Vikings, Packers showdown rescheduled for late start Sunday

The Packers lost to the Arizona Cardinals earlier today, falling 38-8 in Phoenix.

NOTES: Cardinals S Rashad Johnson missed his second straight game with an ankle injury.

“There were moments in the game, defensively, that it’s the best we’ve played, but I thought we played better in Seattle”, said Arians, always seeing room for improvement. “We’ve just got to hold serve, if you will, next week at home and give us a chance to win a playoff game at home and come right back here and beat a good football team”. Perhaps, still this one was an in depth second.

Arizona sacked Aaron Rodgers eight times and returned two fumbles for touchdowns in a 38-8 rout of the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

“When your defense is playing like that, you’re better off just making them tackle 235 pounds”, quarterback Carson Palmer said.

Taking advantage of Green Bay’s shoddy O-line, Arizona (13-2) had nine sacks, its most since 1986 and third-most in team history. Then starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga left with another ankle injury.

“We have a standard that we have set around here”, Rodgers said, “and we just haven’t lived up to it consistently”.

There has been scattered evidence of discord between quarterback and head coach this season, but Rodgers definitely seemed frustrated with McCarthy’s play-calling and game plan against Arizona in his postgame press conference on Sunday.

Nearly nothing. Scoreless for more than 2 1/2 quarters, Rodgers dumped the ball off to tailback Eddie Lacy for a 28-yard touchdown that ended the drought.

Things got so out of hand, Packers coach Mike McCarthy chose to remove Rodgers with 9:56 left to play and insert Scott Tolzien. They were overmatched by Calais Campbell who had two and a half sacks and Dwight Freeney who had a career high three. Michael Floyd finished with six catches for 111 yards, Johnson with 88 receiving and 39 rushing yards while Larry Fitzgerald and John Brown added touchdown catches. It’s his fifth time over 100 yards receiving in seven games.

After punting on their first two possessions of the game, the Cardinals scored the next two times they had the ball.

In recent years, the National Football League has scheduled divisional games for Week 17 in the hope of creating more playoff-relevant matchups for the regular season’s final week.

Quarterback Ryan Mallet made his first appearance for the Ravens and completed 28 of 41 passes for 274 yards, including a touchdown and no interceptions. “When you got guys like Pat on the outside, you got to know if you’re the opposite corner you’re going to get a lot of work”, Bethel said.