Cardinals Corner: Boldin practices, Edge speaks his mind
On Thursday the Cardinals welcomed Anquan Boldin back to the field albeit on a slightly limited basis which is great news for Cardinals fans as Boldin is their glue guy, blocking downfield, moving the chains, and hopefully still going over the middle while still protecting his body. He is still listed as questionable for Sunday’s game against Carolina in an NFC showdown. The Cards are hopeful to be at full strength because this is a true statement game after arriving on the scene with their win over mostly full strength Dallas two weeks ago.
Reports have practices going crisply as coach Ken Whisenhunt knows his team must do the little things and be on their toes against this fundamentally sound and very good defensive Carolina Panthers. Look for X-Factor Tim Hightower to play a bigger role in the passing game as it is close to impossible to just line up in the I formation and pound the ball against these Panthers who have been dominant against opposing backs this season, so they will look to get him the ball in space, which will hopefully get Carolina to move to a cover 2 attack to stop Hightower which will open up the downfield passing game with Fitzgerald. Another thing to look for this week will be whether or not Steve Breaston will still have an impact on the Cardinals offense with Boldin back, as his big play ability as well as crisp route running were imperative to the Cardinals success the past 2 weeks before the bye. On the other side of the ball I would be looking to see if the Cardinals can continue to get pressure of the edge from their ends Travis Laboy, Bertand Berry, and Antonio Smith, because the Cardinals are going to need to let Karlos Dansby and Chike Okeafor play their standard gaps out of the linebacker position as the Panthers have an imposing pair of backs that they will go to early and often in DeAngelo Williams who has scored 4 touchdowns in his last 3 games, as well as rookie Jonathan Stewart who has made quite an impression during the first half this season, which all of course sets up the play action pass to their superstar WR Steve Smith, who broke out of his slump last week making a spectacular grab in traffic for over 60 yards in the endzone.
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This game is a matchup of two teams who really look like they are hitting their stride so it should be a tooth and nail battle to the end, which means there shouldn’t be any distractions during the week leading up the game right? Wrong, as highly paid running back Edgerrin James had this to say to the press about his amount of touches and loss of playing time to Hightower. "I don't want to just be on a team; I like to play," he said. "If I'm not playing, it's not serving a purpose. What purpose is it serving? I don't want to feel like I'm selfish but you want to play.” Throwing this kind of thing out there on a week like this is the complete definition of selfish Edge, you should be happy your workload is going down after all those years of being the hoss in Indy, but that is here nor there as he can say whatever he wants, one thing will not change, and that is Tim Hightower is here to stay so everyone is just going to have to find a way to deal with it and keep distractions out of the locker room. Coach Whisenhunt spoke on the Jim Rome show on Thursday and basically said that even though he doesn’t have a problem with Edge wanting the ball, because he believes every great player thinks that way, his touches will probably not change as things are going good in Arizona now and it not the time to coddle ego’s. I am glad coach has decided to try to brush this off as nothing, and luckily ESPN has not ran away with the story because right now we all know they are covering Brett Favre’s phone conversations so this has kind of gone on the back burner and shouldn’t be a problem as long as Edge does not fire back again before game time.
All in all this is a great week to be a Cardinal fan, and if they win it might actually be a good time to start hopping on this bandwagon, and the beauty of it all is they will be in first place in their division win or lose on Sunday so they will be able to regroup if they suffer a tough loss and keep the train moving forward.
By Dan Sausville
ProFootball-fans.com Arizona Cardinals Correspondent