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What Will The Cardinals Try To Do?

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 31, 2009

If you're a fan of high-flying, laugh-in-the-face-of-death, living-on-the-razor's-edge football, then the Arizona Cardinals offense is for you. These guys love to get out there and chuck the ball around.

They'll run it on occasion, but most of their running plays are designed to suck the defense into the box and open room for the pass catchers, who are always plentiful in this attack.

The Cardinals run a lot of three- and four-receiver sets and they spread those receivers out horizontally across the field in an effort to create wide-open work space for them.

The Cardinals will even spread their linemen out, spacing them in such a way that defensive ends and blitzing linebackers have to take an extra step or two to reach the quarterback.

The Cardinals will move their backs and pass catchers around a lot before the snap, but they're not as much about confusing their opponent as they are finding out their opponent's intentions.

With the wily Kurt Warner under center they usually do a good job of this, but Warner's chief responsibility is to get the ball out quickly and accurately. If he does that, his vast weapons usually do the rest.

Kurt Warner

There aren't too many quarterbacks you'd rather have in a game like this than Warner. Talk about coming up big in the clutch. With the exception of Bart Starr, no quarterback who has thrown at least 200 passes in the playoffs has ever put together a better playoff passer rating than Warner's 97.3. It has helped that Warner has always had a lot of weapons around him. But don't downplay Warner's ability to diagnose defenses, get the ball out quickly and deliver it accurately. Put all that together and you're looking at a Hall of Fame contender.

Edgerrin James

James still runs the ball rather well but that's not his primary role in the Cardinals offense anymore. What the Cardinals usually want from James is a good block on a pass rusher, and more often than not he delivers it. James is often the only back left in the backfield when the ball is snapped and, while he's not real fond of his role, he still provides the team an offensive threat that has to be accounted for. That and his ability to keep a pass rusher at bay are two of the hidden reasons the Cardinals are in this game.

Larry Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald has played himself into the NFL record book this postseason. His 419 receiving yards and three first-half touchdowns in the NFC title game are playoff bests. It's no wonder that at least one NFL insider has stopped comparing Fitzgerald to Jerry Rice and is now comparing him to basketball great Michael Jordan. "He reminds me of Michael because Michael always finished when he got fouled," former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. "That's what Fitzgerald does. He finishes even when you foul him. He makes the play no matter what."

The Steelers don't sit back and wait for their opponent to make a mistake. They're out to force the issue, and they do it largely by pressuring the quarterback.

They'll bring pressure from every area of the field, but the key to their success in this game is going to come from their ability to generate pressure up the middle.

"The ideal way to pressure a guy like Kurt Warner is not to come off the edge," former NFL defensive back and current NFL Network analyst Solomon Wilcots said. "The Eagles tried that and Warner ate them alive, because he was able to step up in the pocket and still have a clear view of the field.

"If you want to stop the Cardinals, you've got to get pressure in Warner's face. That will disrupt his vision and force him to slide to his left or his right. Warner is a real accurate passer, but anytime a quarterback has to move his feet like that, he loses that accuracy."

Something else the Steelers need to do, at least according to former Bucs quarterback and current NFL analyst Trent Dilfer, is stop the run with seven defenders. That will allow the Steelers to better cover the Cardinals' outside receivers, which will in turn force Warner to throw more balls over the middle. That, Dilfer said, could lead to some key takeaways for the Steelers.

Troy Polamalu

Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison might be the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year, but the defensive player every opponent of the Steelers fears most is Polamalu. As his 40-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Ravens in the AFC title game proved, the safety is the best playmaker on Pittsburgh's defense. He has been nursing a bit of a calf injury during the postseason, but that hasn't slowed him. Polamalu is a big hitter who runs through his targets and does a great job of disguising his intentions. If the Cardinals don't account for him, he'll make them pay the price.

LaMarr Woodley

The Cardinals have no choice but to focus on linebacker James Harrison; he's just too good to ignore. The problem with that is it too often leaves a guy such as Woodley, another linebacker, facing a lot of beatable one-on-ones. Woodley has broken through several of those this postseason, recording four sacks and six quarterback hurries in two games. This is the guy who some thought had hit a wall late in the regular season. Whether he did or not is no longer significant because Woodley has broken through just about every wall he has encountered in the postseason.

James Farrior

The linebacker has a little something in common with Benjamin Button. Like the movie character, he looked old while he was young. Not to a great extent, but he did have an old man's pot belly. That and the popularity of the TV show "Happy Days" is why Farrior's parents called him "Potsie." That nickname has stuck with Farrior all his life, but the Steelers and their opponents just call him ferocious. And why not? He led the Steelers with 146 tackles this season, and his 14 in the playoffs are one behind teammate LaMarr Woodley.

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