Cardinals Regain Super Bowl Form in Upset Over Minnesota, 30-17
In a battle of old-time quarterbacks (the 38-year-old Kurt Warner vs. 40-year-old Brett Favre), the “youngster” got the best of his old-time counterpart, as Warner threw three touchdowns in the Cardinals’ 30-17 upset over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night.
The Cardinals’ defense, the key to last year’s Super Bowl run, came up huge in Sunday night’s game, picking off Favre twice, sacking him three times and hurrying him all night, and holding RB Adrian Peterson to 19 total rushing yards.
“It was just physical up front and making the tackle,” Cardinals defensive tackle Darnell Dockett said. “It was great team tackling.”
“They played like they were in the Super Bowl last year,” Favre said, “and we obviously have to play better if we want to be the team that’s in the Super Bowl this year.”
The Cardinals offense moved the ball almost at will, with Warner finding WR Anquan Boldin early and often. He hit Boldin for two TDs in the first half, and found WR Larry Fitzgerald for another score towards the end of the first half. Fitzgerald caught eight passes for 143 yards, and now leads the league’s receivers with 10 TDs on the season.
But the Cardinals’ defense was the story of the game, as they likely had flashbacks of All-Day’s 165 rushing yards from last season’s 35-14 blowout at the hands of the Vikings.
After this game… they’ll have defensive coordinators scouring these tapes, looking for the secret to shutting down A.P.
“I’m pretty sure everybody is going to talk about what Brett Favre did wrong,” Dockett said, “how Brett did this wrong and that wrong, but not talk about how our defense stood up today. We’re going to stay humble, though, because we are going to play that team again.”
Warner said the victory showed “that we can play with anybody, we can play with the big dogs. The key for us is to show up that way every week.”
