Arizona Cardinals Keys To A Win Over Oakland

Tuesday I did a preview on the Raiders and now I’m gonna talk about what the Arizona Cardinals have to do in order to win. I feel that the Raiders will be playing hard again and will be wanting to get the black hole a win in their stadium and the Cardinals will have to play good football in order for Cards to win their 5th game.

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1. Make the defensive play calls very complex

Derek Carr might be playing well, but he is still a rookie on a bad team. He will struggle if the Cardinals make their defensive plays very complicated a make it diffiuclt for Carr to read the defense. As soon as that happens, BOOM, the defense will capitalize on it and take the ball away  or get a sack. On the flip side, if the Arizona Cardinals defense is simple, like straight cover 2 or a man blitz package, Carr should have a decent day.

2. Run the ball and stop them from doing the same thing

The Arizona Cards have the best rushing defense in the league and the Raiders haven’t been able to do anything while running the ball this entire season. I expect no differently from each team. The Cards will shut down the running game and the Raiders will have no running game.

A key player in this game is running back Andre Ellington. If the Cards get him a lot of touches, he will tear apart this defense with his speed and ability to make moves. The Raiders defense has been mediocre this year but has had flashes, I don’t expect this to be a day they show those flashes.

3 NO TURNOVERS

This is in EVERYONE’S game plan. You usually win if you don’t give the opponent a short field. It really hasn’t been an issue for the Arizona Cardinals this year but turnovers have an element of luck to them. A team could have 15 turnovers in a five game stretch, but have none in the next 5 games.  That is why you must always take care of the football.

4. Focus the aerial game on going deep

The secondary of the Raiders is weak, especially when they have to play man. The Arizona Cardinals have a speedster in John Brown, two big receivers (Floyd and Fitzgerald) and a quarterback whose best aspect of his game is the deep ball. If they don’t have to rely on the running game, the deep ball should be open.

Like I said in my Raiders preview story, I expect the Arizona Cardinals to win 28-17, I changed it to 28-20 Cardinals.  The Raiders will put up a fight but the Cardinals are a better team and will be able to win this game but not easy, it will be a struggle.