Arizona Cardinals Can’t Sleep On The Carolina Panthers

The Arizona Cardinals will face the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, NC this Saturday to kick off NFL Wildcard Weekend.

Arizona struggled in their final games of the season, losing to Seattle and San Francisco. Those losses were critical, as Arizona fell from the #1 overall seed in the NFC to the #5 seed. This means that instead of having a first-round BYE and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, the Cardinals will now have to go on the road to take on the Panthers, a team they shouldn’t sleep on.

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Of course, the Cardinals are going to have to deal with all of their injuries, most notably with quarterback Drew Stanton. The Cardinals are hoping that Stanton will be able to recover from the knee injury he suffered in Week 15 and play on Saturday. Ryan Lindley showed a little promise against San Francisco, but struggled overall in the two and a half games he appeared in, so it would be best if Stanton is able to start.

The Panthers were able to come out on top of a dreadful NFC South division, finishing with a record of 7-8-1. By looking at their record, you may be thinking to yourself, “oh the Panthers are a bad team. They’ll probably lose.” You might want to take a step back and think about every detail before you come to a conclusion.

Despite finishing with an overall losing record, Carolina managed to win its last four regular season games. The Panthers will be riding some serious momentum coming into this game on Saturday and momentum is not easily found in the NFL.

Everything the Panthers do rests solely on the shoulders of franchise quarterback Cam Newton. Newton finished the year by throwing for 3,127 yards with 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

In the NFL, so many things rely on what you have done lately. What Newton has done lately (in his last three games played) is defeat the Saints, Browns and Falcons. He missed the game against Tampa Bay after he was involved in a car accident.

In his last three games, Newton threw for 541 yards, five touchdowns and one interception combined. Also, Newton had a rushing touchdown in each of those games. The Cardinals cannot sleep on Newton because he can beat you with his arm as well as his legs.

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Arizona will also have to deal with the weapons Newton has around him too.

Tight end Greg Olsen is a very skilled and dangerous player being Newton’s favorite target. While many would consider this to have been a down year for Olsen, he still caught 84 passes for 1,008 yards and six touchdowns.

Wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin found success with the Panthers in his first year in the NFL out of Florida State. The rookie caught 73 passes for 1,008 yards and nine touchdowns on the year. He proved himself to be a valuable asset for Newton this year and is a deep-ball threat.

Patrick Peterson will likely be covering Benjamin in this game, so Peterson will have to step up his game to shut him down.

The regular season is over, which means everybody gets a fresh start. That makes every player on both teams become that much more dangerous. As we have seen in the past, anything can happen, especially in these Wild Card games.

Kickoff for this one is this Saturday at 2:35 PM local time on ESPN.