- Good questions on Boldin. I’m not sure why they’ve targeted him so much in the red zone this season. My guess would be that they know Warner can squeeze a ball into a tight window and Q can take a hit and hold onto the ball. Maybe Warner’s better at zipping the ball into a tight spot than he is at throwing the fade. As far as carries go, Whiz is finally getting in some of his ‘gadget’ plays that made him so popular in Pittsburgh. Q is the best option at WR to carry the ball b/c of his toughness.

 - Breaston has had a great year, obviously and I’m sure some of his success is tied to Warner’s abilities, but he’s also becoming a legit wide out. He’s a speed guy who runs pretty good routes and I can’t remember off hand him dropping to many passes. Most of his passes will be down the field or on deeper crossing routes but he’s developing into a more complete WR.

 - Most of us would agree that Edge doesn’t need to touch the ball if Hightower is ready to go. Edge has lost the burst of quickness that once compensated for his lack of top-end speed and he’s got zero ability to break a tackle. Hightower doesn’t have top end speed either but he’s a tough runner who has the quickness to get to the corner and the agility to make a guy miss. Some of us think the depth chart should read Hightower, Arrington and then Edge. He doesn’t offer much than a good blocking back at this point.

 - The run defense has been ok. They’re nothing spectacular but they’re 10th in yards per game and 13th in yards per rush. They’re also getting better as Gabe Watson gets in better ‘game shape.’ He’s the nose tackle who fractured his knee cap during the offseason and couldn’t even step on the practice field until the second week of the season. He’s still only played in five games and hasn’t regained the starting job but he’s getting better each week. As far as who else is doing better, Antrel Rolle is a better tackler than Holt last year and it’s helped that all the LB’s stayed relatively healthy (unlike last year).

 - I still think Leinart will get his chance to start in Arizona sometime in the future. He was having a great off season and looked sharp in the preseason until the disaster in Oakland, but hey Warner had a disaster in New York, so it happens. As far as 300 yard games, he averaged 227 as a rookie with a season high of 405 and he threw for 299 the second game of his second season. It’s tough to judge him with his current body of work b/c he performed pretty decently as a rookie and then had to learn another new system in his second year. It wasn’t a huge surprise to me that he struggled but I still think he’ll be a productive starter in this league.

 - Sure the O-Line isn’t as bad but they’re still not great. I think they hurt themselves in the off season by trying to incorporate some ‘zone blocking’ schemes to better suit Edge’s skills. The problem was they didn’t have the linemen or the coach to run the system. Russ Grimm is a great OL coach but his background is in power schemes and most of the personnel is also. They sort of switched back to some power running in St. Louis when Hightower took over and everyone looked more comfortable. We’ll see if they continue to improve or if they just looked good against a poor front seven.

 - I like Urban for what he is, a decent wide out. He’s a decent mix of speed and toughness and he’d probably get more playing time if he was on a team with less quality WRs. I will say he always seems to score bizarre TDs like the ricochet pass in STL.

with pretty much everything. I think ROTB is split though on the Leinart issue though. Me personally, I don’t care for him. I think he’s a primadonna and has lost his edge since getting his big contract. One thing for sure though is it will only help him sitting behind Warner and soaking some of that knowledge in from one of the best of all time.
The run question, I too think it should be T. Hightower, J.J. then Edge on the depth chart. TH and JJ are a great 1-2 punch of power and speed. I also would like to see JJ getting more KO returns and I am not really sure why he wasn’t last game? He started out his career as a Cardinal pretty horribly but has really turned it on all year. I just hope he’s not just doing it because it’s a contract year and when we lock him up again he goes into hibernation all over again.
Urban is a good solid receiver and I think would be a 2 or a 3 for any other team. I always hear the talk about our big two Q and Fitz, but we have the deepest most solid complete receiving unit in the NFL. Q, Fitz, my boy Breaston, Urban, Doucet. There is also a little known rookie on our practice squad who is an absolute stud named Lance Long. I don’t think the guy dropped a ball in all of camp seriously. When I went to training camp he made one of the most incredible catches I have ever seen over Hood and DRC.

Defensive stands outs here have been LaBoy (he’s been hurt and pretty quiet since coming back), Berry had a huge game Monday, Dansby, Dockett to name a few. All fan favorites.

I don’t think anyone thinks we’ll collapse and lose the division. If that happens the entire state of Arizona might need to be put on suicide watch. I know at ROTB, we’ve turned our attention to playoff seedings. It might be a tad premature but, what can I say, most of us have been waiting our entire lifetimes for a season like this.

Collapse is no longer a fear when it’s been the norm for so long for a franchise. Is it a concern? Certainly. With a rare post-season appearence looking to be a foregone conclusion at the half-way point of a season, this is a break from the “norm” for the Cardinals and the concern is they’ll fall apart and stagger into the post-season. There are plenty of tough games left on the schedule so a faltering is not out of reality.

There are still three games to be played within the division, granted, two are at home, so yes the division is still a concern. It’s been thirty-three years since the Cardinals won a divison crown; until there’s an x, y, or z next to “Arizona” in the standings, the division will remain a concern.

A first-round bye would be icing on the cake as it reducing the potential number of road games to one. The Cards are anything but “road warriors” and to break from that norm the Cardinals need to win in Seattle for the first time since Thomas Jones was our feature back (the first regular season home game in the new stadium if memory serves me…’01?).

I look forward to seeing Matt Hassled-by-a-bad-back in action on the field rather than a commercial, that’s for sure!

First I’ll go ahead and state that I’m a self-named ‘Whiz-kid.’ I think he’s the biggest reason that this franchise has gone from laughing stock to respectability in a year and a half and I hope he’s in the desert for a long, long time. He brings a no nonsense, no excuses mentality to the table that we’ve lacked for…well…as long as I’ve been alive. He’s holding players accountable and it’s reaping immediate dividends. He’s got a great philosophy too, the best players will play. Novel concept, huh and for all these years we just went by who was drafted first.

I don’t think he really falls into either category though as far as being a players coach or disciplinarian, he’s somewhere in the middle. He’ll occasionally call out players or positions (like he did with the TEs this week) in the media but you also won’t find him chewing some guy out on the sidelines during a game.

Shooting ourselves in the foot. That MNF should never have been that close, but we let them in with penalties. I think the volume of our stadium at home has had something to do with it.

that of men claiming to be straight, MANY more homophobic men are in the closet and actually gay than those who are tolerant of gay people. Makes sense. How ironic. Their homophobia is a front to cover up their own insecurities.

Just thought I’d throw that out there for you, buddy.

Starting in the preseason and carrying through into the regular season, we discovered that this skinny, fast kid could really put a lick on a WR and even on a RB on the edge. His physicallity was a big question coming out of college so it’s been a nice surprise to see him tackling like Adrian Wilson rather than “Primetime”.

Skill-wise, his biggest strength is his speed. He tends to bite on jukes and fakes but can close the distance to make plays on the ball. Yet sometimes he thinks to much and gets burned badly like Lee Evans’ long TD in Week 5.

Overall, DRC is performing well and is working through the growth pains of being a rookie CB in the NFL. Eric Green’s injury has opened up a CB spot and DRC filled in well against SF, nearly snagging an interception. Still, he needs in game coaching as Ralph Brown was subbing for DRC quite a bit.

DRC’s early experience was as the nickel-back and where he was getting a little TV time with some nice sticks on tackles. Lately, Antrel Rolle has been acting as the nickel-back and Ware or Francisco comes in to play FS.

Rolle had a bad hamstring through most of the preseason so missed out on quality reps at his new free safety position. Thus, he’s been perfecting his skills “on the job”. Early on, Rolle was pretty much a non-factor in making plays. He was making tackles around the line but wasn’t do enough things “deep” to be worthy of praise. The Carolina game was something of a low point for him as he was in the mix to make plays but his tackling was…well, horrid. Whisenhunt called Rolle out in the media the following week as the coach emphasized tackling that week. The next game against the Rams, Rolle was “back”, making plays and getting his first “pick-six” of the season. I’m sure most of you saw his second one last week…except for the off-sides penalty that soured it.

So, yes, Hasselbeck needs to know where Rolle is. Hasselbeck especially needs to know this when he sees Adrian Wilson flying in off the edge. The Wison/Rolle combo ought to lead to a few more “pick-six” opportunities.

He is still prone to getting beat by a quick edge rusher and has often had a TE on his side to help with that.