Week 12 Brings Another Win Over A Crappy Team

But hey, at least Arizona's occasionally beating crappy teams. I couldn't always count on them to do that even on those occasions when they were good, let alone when they were lousy, as they are now. Yes, Arizona beat the Rams 23-20. Didn't even need a 99-yard punt return TD in OT to do it. They did need an 80-yard punt return TD in the 3rd quarter, but baby steps.

Let's look at the good. Arizona had another punt return TD from Patrick Peterson, his 4th of the year, two of them against the Rams. His cornerbacking is still a work in progress, but he's got this punt return thing down.

Arizona forced two turnovers. While they didn't intercept Bradford (who had a quietly decent game, but nothing spectacular), they did recover two fumbles, one by Paris Lenon, the other by Sam Acho. Hey, maybe they're going to have enough good linebackers that running a 3-4 defense isn't an idiotic decision! Acho also sacked Bradford twice.

Beanie Wells! Franchise record 228 yards, breaking the mark set by LeShon Johnson against the Saints back in '96. Geez, I remember that game. Some of us fans wondered if LeShon could be a franchise back. Considering that was in Week 4, and Johnson still finished the year with less the 650 yards rushing, I think we should have known the answer was a resounding "No". Apparently the Cardinals did, since they drafted Leeland McElroy. So they identified the problem, but their response wasn't quite correct.

As for Wells, he did have a 71-yard carry, which certainly didn't hurt his yards per carry, but 8.4 ypc is good however you get it. What I also like is the team committed to the run. 38 rushes total, though the rest of the team had a less impressive 40 yards on 11 carries. But the team wisely stuck with it, even when they were losing, and kept feeding the hot hand (Wells). I don't know if this meant his knee has healed up, of if the Rams' run defense just went down the toilet. He wasn't able to do this 4 weeks ago against them, and I can't imagine the Rams were stacking the box, daring Skelton to pass any less than they did last time. Maybe the offensive line found its run blocking groove. I don't know.

The Cardinals won the time of possession battle. Woo! That never seems to happen!

The run defense showed up. Like I said above, Bradford had an alright day. Certainly better than Skelton, but not superb. Then again, his receiving corps is still mostly ass, so what should we expect? Last time they played, Stephen Jackson went for 130 yards on 29 carries. Today, they were able to limit him to 64 yards on 17 carries. And again, the Rams either lead, or were close through almost the entire game, so it isn't as though they had to abandon the run game. That's not a bad follow-up to limiting the Niners to 3.3 yards per carry last week (albeit over 49 carries, so the yards still piled up).

The bad would seem to be John Skelton. Maybe the offensive line's pass blocking, since the Rams recorded 3 sacks, but maybe those are Skelton's fault, too. He did throw 2 INTs. He did complete just 12 of his 23 passes, for only 114 yards. Still, his 30 QB rating is better than last week's 10.5, right? Ugh, it's still terrible.

I don't know. Skelton's 5-3 and as starter, but his numbers don't suggest he's the key to victory. He once again failed to stake some sort of claim to the starting QB job, this time against a much weaker opponent than the one he faced last week. At the same time, Kolb can't seem to get healthy enough to get back on the field, and like I've said before, he wasn't setting the world on fire when he was playing. Hopefully he'll be back in time to take his turn against San Francisco (at home), and prove he can do better than Skelton did. Shouldn't be hard.