THE wild-card Cardinals may not make it any further in the NFC playoffs, their surprising season expected to come to a crashing halt Sunday against the Vikings in Minnesota. But make no mistake. The torch was passed Saturday afternoon at Texas Stadium.
The Cowboys, despite going 8-0 in the NFC East this year, are a troubled team with an uncertain future, while the Cardinals have the makings of a team that could rule the division into the next millennium.
Yes, it was a virtual miracle the Cardinals made the playoffs in the first place. Had it not been for game-winning field goals by Chris Jacke on the final play of each of their last three regular-season games to finish 9-7, they would not have qualified. But those climactic endings along with Saturday’s convincing 20-7 triumph over the Cowboys at Texas Stadium will only serve to quicken the Cardinals rise to top of the NFC East.
‘We’ve played solid football these last four or five weeks and put teams away when we had to,” said wide receiver Rob Moore, the former Jet. “That’s the sign of a good football team. This team is maturing and learning how to win.’
No, the Cardinals don’t have much chance of beating the 15-1 Vikings in the Metrodome. But it may not be the one-sided matchup many expect. These Cardinals are a resilient bunch, bubbling with confidence and unafraid to dream the impossible.
‘To do what we did (against Dallas) is the start to establishing ourselves as one of the better teams in this league,” said offensive tackle Lomas Brown. “I don’t want to put one foot ahead of the other, but look at it. We have balance on both sides of the ball. The Cowboys have had the NFC East locked up for so long, it’s time for a change. It’s time for somebody to set up and establish themselves and that’s what we’re trying to do.’
Sure, there is a lot of emotion flowing around the Cardinals, who hadn’t won a playoff game since 1947. But the Cardinals aren’t just hype. They have all the ingredients to enjoy a sustained run of success over the next few years, especially when you compare them with the Giants, who have an unsettled quarterback situation, the Eagles, who are looking for a new coach, the Redskins, who are coming off a disappointing season, and the Cowboys, who are in need of a major overhaul.
The Cardinals have a bright young quarterback in Jake Plummer, who embraces the big game and is reminding everyone of Joe Montana. Plummer passed for 213 yards and two scores against the Cowboys and used his scrambling ability to avoid being sacked.
“He just does whatever he has to do to win,” Moore said of Plummer. “He doesn’t take a play off.’
They have a productive running game, headed by Adrian Murrell, another former Jet, who rushed for more than 1,000 yards for the third straight season and buried the Cowboys with a 74-yard run in the third quarter Saturday. They have a decent offensive line anchored by Brown that trimmed its total sacks allowed from 78 in 1997 to 50 this season, and their wide receivers in Frank Sanders and Moore are capable of big plays.
The most inconsistent part of their team this year has been their defense and that’s primarily because of youth. The starting defense averages just three years of pro experience, the youngest in the NFL. Defensive end Andre Wadsworth, defensive tackle Rashod Swinger and cornerback Corey Chavous are all in their first season. Defensive tackle Mark Smith and linebacker Tony McCombs are in their second year. The ancient veteran is perennial Pro Bowl cornerback Aeneas Williams, who is in his eighth season.
‘One of the things I wanted to do this year was raise the productivity of the guys around me,” said Williams, who was voted to his fifth straight Pro Bowl. “I want to be remembered as having impacted someone else’s life. To see Corey develop and the others develop is an awesome thing. There’s a scripture that says if people come together and believe and have one common objective, nothing that they imagine will be withheld from them. And as team we have a common objective.’
Also give credit to coach Vince Tobin, who has taken his team from the brink of elimination to within one win of the AFC championship game.
The Cowboys had hurt his team with their running game in the first two meetings as Emmitt Smith totaled 242 yards in the two Dallas wins. But Tobin switched from a four-man front to a five-man front Saturday and limited the Cowboys to just 96 yards rushing.
He also made his players ignore all the talk of the Cardinals past that said they had not won a playoff game since Jack Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball and that they had beaten the Cowboys just once in 17 games.
‘I don’t care about the past, only the future,” Tobin said. “I’ve told our team all season that at some point the offense, defense and special teams will all play together for 60 minutes and we came awfully close to getting that done (against Dallas).’
