New York Jets at Arizona Cardinals: What to Watch for Monday Night Football

Good morning Arizona Cardinals fans! We’re 2-3, we’ve got an ailing Jets team coming to the desert with a 1-4 record.

They’ve got talent on both sides of the ball and Jets Head Coach Todd Bowles is very familiar with how Arizona’s Head Coach Bruce Arians likes to play.

These two teams will be fighting for a win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

This being the sixth game of the season we’re one-third of the way through the season and every game is becoming more and more important as the win’s are stacking up for other teams.

Let’s break down the keys to this Sunday night game!

1. Score points in the first quarter

I know we keep talking about it, and Bruce Arians is right in downplaying the issue and saying he’ll take the win over worrying about the points in the first quarter. But really, those zeroes are becoming a big issue and we just need to see points in the first quarter to put this issue to bed as fans.

2) Carson Palmer needs to dink and dunk and use the check downs

More now than ever Carson needs to be avoiding hits while he is continuing to recover from his concussion.

If he can focus on passing to David Johnson and slant routes rather than holding the ball for the big play we can all breath a little easier while our star QB is in his first start back from injury.

We can only hope that having the week to recover and study film allows Carson to pick apart the Jets’ defense with short effective passes to set up the deep threats.

This will be critical to negating the Jets pass rush and also keeping him healthy for the rest of the season.

3) Watch for the double backfield threat

This could be a big Andre Ellington game. The Cardinals can use David Johnson and the Duke in split backs to allow each of them to take turns being decoys or serving as pass protectors for the scripted deep ball shots.

As the Jets focus on Johnson due to his proven ability to break off big plays it could allow Ellington to screen out and have a lot of grass open in front of him. Think I’m crazy? Crazy like a fox! This could work!

4) Keep the pressure on Ryan Fitzpatrick

I feel like it goes without saying that every week the defense needs to focus on getting pressure on the quarterback. But it must be said, Ryan Fitzpatrick is having an off year after having a career passing season in 2015 and he has been rattled early in the past couple of games. The Cardinals need to keep getting pressure on him and see if he continues his turnover streak while visiting the desert.

Did we miss any keys to the game?

Go Cardinals!