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What is our X factor in week 5?

T

TheRealJoker

Hall of Fame
Is it our secondary's ability to cover the 3 headed monster the Cardinals have at WR?

Our offenses ability to run the ball and keep AZ off the field?

Our special teams ability to come up with big plays to shift momentum towards us and take the home crowd out of the game?

What else? I'm gonna go with the offense. We've gotta be able to run the ball this week and keep AZ off the field.
 
pressure on the QB. Warner can be beat by teams that can light him up and make him move. I don't think we can do that so I see a shootout comin'.
 
Vinny said:
pressure on the QB. Warner can be beat by teams that can light him up and make him move. I don't think we can do that so I see a shootout comin'.
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I don't see a shootout because we have yet to play good offense against a 3-4 defense and AZ runs a 3-4.
 
Lets hope Antonio Smith can give us some helpful advice on how to beat both the OL and DL for AZ. I like the matchup of Mario vs Gandy, I think Mario will be able to get to Warner at some point in the 40+ times he'll drop back to pass. The question is, will anyone else?

Hopefully Smith puts in a career game going against his former team!!!
 
The defense forcing the Cards offense off the field. Will it be enough to keep scoring down? I say yes.
 
Vinny said:
pressure on the QB. Warner can be beat by teams that can light him up and make him move. I don't think we can do that so I see a shootout comin'.
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My thoughts also but more specifically, we have to get pressure on him with our front four. If we have to send our LB's I think he will tear us apart. On offense we all know what happens when we go up against a 3/4. Schaub needs to identify where the blitz is coming from and make them pay. If they do blitz alot (why wouldnt they?) OD needs to have a big game.
 
Our pass defense.

Our defense is entirely feast or famine. The running back gets 0 yards or 10+. Because of this, we end up putting the opposing QB in decent 3rd and longs. This is where the pass defense comes into play. Can we stop the 3rd down conversions?
 
Pressure on Warner will make everything about this game easier. Their receivers are much better than our DB's, so pressure on the QB can make them look a whole lot better.
 
I think the big play will be the play of the 3 & 4th corners, and the entire nickle defense. The cards will run alot of little short routes and sit in zones. The underneath linebackers and downfield secondary will need to adjust and purse quickley to limit yards after the catch.
 
I think pass defense is an obvious concern. However, I think X factors for both teams will be the running game. Hightower and Wells don't have killer burst but both can gash defenses.

Other thing is how the interior of the OL performs.
 
I think the X factor is our DL. If they win the battle decisively, then everything else will take care of itself.:chef:
 
4 man pressure is the x factor... I think we'll blitz less than we have all season in this one.. gotta get pressure with the down lineman
 
X factor = Swine Flu

If The Fitz, Boldin, Breaston and Warner all get the swine flu we might have a chance to stop their offense.
 
TheRealJoker said:
Lets hope Antonio Smith can give us some helpful advice on how to beat both the OL and DL for AZ. I like the matchup of Mario vs Gandy, I think Mario will be able to get to Warner at some point in the 40+ times he'll drop back to pass. The question is, will anyone else?

Hopefully Smith puts in a career game going against his former team!!!
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This is exactly the type of match-up I referred to, Gandy has his hands full, Super Mario will get loose on him... I think we can really get some pressure on Warner... u gotta pick one, that's ur X-factor right there: Mario Williams...
 
The same X factor we've always had: Jacoby Jones

I like where he's at right now in the playcalling, getting him on the field a couple plays a game and maybe even a pass or 3. It looks like he's getting open when he's on the field and he's a dynamic threat as long as he keeps his head and follows proper procedure: Step 1. Catch the ball Step 2. Jacoby Jones.

Reversing KW? Nah, JJ? Yup.
 
Silver Oak said:
this Arizona offense-thing is getting a bit overblown. we face Indy twice a year, recently have played them competitively, and I don't think AZ has any more potent offense than Peyton and Indy. Right?
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Very true. Folks are trembling when through our whole history we have faced Manning.
 
mussop said:
My thoughts also but more specifically, we have to get pressure on him with our front four. If we have to send our LB's I think he will tear us apart. On offense we all know what happens when we go up against a 3/4. Schaub needs to identify where the blitz is coming from and make them pay. If they do blitz alot (why wouldnt they?) OD needs to have a big game.
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Not exactly our strengths on offense and defense, which unfortunately means I think we are going to get a spanking in this game. If we could run the ball that would be one thing, but we haven't proven that we can run the ball and I don't think we are going to fix it this week.

Only way we run the ball right now is to try to spread them out with 3-4 wide single back sets and force them into a nickel package and then try some inside the tackle plays and hope we can get some movement on the line to open some holes. We aren't going to line up in a power formation and run the ball on them, we couldnt' do it against Jags either.
 
Arizona is Indy without an awesome RB

(or two Addai and D.Brown)
(or three, Edge was awesome for a long time)
(or four, Rhodes was good too. At least better than anybody from AZ)
 
Silver Oak said:
this Arizona offense-thing is getting a bit overblown. we face Indy twice a year, recently have played them competitively, and I don't think AZ has any more potent offense than Peyton and Indy. Right?
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That's a good point. We built our team to compete with the Colts (that hasn't quite worked so well but we did give them 2 tough games last year). Arizona proved to be Indy-Lite when they matched up 2 weeks ago. That gives me confidence we'll compete, just like we did with the Colts last season.

Now, since we're supposed to be a playoff caliber team, we should beat this team. Its time to get some consistency here in the W column. Consistently more W's than L's while it means something during the season.
 
TimeKiller said:
Arizona is Indy without an awesome RB

(or two Addai and D.Brown)
(or three, Edge was awesome for a long time)
(or four, Rhodes was good too. At least better than anybody from AZ)
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AZ's secondary is far better than what Indy is usually carrying, Indy's defense is all about how much damage Freeney can do with his barrage of talents on the end.

Rhodes was a stud safety in the game that played very well off the pressure that Freeney creates, add in Mathis as well and you have a pretty good pressure defense without having to send the house, which in turn allows you to be more aggressive on the short routes cause you know your pressure will get there.
 
Goldensilence said:
Remind me. How many times have we beaten Indy?
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Once with the last three games being much, much better than their predecessors. Should have been at least 2-1. So are we generalizing recently or only historically which means we can't expect to win for 7 years?
 
I just double checked, and well yah it's bad as I thought. We have 5 sacks as a team total, which is tied for 3rd worst in the NFL.

We have to find ways to get better at putting pressure on the QB.
 
Pressure from our front four, not giving up a 50+ yard run, and Slaton/Moats running the **** out of the ball
 
infantrycak said:
Very true. Folks are trembling when through our whole history we have faced Manning.
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Um. . . Every time we face Manning we pretty much get shredded. I think fear that the Cards can hang 40 on us is not completely from left field.

X Factor is going to be how good the offense can handle the AZ 3-4. If our defense plays mediocre (and hey, we were praying they would do that up until the Raider game) then we have an overwhelming need to put up gobs of points to stay ahead.

The Cardinals are much streakier than the Colts, but that doesn't make their offense any less dangerous.
 
infantrycak said:
Once with the last three games being much, much better than their predecessors. Should have been at least 2-1. So are we generalizing recently or only historically which means we can't expect to win for 7 years?
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All I'm trying to point is out we're saying so what we play Indy two times a year, what's the big deal? We might have played them more competitively the past year, but at the same time can we really point to that as a POSITIVE example?

Warner's no Manning but can you imagine the nightmare of Peyton having those 3 WRs?! Against this secondary? Against a team that hasn't gotten a whole lot of pressure this year?

Arizona hasn't looked too like it did last year, but based on the first 4 games of the year. Our secondary could be a get well game for them. I think our defense's only chance is to pull a Tonya Harding on Fitz*.

*I'm not encouraging it though.
 
Goldensilence said:
Arizona hasn't looked too like it did last year, but based on the first 4 games of the year. Our secondary could be a get well game for them. I think our defense's only chance is to pull a Tonya Harding on Fitz*.

*I'm not encouraging it though.
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While I agree wholly that our secondary is not very good, I don't think we have to take Fitz's knees out. If we are able to take advantage of what appears to be an offensive line that is not very good, it should help our secondary immensely. Warner is a decent QB, but he is propped up somewhat by having such a strong WR corps. I like our offense better just for the fact that our threats come from multiple positions (WR/TE/RB (PLEASE PLAY BETTER SLATON)), where as most of their offensive firepower is Warner2WR.

However, if we can't gameplan a way to get Warner on the turf a few times, then it's going to come down to who scores last. This will be a game where Cushing is either going to need to rush the hell out of the passer, or be serviceable in coverage. I don't think AZ's running game will be that much of a factor. If it is, we're boned.
 
I'm kind of weary of our young DBs getting taken to school. Also seeing if we can get anything going with the run game on a consistent basis.
 
The X factor will be our defenses ability to get stops on 3rd down.

If we can limit them to 4/12 3rd down conversions as opposed to 8/12, then I think we have a good shot at winning.
 
Andre's ability to be part of the offense AFTER the first 15-22 minutes. He certainly hasn't gotten much second half action in three of the four games so far.
 
Getting pressure from our front four will be the biggest factor for us. I liked the pressure we were able to generate last week. I haven't watched the Cards, so I've no idea how good their OL is. If we hit and tackle like we did last week, there will be some WR's and TE's that are a little bit nervous and that can only help us. I'm not a big fan of thinking the Texans have turned a corner because we beat the Raiders, but the D had to notice what worked and what didn't. Cushing is having a huge impact on that. He's a nonstop hitting machine and pushing everyone else to keep up with him.
 
Defensive line pressure.
If we don't get to Warner soon, our defensive backs will look like they are on islands.
 
Cards fans are worried about their o-line play, so I think the X factor should be to pressure Warner with our front four d-linemen. Warner likes quick passes but if we're in his grill he'll get happy feet in the pocket.
 
silvrhand1 said:
AZ's secondary is far better than what Indy is usually carrying, Indy's defense is all about how much damage Freeney can do with his barrage of talents on the end.

Rhodes was a stud safety in the game that played very well off the pressure that Freeney creates, add in Mathis as well and you have a pretty good pressure defense without having to send the house, which in turn allows you to be more aggressive on the short routes cause you know your pressure will get there.
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Well really I was talking about offense. I mean when you think of Indy/Ari you really worried about their defenses? No. And at that, I would say Indy's D is the better of the two.
 
If anything I'd say the Cardinals mirror our very own Texans more than the Colts. Both teams have a high powered, passing based offense coupled with an average/mediocre defense. Neither has shown the consistency to be mentioned alongside Indy. In 08 & 09 combined (reg. season) the Cards are 10-9 while the Texans are 10-10.

As for the X factor, I think it's JJ. If he can make a few plays as the 3rd WR, and maybe one big kick return that may swing the game in our favor.
 
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