MMQB: CARDS-PACKERS RECAP…

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By Peter King

A day later, it still felt unreal to Bruce Arians. All of it. Since 1967, Arians has played high school and college football, then coached college and pro football … 48 years altogether … and on Sunday morning in Arizona, he considered this question: Of all the games you’ve ever played and coached, where does Saturday night’s overtime win over Green Bay rank?

Forty-eight years now. Keep that in mind. Coaching under Bear Bryant, coaching Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger and Andrew Luck and now Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald—14 coaching jobs in all.

“That probably was the most dramatic up-and-down, end-to-end game and finish of my life,” Arians said. “We stop ’em on fourth down. Game over. Nope. We got ’em fourth-and-20 way back at the goal line. Game over. Nope. We blew that one. Then they throw a Hail Mary on the last play of the fourth quarter and we get good pressure. Game over. Nope.

“And then overtime. They can’t even flip a coin. Then Larry makes that first play—unbelievable—75 yards, thought he was going to score. And then the play I’ve been saving for two years. I love that touchdown play.”

If we go over every crazy thing, it’d be a novella. I will bypass Carson Palmer throwing the inexplicable end-zone pick to Damarious Randall, and Fitzgerald playing Gumby to stretch for the last few centimeters of a 13-yard gain on a second-and-13, and the ping-pong Fitzgerald/Randall/Michael Floyd touchdown connection, and Rodgers throwing the fourth-and-five pass to James Jones about 4.9 yards but just not enough, and Jeff Janis catching two passes from Rodgers for 101 yards:

• In 55 seconds.
• ​On the same drive.
• Both times with two defenders hanging all over him.
• After having 95 yards receiving for his career entering the game.
• After not having a 100-yard receiving game since getting 230 yards against Northern Michigan for the Saginaw Valley State Cardinals in 2013.

And then the overtime coin flip, when the coin didn’t flip, and on the spur of the moment, despite there being nothing in the rule book about it, ref Clete Blakeman picked up the heavy gold coin that did not flip and decided to just flip it again—which, probably, was the most judicious thing to do, and lucky for him the coin came up heads both times and the Cardinals got the ball, and …

Remember that story I did on Carson Palmer learning and absorbing and putting into action a game plan? And I wrote about this play called Pistol Strong Right Stack Act 6 Y Cross Divide? On the first play of overtime, its cousin got used.

“We used your play!” Larry Fitzgerald said Sunday. And the Cardinals did—almost.

In Pistol Strong, the play is designed to get one deep receiver isolated in a mismatch. When I wrote about it in November, the deep man was Fitzgerald, on Cleveland safety Donte Whitner. Fitzgerald had Whitner beaten by a couple of steps, but the ball fell about four to six inches past the receiver’s lunging dive. This time John Brown and Michael Floyd started from the left, Brown streaking to the post in the Fitzgerald role, and Floyd running the deep cross. Tight end Darren Fells was Palmer’s hot man, just beyond the flat, and Fitzgerald, from a tight right spot next to the right tackle, flashed across the formation, underneath the two deeper routes.

“We called it earlier in the game,” Arians said, “but Carson audibled to a run. This time I told him to stay with it—I thought something would be there. That’s the ‘divide’ play. You’re going to get an open man.”

“That’s Bruce,” Fitzgerald said. “A savant. He just knows.”

One problem: Palmer got flushed to his right immediately, and looked like he might have to throw it away or dump it off. “But the good thing about Carson,” said Fitzgerald, “is that even when he’s flushed, he keeps his eyes downfield, looking to make a play.”

And there was Fitzgerald, all alone, stuck in a hole in the zone. Sometimes these things happen. You can’t explain them. Someone on defense errs, and leaves a Hall of Fame receiver open in overtime of a playoff game in one of the biggest and costliest mistakes a defense could ever make. Palmer flung it across the field and Fitzgerald caught it and headed up the left sideline. “Sam Shields was converging on me pretty quick,” said Fitzgerald, “and he thought probably I would just go out bounds. I just put my foot in the ground, changed directions a little and said, ‘Heck with it. I’m going for it.’ ”

He was tackled at the Green Bay five. Gain of 75, on what looked like it would be a sack.

On TV, it sounded like the NBC truck in Glendale had to muffle the sound or it would pop eardrums. That’s how crazy the place was going.

Second-and-goal from the five now.

“Since the start of training camp last year, we’ve had this play we’ve practiced I’d say almost every week,” Fitzgerald said. “I bet we’ve practiced it 30 to 40 times. Bruce was just waiting for the right time.”

Palmer in shotgun. Brown in motion from left to right. Quick snap. If the defensive end bears down on Palmer, he flips to Fitzgerald, who tried to find a crease in the line so he can burrow into the end zone. If the flow goes to Fitzgerald, Palmer keeps and throws a fade into the end zone.

“There are plays you just save for times like this,” Arians said. “I thought they would pay so much attention down there to [running back] David Johnson, and they’d never seen this on tape, Larry taking it.”

“Why Bruce picks this time, I don’t know, but he just knew,” Fitzgerald said.

Snap, flip to Fitzgerald, Lyle Sendlein and Mike Iupati pave the way, and it’s not even that hard. Larry Fitzgerald has never taken a Favrian flip from the quarterback in the middle of the line of scrimmage and run it through the line for a touchdown. It’s not just the imagination of a play like that. It’s the shock of it. The timing, the situation. Practice made perfect. It looked so natural, like they’d rehearsed it 30 to 40 times over the past two years. That’s because they had. That’s what great play-callers with great players do.

The greatest touchdown pass of Carson Palmer’s professional life, the one that won him his first playoff game of a distinguished 13-year NFL career …

Thrown left-handed. About three yards in the air.

And that’s one of about 67 reasons why Saturday night’s playoff game—Arizona 26, Green Bay 20, overtime—is one none of us will ever forget.

 

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