NFL

The Arizona Cardinals (2-1) will play the New York Jets (2-1) at the Giants stadium today at 1 p.m.  This will be a match up of two excellent cagey quarterback veterans in Kurt Warner and Brett Farve.  While both quarterbacks are past their prime, they have shown this early NFL season that they can still hurt a defensive with their quick experienced decisions and their quick minds. The Jets are a well coached team with Eric Mangini at the helm. He is one of the best at preparing his team for a game.  One key in today’s game will be the health of Brett Farve. Farve is listed as questionable but the Jets expect him to start and keep his streak alive of 256 consecutive regular season game starts, an NFL record for a quarterback.  Farve has brought an excitement to the Jets that hasn’t been seen or felt in years.  He has been embraced by New Yorkers and the New York Media.  Farve has become the main story in the NFL. Farve has a potent receiving corps in Laveraneus Coles and Jerricho Cotchery, but Farve won’t key on these two receivers; he will spread the wealth to other targets in the offense.  The New York Jets have a great compliment to Farve in the backfield in running back Thomas Jones.  Jones who is powerfully built and extremely fast, he will keep the Cardinals defense honest so they won’t be able to key in Farve. Jones should have a better statistical year this since defenses won’t be able to key on Jones as much as last year.  Jones is also quite a weapon catching passes out of the backfield.  Jones also has help in the running game with third down back Leon Washington taking some of the load of Jones back.

On defense the Jets are a work in progress.  Last week the defense was scorched by the San Diego Chargers offense.  The Jets do have a future Pro-bowler in second year corner Darrelle Revis.  In his rookie season last year he was thrown in the fire against the top receiver of the opposing offenses and he responded by playing superb against the likes of Randy Moss who he had to play twice.  This year he already has a spectacular game winning one hand tip to himself interception against divisional rivals the Miami Dolphins while being hung on to by the Dolphins receiver Ted Ginn Jr.  The Jets brought in outside linebacker Calvin Pace from the Arizona Cardinals to help with the pass rush.  That should be an interesting story line for today’s game.  The Defense plays a 3-4, they have to play aggressive against the explosive Arizona offense or they could be in for a long day.

The Arizona Cardinals have been on a steady climb of improvement since Ken Whisenhunt took over last year after leaving as the Pittsburgh Steelers Offensive coordinator.  Ken Whisenhunt believed that the Pittsburgh Steelers should have selected him as their coach and got tired of going through the waiting process and jumped on the offer from the Cardinals last year.  Whisenhunt had turned down coaching the Oakland Raiders for Al Davis before Lane Kiffin was hired because he believed that he was the heir apparent to Bill Cowher.  The team is set up to become a playoff team for the first in many years.  The Cardinals organization are going all out to try to make sure that the loyal Cardinal fans have a team to root for in the playoffs this year.  This year Ken Whisenhunt has shown how serious he is about the Cardinals becoming a winner by starting Kurt Warner over Matt Leinart .   Kurt Warner just has a better grasp of the offensive, and the players love his leadership.  With starting wide receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, the Cardinals have arguable the best starting receiving corps in the NFL.  Even though Boldin tweeked a hamstring, he should be able to play against the Jets today.  Larry Fitzgerald is an absoulute beast at wide receiver.  He catches everything that it is in his direction and has a work ethic that is second to none.  He is not a future star in the NFL, Fitzgerald is a star right now.   Add in Steve Breaston, rookie Early Doucet, and others the wide receiver group can cause grave damage to a secondary.  How Matt Leinhart couldn’t succeed like he was expected with this group his a true head scratcher?  Edgerrin James is the solid veteran running back who is as much a threat catching the ball out of the backfield as he his carrying it.  He has support with surprising running back Tim Hightower, who has done a commendable job carrying the load with James.  The offense of weapons that this team has will have it in the running for highest scoring team in the NFL.

The defensive side of the ball is not as strong as the offensive. Last year injuries really hit this unit harder than usual.  The Arizona Cardinals addressed the defensive needs in the draft by using their first and second draft pick on cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie out of Tennessee St. and Calais Campbell out of Miami(Florida) respectfully. The Cardinals defense has been vastly improved this year even though it has only been a three game evaluation with the San Francisco 49ers, the Miami Dolphins, and the Washington Redskins. This game will be the biggest test of the young season for the new and improved Arizona Cardinal defense. Even though the team lost last week to the Redskins, the defense played admirable by not allowing a hundred yard runner or receiver with players like Clinton Portis,  Santana Moss, and the versatile Antwaan Randle El on the opposite side of the field.

The biggest component of today’s game between the Jets and Cardinals is how much will Brett Farve play today.  If he does play the whole game  it should be a very competitive contest.  If not the Jets will have an extremely big challenge of trying to keep up with the Cardinals.  Both teams are well coached so this should be very entertaining.  I expect the Cardinals to win the game today.