Red Rain: DET 30 ARI 12 Kliff Notes

When a 1-11-1 team like the Lions under a fiery first year head coach Dan Campbell have a chance to take on a team like the 10-3 Cardinals at home after playing in so many hard-fought competitive games, the game becomes, in essence, their Super Bowl.

In Kliff Kingsbury’s first year as head coach he took his last place team up to Seattle to play the division leading Seahawks who were trying to lock down the #1 seed in the NFC and the Cardinals dominated the time of possession and the game. That game in 2019 was, in essence, the Cardinals’ Super Bowl.

Look at the passion in the Lions’ locker room —- look at what winning this game meant to the head coach and all of his players. Let it resonate, because we had the privilege as Cardinals’ fans to watch this kind of atmosphere after big wins in all seven of the road locker rooms previously this year.

Playing hard has its rewards. Yesterday, the Lions earned their reward and earned every iota of this celebration.

The thing is —- teams that play the Cardinals these days know that they have to play at their very top of their game to win. They know they have to win the time of possession and limit the Cardinals’ offense by keeping them off the field. That’s the formula. The Cardinals are well aware of it and now, with the NFC West title still in their grasp, the Cardinals have put themselves in a position to achieve that season-long goal and to take that momentum into their first playoff berth since 2015.

The Cardinals need the Red Sea now more than ever. When is the best time to love to love your team? I make the case in this week’s Red Rain podcast while offering some suggestions as to how the Cardinals can solve the issues that have been holding them back the last couple of weeks.

“There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing. (Looking at her) Have you cried for that boy today? I don’t mean for yourself and for the family ’cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody that most? Well then, you ain’t through learning- because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ‘ cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.” (Mama Younger from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun)