CARDS GIVE PACKERS FITZ

Rodgers Brilliance Overshadowed by Fitzgerald’s

Magnificence in Playoff Classic

It was a game for the ages.

In an era of disposable playoff games, the meaningless variety with teams that qualified but didn’t really belong (Houston, Washington) the Divisional game matchup between one of the NFL’s best teams, the Arizona Cardinals against one of the most maligned teams the Green Bay Packers will go down into NFL history as an instant classic as Arizona advanced in a thrilling, exhausting, roller coaster, gut wrenching, heart stopping intensely fought overtime 26 – 20 over the incredibly resilient and beaten up Green Bay Packers that leaves one coming up short in superlatives to describe it all. NBC’s Cris Collinsworth said it best at the end when Larry Fitzgerald fell into the end zone in overtime by simply saying “Stop it!” This game had it all – and beyond.

Call it the Ecstasy and the Agony. One minute Aaron Rodgers is hitting his 3^rd Hail Mary of the season and in less than 1 minute of playing time the season is done.

The game in front of a record-setting national TV audience had something for everybody. It featured a 101 yard interception return by Patrick Peterson that was negated by a penalty, an even more spectacular one handed catch by Randall Cobb for 51 yards that didn’t count because of offsetting penalties, the weirdest TD completion ever in a playoff game that went from Carson Palmer’s hand to Damarious Randall’s arm to Michael Floyd yanking it away before Casey Hayward could nab the deflection… and none of this includes that last drive for each team. Aaron Rodgers now can be crowned the NFL’s undisputed Hail Mary king as he hit not one but two spectacular bombs to unknown Jeff Janis… but those spectacular plays were trumped by Larry Fitzgerald’s TWO plays in two -play overtime that featured a do over coin flip. And, for the record, the Packers pushed the Cardinals to the brink without having the services of their top 4 receivers. Jordy Nelson , Davante Adams and Ty Montgomery were all missing with injury and Cobb joined that list after his one handed gem landed him in the hospital. And ask yourself one defining question – is there any other team in the NFL that could lose their top 4 receivers and still push the #2 seed to the brink of elimination?

The Cardinals came in after being blown out in a meaningless final game by the red hot Seattle Seahawks who were blown out in the first half by Carolina and eliminated when their rally fell short. More was read into that outcome by Seattle against ‘Zona than it should have been. The Hawks were fighting for a playoff spot and Arizona was prepping for the rest they’d need for their first game two weeks later. While the Packers were losing the NFC North to Minnesota the Cards were just looking forward to staying healthy and getting some healing time on for the injured players.

The Packers had no such luck. After losing the North to Minnesota they flew into DC and mopped the floor with Washington and then headed back to the scene of an embarrassing 38 – 8 blowout the Cards dealt them just 3 weeks earlier. At the time the Pack has aspirations of the #2 seed, a notion the Cardinals quickly and definitively put to bed. Aaron Rodgers was sacked 8 times, the cheesecloth offensive line was missing 3/5 of their starters and the running game stayed AWOL.

All along in advance of the game the Cardinals were publicly dismissing the blowout and saying all the right things about the Packers still being a dangerous team. In modern sports it has become a ritual to talk up your opponent in the press and laugh derisively behind closed doors. Cardinals coach Bruce Arians was heard saying “They (the Packers) are a lot better than a (38 – 8) blowout. They’re too good, and we didn’t get their best shot because they didn’t have their best players.”  ”CB Jerraud Powers was cautioning against overconfidence. “Since we’ve played them, it seems like those guys found it. They look like a completely different team “said Powers. Mike McCarthy stood defiant in the face of the up-and-down season the Packers had by saying “We’re coming in (to Arizona) expecting to win.”

Maybe all three knew more than they were letting on. The Cards figured there would be no blowout this time. They were right. Boy, were they right. Arizona met its’ match in Green Bay as the Packers defense bottled up and throttled the NFL’s top offense while hanging a total of 386 yards on the #5 defense. At no point throughout the contest was there any certainty of the victor. All season long the Packers had been looking for an identity.

Along the way that identity was inconsistent, overrated, erratic, and those were the more flattering terms. At 10 – 6 the Packers had a good season but every talking head is quick to point out the Packers started 6 – 0 and went 4 – 6 the rest of the way. True enough. But the cold reality is since that 6- 0 start the Packers had not played a significant game until week 17. At no time was their playoff life at stake and although the Vikings wrestled the NFC North crown away knowing they were already in the playoffs was a security blanket for Green Bay, a team so beaten up by injury this year that they never lost sight of the big picture.

The Packers gave Arizona everything they could handle and came as close as possible to pulling off the huge upset. In spite of a second straight overtime heartbreaking loss that ended their season in the playoffs this game was as unlike last year’s meltdown against Seattle. But it almost played out the same. Once again a beleaguered Packers squad took the field with far too many injuries at far too many key positions. The offensive line consisted of a back weary Josh Sitton and a whole lot of tape, braces, painkillers and grit. David Bahktiari’s ankle was so heavily taped it looked as if he was playing with a cast on his foot. Sitton’s back, T.J. Lang’s shoulder, Bryan Bulaga and Corey Linsley’s knees would not have been worth $1.67 on the open market collectively. Yet somehow this banged up group rallied and stifled a Cardinal pass rush that dropped Rodgers 8 times previously. The medical misfits from Green Bay held up and held together and held strong yielding just 1 lone sack and 1 interception.

Rodgers pop fly lollipop of a pick was as bad a throw as he has made in some time. It was not his only ugly pick of the game; very early on he hit Patrick Peterson for a 101 yard touchdown. The only problem is Peterson plays for Arizona. The best news was the play was negated by an Arizona penalty, much like the 51 yard falling-over-backward-one-handed over your head grab by Randall Cobb that was taken right form the Odell Beckham Jr. playbook. That catch was also negated by offsetting penalties but the result was a blow from which the Packers could not quite recover. Cobb went out with a chest injury after spitting up blood and as a safety precaution he spent the night in an Arizona hospital.

Carson Palmer was efficient for the Cards but was sloppy with his delivery. Right after Rodgers was picked off by Rashad Johnson Ha Ha Clinton –Dix picked off Palmer on the ensuing series. Palmer later added another INT when, as Arians put it “…he (Palmer) tried to guide the ball...” and Damarious Randall reached over for the thank-you-very-much pick that killed the Cards drive. Green Bay held a 13- 10 lead until Palmer hit Floyd from 9 yards out to posh Arizona into a lead at 17 – 13. Green Bay went 4 and out at the Cardinal 25 all but sealing their fate. The Chris Catanzaro field goal left just 1:55 on the clock and Arizona holding a 20 - 13 lead.

That’s when history was made in plays that will far exceed even the Super Bowl for drama.

Rodgers hit a monster of a 61 yard Hail Mary against Detroit this season already. The odds of hitting another one are roughly the equivalent of being hit by lightning while you are being attacked by a swarm of killer bees standing in the ocean being bitten by a shark. Impossibly, improbably and ridiculously Rodgers always gives the Packers hope and his opponents ulcers.

Rodgers did not fail to disappoint. Starting at his

own 14 Dwight Freeney got the Cards only sack of the game at the Packer 4 yard line. The Packers played without their 4 best relievers when it mattered most. The question begging to be asked is how well Arizona would have fared had Fitzgerald, Floyd, John Brown and Jaron Brown not been available? The uncontrollable fact of injury can never be discounted in the NFL and it hit the Packers hard where it hurt the most. Rodgers was forced out of necessity to lean on Jared Abbrederis and Janis for the majority of the game. For their parts Abbrederis was huge in relief and Janis caught his first TD of his career that counted. A pre-season hero with 5 TD’s in the past 2 years Janis has yet to gain Rodgers trust but the offseason will make both think differently going into next season.

Of course the mountain was enormous. Of course the odds were hugely against anything happening. With Green bay having only 55 seconds left facing 4^th and 20 and down by 7 from their own 4 yard line all the Cards needed was a stop, a knockdown, a missed pass and it’s over. But we’re talking Aaron Rodgers here, and the Cards knew it. As Rodgers rolled out deep in his own end zone he did not look at the sideline for the reliable James Jones or the other way at Abbrederis. Not Aaron Rodgers. He heaved the ball some 60 yards on the fly and hit Janis for a monster Hail Mary gain and crucial first down. 30 seconds ran off the clock and of course Green Bay gets hit with an illegal formation play as Aaron Rodgers tried to catch Arizona off guard but he caught his own Richard Rodgers instead. The 5 yard penalty did not carry a 10 second runoff. After Arizona called timeout Rodgers missed on his next pass leaving 5 seconds and 41 yards from a potential game tying play.

Heroes come and go in the NFL. Legends are made by the moment and how a man plays in it. Rodgers has an impressive body of work. His Hail Mary two plays earlier notwithstanding it should have been far too much to ask him to do it again. But we’re talking Aaron Rodgers here. 5 seconds and 41 yards? As Arizona came with the pressure Rodgers expected he rolled not to his right as he had done in Detroit as the Cardinals expected but to his left. He never really set up and threw the ball flat footed just before he was hit.

At the other end was Janis, the kid who had been waiting all year for just a shot. Janis has made his bones on special teams and has been like an annoying kid brother with his fellow Packer receivers just trying for a shot. Here is Janis, the 2^nd year player from Division II Saginaw St. going up against one of the NFL’s very best CB’s in Peterson. And for the 3^rd time in a season, the second time in 3 plays lightning struck as Janis leapt above and over – OVER! – Peterson to garb the most improbable of catches.  Mason Crosby’s kick sent the sky high Packers roaring into overtime.

As the script is being written it looks to be series of random events colliding and crashing into each other arbitrarily. For all the world it looked as if the Cards were going to be victims to a Packer team that played as sound a game against a superior opponent as they had all year. But fate always intervenes. When referee Clete Blakeman flipped the coin, the coin Rodgers called “tails” it never flipped. Not once. It just kind of shot off his thumb he couldn’t reproduce if he tried. Never mind that in the rule book there is nothing that says a coin has to flip Blakeman nonetheless immediately grabbed the gaffe and flipped it again as Rodgers said afterwards “to avoid the embarrassment (of a do-over)…” Rodgers was somewhat annoyed that he did not get to re-call the flip and it came up heads – Cardinal ball.

Fate in all its’ cruelty finds heroes where it finds heroes. Rodgers has become a folk legend but the Cardinals are not bereft of candidates. Larry Fitzgerald has been a superior player both on and off the field throughout his career. He is well respected and has earned every yard he has every gained. Perhaps it is fitting that it was Fitzgerald who flew the highest when the Cardinals needed it the most.

As Palmer somehow eluded a furious Packer pass rush he threw back across his body and found Fitz wide open and all alone. His 75 yard catch and run was the set up for his 5 yard shovel pass that puts Arizona in the NFC finals against Carolina.

For Green Bay and their faithful the only disappointment can be in the outcome. Mike McCarthy and the coaching staff designed a wonderful game plan especially on defense. Vaunted Arizona rookie RB David Johnson got no traction and the defense kept the Cards in regulation to a very winnable 20 points. The Packers were a valiant, proud group that played one of the NFL’s best teams hard to the final whistle and beyond. There are no scapegoats to be sought nor should any be found. With the emergence of Abbrederis and Janis how good can the Packers be with a full complement of receivers next season? The experience gained will in all likelihood render James Jones expendable. The possibilities with Rodgers and a lineup of Nelson, Cobb, Adams, Montgomery, Abbrederis and Janis indicate that – barring injury – the future is still very bright. The gains made by the Packer defense this year and knowing  Sam Barrington will be back in the middle along with a much improved and now veteran Jake Ryan may make LB Nick Perry and a new contract expendable as well.

It is far too early to speculate. Green Bay played a magnificent game, and a game they could have easily won. Arizona was forced to go to a much higher level than they ever had and showed they are worthy contenders for the Super Bowl crown. Unlike last year this loss does not have quite the same bitter taste. The 2015 -16 Green Bay Packers did not lose this playoff game… they merely were outscored.

It is only a state that leaves one wanting more. We can’t wait for next season to begin.