Arizona Cardinals defense dominates, offense finds rhythm, Cardinals roll 24-14 over Atlanta Falcons

The Arizona Cardinals needed a strong outing from their starters and after 15 minutes, the offense had you worried and the defense had you excited.

After 30 minutes of football, you felt like the Arizona Cardinals were ready for week one against the Detroit Lions.

In the end, all three quarterbacks lead touchdown drives and the Arizona Cardinals beat the Atlanta Falcons 24-14.

Carson Palmer was under duress on several throws, but had one of the best throws of the last two years on a touchdown pass to the one and only John Brown.

In fact, John Brown caught two touchdown passes, one from backup Drew Stanton, and made every Arizona Cardinals fan breathe a little sigh of relief heading into September.

Defensively, you had to like the intensity that the Cardinals brought, making things uncomfortable for the reigning NFL MVP Matt Ryan. They struggled to keep the Falcons from producing on the ground, but Ryan threw an interception, should have thrown two but Patrick Peterson dropped one, and just didn't look in sync. A lot of that was the Falcons starters have only played two series in the preseason, but we should not ignore the work of the defense as well.

The Cardinals went into the half up 17-3 after another Stanton drive led to a Phil Dawson field goal.

Markus Golden brought the biggest highlight of the defensive day, yes even moreso than Mathieu's second interception of the preseason, with a violent, explosive sack fumble of backup Falcons quarterback Matt Schaub that Chandler Jones recovered.

It wasn't all sunshine from the first half though, as a number of times the offensive line looked physically overwhelmed and outmatched. Both the first and second team. However, they did enough to help the Cardinals find the end zone two times.

In the second half, it was the Blaine Gabbert show and he played... well enough.

However, the highlight of the second half, especially the third quarter was watching those players on the bubble step up.

You saw things from Cap Capi and Phillip Wheeler among others.

Capi again looked like a player that needs to be, deserves to be on this roster.

Gabbert and the third and fourth team offense did a nice job of scoring another touchdown, giving all three quarterbacks touchdown drives in this game as the Cardinals found their rhythm on offense after the first quarter.

Shouts to James Summers as well, who will get roughly 97 carried on Thursday, but scored his first touchdown of his NFL career.