Cardinals beat Eagles 40-17 to clinch NFC West

David Johnson ran for 187 yards and three touchdowns, Carson Palmer threw a TD pass and the Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Eagles 40-17 on Sunday night to clinch their first NFC West title since 2009.

The Eagles trailed 17-10 at halftime and 23-10 midway through the third quarter.

Johnson says they’re learning together and continuing to grow as the season continues.

“It depends on where we are”, Kelly said. “We’ve still got a shot”.

The first giveaway occurred after the Eagles had fallen behind by 13 and needed to answer. Bradford lost the ball on a sack by Markus Golden at Arizona’s 44 and Ryan Mathews turned it over at midfield. The secondaries of those defenses stand out the most as there isn’t a weakness there among the three teams. Kelly chose to pass up a field goal and go for the first down, hoping to tie the game with a touchdown.

“We just keep taking steps forward”. Kelly fielded more questions about Murray’s role than anything else in two media sessions since the game ended.

“I just found my blockers and found the hole and broke a couple of tackles, and the next thing you know, I was in the end zone”, Johnson said.

On defense the Cardinals forced four turnovers, one going for a TD! Mathews started the drive with a 20-yard run on the first play and Bradford connected with Zach Ertz over the middle for a 22-yard TD pass.

Head coach Chip Kelly heaped support on his quarterback following his week 14 performance against the Buffalo Bills, heavily suggesting that the Eagles will make a big push for a Bradford act 2.

Next came the knockout. He thinks ‘I’m 63 years old, this is my last gig.

It appeared Bradford expected Mathews to break in instead of out, but Kelly negated that notion Monday. With one win, everyone on the team then would get a bye week and precious extra rest, plus the home advantage, before heading into what is certain to be a certified survival test in the NFC.

“Sam just threw it behind him”. The Eagles still control their postseason hopes entering the final two games. Teams like Arizona are the teams the Eagles would have to beat eventually, and at least a close loss would have sent confidence through the roof. DeMarco Murray carried the ball a total of 2 times for 3 yards on Sunday Night, this is the reigning National Football League leading rusher, the guy who was potentially one game away from breaking the all-time rushing record.

That said, it wasn’t all bad. He had Riley Cooper open but underthrew him, and Tyrann Mathieu picked it off and also tore his ACL on the play (see NFL Notes).

-QB Sam Bradford, who injured his non-throwing shoulder in Week 10 against Miami, aggravated the injury Sunday night when he was hit. Any one of the Cardinals’ skill players is a threat. Ryan Mathews was stopped for no gain on fourth-and-1 from the Cardinals 8 in the first half. The touchdown was a career-long for Matthews. “But next week is going to be here before we know it, so we have to have a short memory and put this game behind us”. “They had something to fight for, but so did we”. “We just had too many self-inflicted wounds to really do anything”. “We knew they were going to be inside and we were trying to get the ball to the perimeter on the DBs”. “It’s just ‘be smart.’ You don’t have to take all those blows to the body because those will really end up adding up”. If we take care of the ball, we score on a lot of those drives.

Comparatively, it has taken the Rookie of the Year frontrunner, Gurley, an average of ten attempts for every big rushing play. It was a tough battle, but we came out on top. It just went straight.