The Cardinals have been the NFL's surprise team this year with an undefeated record, although three of their four victories were by a small margin. Like every team, Arizona has their weaknesses. The Dolphins did a good job of exploiting some of them last week, but couldn’t seal the deal with an upset victory. Even though Arizona is the favorite to win this week and remain undefeated, the Rams have some of the same strengths as Miami. They could follow a similar blueprint of taking advantage of certain players in order to keep the game close and give them a chance in the fourth quarter. Here are three matchups that St. Louis can take advantage of to give the Cardinals their first loss of the season, and give the Rams a winning record for the first time since early in the 2006 season.
Bobby Massie vs. Chris Long
Fourth-round rookie Bobby Massie was thrust into the lineup at right tackle this season. These last two weeks have been two to forget for Massie, as he’s gone up against Jason Babin and Cameron Wake. Over those two games he has given up seven sacks, which is more than any player has given up in four games this year. He has also allowed two hits and eight hurries against the star defensive ends.
His life won’t be getting any easier this week going up against pass rushing specialist Chris Long. Long has played all 212 of his snaps on the left side of the field, which means it will be Massie’s job to block Long on the vast majority of snaps. On the surface it doesn’t seem like Long has had a great start to 2012 with just two sacks. However, if you look a little deeper, you’ll see that he has at least five pressures in each game this year. Long also has the third highest Pass Rushing Productivity of all players with at least 50 pass rushes, at 15.3. When Kevin Kolb is pressured, he gets sacked 27.9% of the time which is the fifth highest in the league. Its quite a possibility that Long should not only cause a lot of pressure, but could very well see his sack total increase this week.
Danny Amendola vs. William Gay
When the Cardinals go into a nickel defense, typically it is William Gay who covers the slot receiver. Last week, Gay had one of his worst games as a pro trying to cover Davone Bess. Gay allowed four catches for 72 yards while missing two tackles, and would have allowed another catch had Bess not dropped it. Outside of that he also allowed a 57-yard catch by Brian Hartline. Over the season, Gay has allowed 152 yards while lining up as a slot corner, which is the second most in the league.
Instead of going up against the receiver with the fifth most slot receiving yards in Bess, he is going up against the one with the third most slot receiving yards in Danny Amendola. When Amendola lines up in the slot for a pass play, he is the target 32.0% of the time which is the second highest. He then catches those targets 77.4% of the time, which is the highest for receivers with at least 15 slot targets. It will be no surprise when Amendola sees eight or more targets in this game, as he has in every game this season.
Cardinals Receivers vs. Rams Secondary
In 2011 Arizona won both matchups against St Louis in close games in large part thanks to their run game. Over the two matchups they had 338 rushing yards on 54 attempts for a 6.3 rushing average. Without Beanie Wells, who has been placed on the new designated for return injured reserve list with turf toe, and a struggling offensive line, the run game hasn’t been much of an asset in 2012. In four games they’ve just had 275 yards on 102 attempts for a meager 2.7 average.
This means if the Cardinals want offense, it will need to be via the passing game. The duo of Larry Fitzgerald (+3.5) and Andre Roberts (+1.4) have both been valuable resources in the passing game recently. Fitzgerald has tallied 178 receiving yards over the last two weeks with Roberts having 173. Both are both big reasons why Arizona has put up as many points as they have this season.
Neither player had great games against St. Louis last year, and now the Rams have upgraded all three cornerback spots. Cortland Finnegan (+6.4) was added in free agency, Janoris Jenkins (+0.7 coverage) was added in the draft and Bradley Fletcher (+5.6) has returned from injury. Quarterbacks have a rating of 64.2 when going up against St. Louis in large part thanks to these upgrades, which is the lowest rating in the league. Last week was the best we’ve seen of Kevin Kolb in Arizona with a +4.2 overall rating, but he might need to perform even better to overcome this upgraded secondary.
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