Friday Five: Cardinals At Steelers

Freeney joined the Arizona Cardinals on Monday but was on the 2012 Indianapolis Colts that Arians coached for 12 games when Chuck Pagano was treated for leukemia. With another road game in the East on Sunday at Pittsburgh, the travel itinerary seemed to make plenty of sense. In 2013, they lost in New Orleans, spent a week in Tampa, and then played sluggishly before pulling out a late win against the Buccaneers. Larry Fitzgerald, who looked to be slowing down last season, ranks fifth in the National Football League with 490 receiving yards and leads everyone with six touchdown receptions. While he insists returning to the Steel City is no big deal and that he has done it before, others know better.

KEY MATCHUP: Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown vs. Arizona cornerback Patrick Peterson.

He has the team to do it, too.

It’s all First World Problems to be picking nits at 4-1, but the Cardinals don’t quite have it made just yet.

Although a few might say that’s all the more reason to get Roethlisberger back on the field after watching Michael Vick struggle mightily to get the Steelers passing game rolling, two factors make waiting at least another week the right choice. He was limited in practice this week, which provided a glimmer of hope he might be able to return.

It’s hard to be optimistic about this one if you’re a Steelers fan. I’m able to walk around just fine and step and throw.

And the long term outcome of doing that may be huge dividends later.

Let’s concentrate on football, not under-inflated footballs.

The Cardinals haven’t used the no-huddle more than a handful of times in Arians’ tenure, but the coach and his starting quarterback are proponents of it. The Cardinals worked on it all offseason and liked how it looked in training camp.

In summary, I think this is going to be a much closer game than people think.

Still, isn’t there any human part of you that wants it a little extra this week? On Wednesday, Arians said he expected Woodley to participate on Thursday. That’s what happens when you are coming off a 187-yard performance and 7.5 yards per carry as a team – and that includes three minus-one kneeldowns at the end of the game. Vick certainly has a way of getting sacked, because he’ll try to run around to extend a play. But on Thursday Goodwin joked about Iupati losing weight, and there was no hint of concern about the guard’s availability for Sunday’s game against the Steelers. Of course, Seattle was 3-3 in 2014 and wound up in the Super Bowl. “So yeah, it’s just another game on the schedule”. Because more John Brown touchdowns, mean more John Brown touchdown dances.

But Pittsburgh is the first team with a winning record that Arizona has played.

SERIES HISTORY: 59th regular-season meeting. He’s a head coach for the first time in his career.

The Cardinals’ next three opponents – Pittsburgh (16th), Baltimore (13th), and Cleveland (23rd) – all boast very middling pass defenses, according to our Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play metric, that should be exploitable matchups for Brown.

Like the Bengals, the Bills barely squeezed out a victory last week and could be without quarterback Tyrod Taylor; EJ Manuel would start.

“It’s definitely something that we can all get together and have a good time”, said Markus Wheaton, who is a co-captain of the show along with William Gay.