Arizona Cardinals’ tale of success and failure (Part III)
Continued from part II...
Against St. Louis Rams
Seven games and only one win. The record was certainly tormenting. To add to the miseries, Kolb was out owing to an injury.
What could possibly further damage Cardinals’ morale?
Nothing! Because the team that visited Arizona had the same record as its host.
Rams had also won one game in the season when they played against Cardinals and the game became an opportunity for the latter to get back to the winning ways.
Kolb’s replacement, John Skelton, also struggled and gave away two safeties in the third quarter, allowing Rams to get ahead.
Skelton, however, managed a touchdown in the final quarter to level the score, sending the game to overtime, where Peterson had a 99-yard punt return for a touchdown that gave Cardinals a victory after six games.
The final score settled at 19-13.
At Philadelphia
John Skelton was filling in Kolb’s shoes, but only in terms of throwing interceptions.
When Cardinals visited Philadelphia, Skelton, who had another start owing to Kolb’s injury, completed 21 passes of 40 attempts for 315.
He managed three touchdowns, but also sent two interceptions, out of which one was returned for a touchdown.
Cardinals’ defence did well to contain Eagles’ offence, which could not score in two quarters of the game.
Thankfully for Cardinals, two touchdowns from Skelton came in the final quarter where the visitors collected a decisive four-point lead over Eagles.
The final score settled at 21-17.
At San Francisco
With a struggling quarterback, one can never expect to win.
The same happened with Cardinals when they played against San Francisco 49ers.
Skelton failed miserably and was eventually benched after throwing three interceptions. He was replaced by Richard Bartel, who did manage a touchdown pass, but it came too little too late.
The 49ers scored two field goals in the first quarter and one in the second before getting two touchdowns in the final.
The Cards scored in the final, but by that time they were 23 points down and it was impossible to snatch the lead from the sturdy 49ers’ defence.
Against St. Louis Rams
St. Louis Rams were Cardinals’ biggest support in the season. Whenever the Cards were falling down, Rams provided them an opportunity to get over the loss.
Despite Skelton’s miserable form, the rest of the team made sure they avail maximum benefits against Rams.
Skelton completed 12 passes of 23 attempts for 114 yards and threw two interceptions. He received a quarterback rating of 30.0.
Peterson managed his fourth punt return for a touchdown in the season. This time he ran for 80 yards to increase his team’s lead in the third quarter.
Jay Feely scored a 22-yard field goal for Cardinals with around four minutes left on the clock to give his team victory, 23-20.
Against Dallas Cowboys
Cardinals had won three out of their last four games when they hosted Dallas Cowboys.
Things were going in a perfect direction for Cardinals. They were on a winning track and had got services of Kolb again.
The game remain evenly poise as both the teams were tried plenty of times to get scoring moves, but the defence was at the top.
The game ended at 13-13 in the regulation and was forced to overtime, where Kolb shined and managed a touchdown pass to give his team a victory.
Kolb finished the game with 247 yards on 16 passes of 25 attempts at received a quarterback rating of 109.9.
To be continued...
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