Cardinals' East Coast Woes a Serious Problem

The good news is that the Arizona Cardinals are going to win the NFC West for the first time ever (not the franchise, I'm saying Arizona Cardinals). The bad news is that they can't make the Super Bowl -- not even the conference championship.

The loss Thursday night in Philly was more of the same for this year's Cards. They simply can't win when they head East.

Look at their losses. First of all, the home loss to the Giants isn't a black mark at all. They played the best team in the NFL close for four quarters, and had a certain individual caught a textbook onside kick, they might have won the thing. I'm just gonna toss that one out. The other 11 games, when broken down, illustrate a Jekyll and Hyde team.

Cardinals in their seven wins

What these games have in common is that they were not played in the Eastern time zone. Another item in common is the final score ended up with the Arizona Cardinals having a higher point total. Several times it hasn't even been close. The final tally has the Cardinals outscoring opponents 214-121. So they average a 31-17 victory. Good offense, good defense, and a pretty comfortable margin.

They pile up yardage, especially through the air -- with Kurt Warner using an entire arsenal of receiving weapons -- while ball-hawking on defense. They have 20 takeaways in these seven victories, hooking them up with a stellar plus-14 in turnover ratio in these games.

I could go on and on, but the point is that the team we've seen win seven games is a damn good football team, capable of playing with -- and possibly beating -- anyone.

But ...

Cardinals in the Eastern time zone

It's as ugly as a Gene Keady/Patrick Ewing hybrid. Four games, four losses. They have allowed a whopping 155 points, while scoring 95. That means their average game in the Eastern time zone is a 39-24 loss. Scoring 24 shouldn't get you a two-touchdown loss, so you can easily blame the defense for these games. Right?

Um, no. It's not even close to being anything less than a total team effort in futility. The offense can't be stopped from scoring points, no matter if they are at home or on the road. In the four games we're currently discussing, the Cards have turned the ball over 15 times. That's an awful lot of pressure to put on a defense which is playing on the road, not to mention you can't win football games with such a horrifying turnover ratio (they've only taken it away three times in these four games).

So, yeah, like I said, they aren't winning on the road in the playoffs. It's gonna get colder, and the teams are gonna be better -- assuming playoff teams are hitting their stride at the right time and not sputtering in.

The good news is, they'll be able to enter the playoffs with their first double-digit win total since 1976, when the team played in St. Louis. With home games against the Rams, Vikings and Seahawks, you can easily pencil in 10-6 as their final record. The one loss? A trip to the East. They aren't winning in New England on December 21st. Not a chance.

Still, they'll host a playoff game in Arizona for the first time ever, and I think they'll win it. After that, though, some drastic adjustments have to be made in terms of on-field performance, because that team we've seen play four times this year is just brutal. I don't even think there's anything Ken Whisenhunt can do differently. The players just need to perform.