Cardinals’ “Hail Larry” trumps Rodgers’ Hail Mary

As everything turned into a jumble on Saturday, Aaron Rodgers and Larry Fitzgerald made the game slow down. To be fair, there were were two exciting plays in the first three quarters, both of which didn’t count- a Randall Cobb one-handed grab that was called back for a penalty, and a 100-yard INT return by the Cards that was, you guessed it, also called back on a penalty. The 32-year-old darted through tacklers for 75 yards as the screaming Cardinals fans finally drowned out the visiting Cheeseheads. They ran the ball 19 times for only 40 yards. The Cardinals opened the scoring with Carson Palmer to Michael Floyd 8 yard touchdown pass, but the excitement in tis game would come much later in the 4th quarter and overtime.

Asked about Fitzgerald, Palmer said: “Special…I mean he’s just a special player, he plays well in big games, as simple of a word as special is it describes him, probably the best”. Rodgers finished the regular season with 510 yards on 58 receptions (8.8 YPR) with eight touchdowns. “I tried to guess the trajectory of it. I saw it coming down and just tried to jump up and make a play”.

Arizona advanced to the NFC championship game against the victor of Monday’s game between Carolina and Seattle.

Last year, Green Bay blew a big second-half lead at Seattle and lost the NFC title game in overtime.

Rodgers, in a play reminiscent of his final-play heave against Detroit this season, took the snap with 5 seconds to go in regulation, scrambled around and heaved it 41 yards to the end zone.

Larry Fitzgerald took a shovel pass in for an eight yard game winning touchdown in overtime as Arizona topped the Green Bay Packers 26-20. At the goal line Jeff Janis jumped up between Patrick Peterson and Rashad Johnson and somehow came down with it on the “Z” of the end zone.

“I think he was just trying to avoid the embarrassment of what just happened and flip it quickly”, Rodgers said. On to overtime…well first the coin toss. Fortunately for the Cardinals, the defense regrouped and held Green Bay to a Mason Crosby 28-yard field goal. Physics, too. Each team made some of the more preposterous plays that took place on an National Football League field all season, and they did it in the span of a few minutes in a game both teams needed to win to survive in the playoffs. Rodgers found Randall Cobb for a 51-yard gain late in the first quarter but it was wiped off because of an illegal shift on tackle Bryan Bulaga (to add injury to insult, Cobb hurt his chest on the reception and never returned).

A odd play had given Arizona a 17-13 lead with 3:44 to play.

Larry Fitzgerald’s remarkable 75-yard catch and run set up his game-winning touchdown as the Arizona Cardinals survived a wild finish with a 26-20 overtime triumph over the Green Bay Packers on Saturday.

With 55 seconds left, Green Bay was pushed back into a fourth-and-20 at its 4. Facing a 4th and 20 from their own 4 yard line Rodgers dropped back into the end zone, circled out to his left and threw up a bomb from the goal line.

Aaron Rodgers threw a flat footed hail mary pass falling to his left with Markus Golden bearing down on him.

The Cardinals made the questionable decision to rush seven players. We’re glad to get this one behind us.

Palmer threw a high pass into the corner of the end zone, and Floyd snatched it over his head while getting one foot down and dragging his other foot to stay in bounds.

Through his first 12 seasons as a pro, Palmer did not have a playoff victory.

“It was a roller coaster on the sidelines”, Arizona coach Bruce Arians said. Fitzgerald, who lost his own mother to breast cancer, was sure to let the world know that he and the rest of the Cardinals were thinking about him and encouraged the commentator to keep fighting.