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Jaron Brown to make the score 14-0 after a series of impressive runs from Stepfan Taylor. Rookie kicker Chandler Catanzaro extended the lead to 17-0 with a 32-yard field goal just before the end of the first quarter. Catanzaro made it 20 zip with a second field goal in the second quarter, this time for 28 yards, and that's how it remained until the half.
It was the turn of Logan Thomas who took over at QB for the entire second half, and enjoyed a great deal of success. The offense began to stutter but a redzone drive continued to give Catnzaro the opportunity to stake his claim for the kicker job on the team with another field goal, 25 yards this time to make it 23-0.
A run-heavy drive featuring Zach Bauman and Damian Thigpen drove the Cardinals back into the redzone in the fourth quarter. Under pressure on 3rd & 4 from the Houston 12, Thomas scrambles out of the pocket to make a composed pass to an open Dan Buckner to make it 30-0 to the Cardinals, and with that the offense's night was over, but the scoring wasn't.
With Tom Savage under centre, an unblocked JoJo Dickson blitzed and sacked the rookie signal caller for a safety giving the defense something to shout about besides the shut-out.
Dominance in every facet for the Cardinals today. A 32-0 victory against a decent team, not great, but a decent team is a very impressive showing, and with a number of key players missing as well. Let's hope this team can continue to gel so they impress next week at the Vikings.
