Despite Record Day, Arizona Cardinals Dogs Against New Orleans Saints

NFL News - January 11th, 2010 - Written by John

The Arizona Cardinals survived the highest-scoring game in NFL Playoff history last week, but the celebration will have to wrap up rather quickly.

Their reward? A date with the league's top scoring team during the regular season.

Arizona hits the road for a date with the New Orleans Saints in the second round on Saturday, eerily parallel to their 2009 NFL Playoff trip in which it survived a first-round scare at home only to meet the second-seeded Carolina Panthers in the second round. It won that game, 33-13, and scored 30 or more points in every NFC playoff game. It will certainly need another rash of points Saturday to repeat as conference champions.

The Saints are favored by seven, according to NFL Playoffs Betting Lines, with an over/under of 57.

But the high points average (31.9) through the regular season is more of an indication of New Orleans' dominance through the first half of the schedule, and no team has stumbled more heading into the postseason. Starting in Week 13, the Saints beat two mediocre teams in a row by three points each, then lost three-straight to close out the year.

The final game, a 23-10 loss to Carolina, was sort of a gimme because head coach Sean Payton elected to sit most of his starters. But one thing is clear: New Orleans was dazed in losing it's perfect season to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 15, and has yet to recover.

Still, it did manage to secure the NFC's top seed with a 14-0 start, and a scary wide receiving corps has only gotten better with Drew Brees' progress.

Brees earned the starting quarterback nod in this year's Pro Bowl after another year above 4,000 yards passing and 30 touchdowns. Four receivers had over 500 yards, and two of them (Marques Colston and Robert Meachem) had nine scores.

Saturday will showcase the best quarterback match-up in the league now that it is clear Kurt Warner is righted the ship, so to speak. After sputtering at the end of the year, Warner threw for five touchdowns in the wild card win over the Green Bay Packers, and had more touchdowns than incompletions. The dazzling 51-45 win in overtime gave the Cardinals new-found momentum and stirred up memories of the team's improbable run to last year's Super Bowl.

Warner is 9-3 all-time in the postseason, and has some of the best passing performances in playoff history.

It is unknown whether or not Anquan Boldin (knee, ankle) will be available after sitting out the first-round game. But it may not even matter. Three receivers had at least 75 yards and a touchdown against Green Bay, including Steve Breaston's team-high 125 and two.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Arizona and New Orleans boast two of the league's best offenses, primarily because of their terrific receivers.

Defenses? Not so much.

The Cardinals are 20th in the league in yards allowed and the Saints are 25th. What that means is there should be another shootout for Arizona, and the 57-point total should be passed in about 10 minutes.

After Karlos Dansby scored the game-winning touchdown against the Packers, he told the media that he felt his team really stepped up in the win and that the defense wanted to take it up a notch in the playoffs. If allowing 45 points is taking it up a notch, the Cardinals certainly can't afford to take any step in the other direction. Otherwise, the Saints may clear 57 points all on their own.

The difference will likely come in the running game, which is always highlighted in Cardinals games, because the NFC West champs are one of only seven teams that average less than 100 yards per game. New Orleans is sixth in the league with over 130 yards per.

Surprisingly, that hasn't really been a critical flaw this season when considering both the San Diego Chargers and Indianapolis Colts, the AFC's top two seeds, are the two worst rushing teams. What it all means is using stats is an inexact science, but clearly any team that ranks at the bottom of the league at anything will be at a disadvantage.

The key for New Orleans will be the play of their linebackers. Three of Warner's five touchdowns came on passes right up the gut in the 10-20 yard range, where Early Doucet and Larry Fitzgerald went untouched into the end zone.

STATS AND STREAKS

- Brees was well on his way to shattering his career-high of 34 touchdown passes late in the year, but only threw one in each of his last two games, and finished tied for the career mark.

- New Orleans hasn't had a 1,000-yard rusher since 2006 when Deuce McAllister finished with 1,057.

- The all-time series has been dominated by streaks. First, the Saints won four of their first five games against the Cardinals between 1991 and 1997. Then Arizona won two out of three ending in '04. Now, New Orleans has won two in a row, including a 24-10 win last year. The winning team has scored less than 21 points only twice in 10 games.

- The Cardinals have covered the spread in seven of their last eight games in January. They are also 8-2 ATS against a team with a winning record.

- Despite being involved in the highest-scoring playoff game in the history of the league, Arizona has kept the game total under the line in six of it's last eight overall.