Cardinals prepare for a tougher rematch with Packers

Aaron Rodgers threw two touchdown passes, the Green Bay offense scored on five consecutive drives, and the Packers advanced to the NFC divisional playoffs with a 35-18 win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday at FedEx Field.

The Cardinals showed in Week 16 that they are a level higher than the Packers after routing them, 38-8.

Seattle Seahawks players celebrate after Minnesota Vikings kicker Blair Walsh (3) misses a field goal during the second half of an NFL wild-card football game, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, in Minneapolis.

Rodgers made 21 of 36 for 210 yards and two touchdowns while the Packers also made yardage on their running game. There is only two offensive players remaining the NFL Playoffs that were penalized more times than Bakhtiari in the regular season. If they can play at this same up-tempo pace and keep the Cardinals from racking up another nine sacks, they could prove that it’s hard to beat the same team twice in the same year. “I think it’s clearly something that, one of the things that we needed to improve on from prior games, and JC Tretter gave us that”. Still, though, they looked pretty great after a slow start in a throttling of the NFC East champion Redskins on the road on Sunday. The Packers found a solid replacement for Bakhtiari when jack-of-all-trades J.C. Tretter got the start.

But DeSean Jackson’s apparent touchdown was overturned and the Packers defense turned in a goal-line stand to force a 25-yard Dustin Hopkins field goal and trail only 5-0 with 4:54 remaining in the first quarter.

As Gary D’Amato of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out, only once has a Packers team who lost a game by 30 or more points and avenged that loss the same year – and that happened all the way back in 1959. “We’re going to be loose and ready to go, and it’s going to be their stadium, it’s going to be rocking, but the pressure’s going to be on them”. Every time something has been on the line, they have performed.

NOTES: The visiting team captured all four wild-card playoff games for the first time since the current format was adopted in 1990….

Rodgers suggests that the Packers will be the looser team and should be, as if that will make them the better team. The thing is, the Cardinals can not come out and just expect to do that or the Packers will open it up in a heartbeat. Hopefully for Green Bay and its fans, the quarterback won’t have retired and moved to his own island by then. The Cardinals are matching up with Green Bay’s defense at an inopportune time. Who has the best chance to make a run to state, and who has some work to do down the stretch. Rodgers threw a pair of touchdown passes to WRs Randall Cobb and Davante Adams in the second quarter to erase an 11-0 deficit, and RBs James Starks and Eddie Lacy added a pair of touchdown runs in the second half to complete the comeback.