Wild-Card Weekend — Erasing Arizona

Wild Card Recap

Arizona Cardinals 51, Green Bay Packers 45

It’s fitting that on wild-card weekend these two teams would produce 96 points, 12 touchdowns and one incredibly abrupt ending. After falling into a 14 point morass within minutes of the opening kickoff, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense proceeded to run roughshod over the Arizona Cardinals beleaguered defensive. Unfortunately for the ill-fated Packers, the Cardinals offense, led by the silver fox, Kurt Warner, walked, pushed and pulled the Packers around all afternoon in the process of scoring 51 points on what was considered to be a reasonably “awesome” Packers defense.

The second half of Sunday’s game will go down as one of the most impressive offensive barrages in the history of the NFL playoffs. In effortless repetition, each team moved the ball more than 80 yards in under four minutes in seven different drives, trading score after score and fantastic catch after catch in a blistering crescendo of offensive fireworks that transformed what appeared to be a foregone Packer loss into a rousing display that no fan in their right mind wanted to end.

In pulling the Packers back into contention and eventually tying the game twice in the fourth quarter, Rodgers silenced all but the most fickle and petty of critics. After a Neil Rackers field goal sailed left and sent the game into overtime, Charles Woodson’s correct call of tails on the coin flip all but guaranteed a Packer victory. It had to — everything else was clicking, so why wouldn’t it continue into the fifth quarter and beyond? Fate said otherwise, as Rodgers likely 80 yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings on the first play from scrimmage in overtime sailed over Jennings’ head. An overlooked helmet-to-helmet hit on the next play, followed by a heart-stabbing fumble return to clinch victory for Arizona took the wind out of Green Bay’s sails faster than anyone imagined.

It was equal parts shock and surprise watching Arizona celebrate, but unlike previous iterations of playoff failure this moment didn’t suffer from a confusion about next year. Enjoy that when it comes Vikings fans, because less than an hour after this Packers loss — a loss that was as painful as 4th-and-26 or 2007’s “final INT” — I felt fine knowing next year promised just as much excitement as this year, if not more. A young team will return with more experience and a swagger that comes from knowing you’ve figured out another piece of the puzzle. No one wanted it to end this way. But if there was any way it had to end, why not in one of the most amazing performances in playoff history?

-Rob Vosters

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We were completely wrong last week, so what the hell, there’s only one way we can go with this week’s picks (ed. –sideways?).

Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints: PUSH (Brian and Kenny pick NO; Rob and Matt pick AZ)

• The Saints may have fizzled out at the end of the season, but Arizona used all of its gas to take down the Packers. Coincidentally, fizz and gas are the cause and effect from a can of Orange Crush. — KB
• If last week’s scoring bonanza was offensive, then this tilt against a statsitically worse N’awlins defense will be downright obscene. –RV
• Arizona is ready to put the Saints to bed. New Orleans is no longer an automatic pick to win, which makes me a little angry because now I actually have to think about their games. –MK
• It’s tragicomic that the worst-played games (i.e. the NFL Blitzesque GB vs Ari game last week) usually are the most entertaining. If there were EVER a team built for button-mashing it’s the Saints, and “Throw the Ball First, Play Defense in Practice” rarely works two weeks straight. –BB

Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings: Minnesota (Kenny picks Dallas)

• It will be sweet when Favre throws everyone under the bus and comes out of retirement to play for the Canadian Football League. — KB
• Favre’s plays Jay Leno to Tony Romo’s Conan and pushes Romo out of the playoff spotlight. –RV
• Tony Romo went to Eastern Illinois. Srsly. — MK
• What’s the over/under on quarterback meltdowns for this game?  Both are prone to drama (idiocy), but if both go Chernobyl, Minnesota has a better D and run game. –BB

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Divisionaries is created by Rob Vosters (Milwaukee), Brian Howe Battle, Kenny Bernat and Matt Kroll (Chicago).