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[ Watch The Birdie III, The Feathery Thing Strikes Back (Page 20) ] NFC Divisional Round - Arizona Cardinals (10-6) @ Washington Redskins (10-6) So then. "So then." The Potomac Drainage-Basin Indigenous Persons. "The Potomac Drainage-Basin Indigenous Persons." Stop that. "Stop that." No, seriously. Knock it off. "No, seriously. Knock it off." Quit it! "Quit it!" You're really starting to annoy me, now. "I know." Gah. Two games in, and I'm sick to death of you already. "Well, I wouldn't worry too much. You're about to get knocked out of the playoffs, then you won't have to see me again 'till the next time you qualify. Saaaaay... 2009? 2010?" Excuse me - didn't you tell me last week that we were definitely boned? And how did that turn out, hmmmm? "Fluke. You're not going to get lucky twice on the bounce. And if ever a team was set up to take you to pieces, this one is it." How so? "Your defence's best attribute is that it's OK against the run, right?" Well... we were 17th in the league. I suppose that's okay if you compare it to the rest of our defensive stats. "Hmmm. Well, being decent run-stoppers means nothing against Washington, because they don't have a running game that we're aware of. How did you do against the pass?" Mumble, mumble. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." 32nd. As well you know. "Oops." Pah. You can make statistics prove anything you like. "Soooo... you mean that your giving up nearly 4000 passing yards this year doesn't actually mean your secondary sucks?" Exactly. Don't bother me with trivial numbers. Now, specifically, what are the Indigenous-Persons bringing to the party? "Specifically, you should be worried about Ramsey-to-Gardner and, especially, Ramsey-to-Coles. There aren't any scrubs playing wide receiver for the Redskins, so you'll need to keep an eye on everyone, but it's those two who'll really hurt you. Their secondary is also outstanding - probably because they get to see about nine thousand pass-plays a week in practice." Are you planning on giving me any good news? "The front seven is nothing special, Jeremiah Trotter aside. If you can get Marcel Shipp into rhythm on the ground, you might be able to control time of possession and wear the defence out." Oh, well, that sounds... "Might, mind you. Only might." - Green Bay might have been a grudge-match. It might have been vengeance. It might have been about payback. But now, for the first time, we face a team who're actively a force for evil in the universe, who're servants of the Dark Side. Always there are two - a master and an apprentice. Sith Lord Darth Snyder and his boot-faced performing monkey-boy padawan, Darth Spurrier. And so we come to the Death Star in the Pontomac drainage basin armed with our photon torpedoes of... er... having good receivers and our lightsabre of... um... I probably should have thought a bit harder about that metaphor before I set out on it, really. We lose the toss and will have to kick away. The wind is blowing straight across the field, offering neither end an advantage, so we pick one more or less at random. And it's game on. First play of the game, and Pat Ramsey comes out firing. He gets half a sight of Taylor Jacobs on the out and finesses a little pass in toward the slot receiver. With not quite enough finesse, as it turns out - Jed Bowden starts this game like he ended the last one, with a big play, getting underneath the pattern and going up to get the ball. There's thirty yards of wide open space between him and the endzone, and the outcome is never in doubt. That's the way to start a game! ARI 7-0 WAS Back come the Indigenous-Persons, running and shooting, and despite being able to almost ignore the run we can't get close enough to Ramsey to be able to force a stop. We finally give ourselves a chance at our own 40, but on 3rd and 10 our coverage gets drawn downfield by a series of deep routes by the wideouts, and Trung Canidate wheels out of the backfield into the gap, taking a short pass 40 yards for the score. Nicely designed play. You arsehole. ARI 7-7 WAS Ah, but we're not a team who let little setbacks get us down. Okay, we are, but not in this case. The Indigenous-Persons bring seven on a 3rd and 4, Jeff Blake rolls cooly away from trouble and hits Macca, his hot read, on the out for a 19-yard gain. A couple of plays later, a play-fake sucks in the Washington linebackers and it's Macca again, into the gab behind them to the tune of 29 yards, taking play down to the Indigenous-Person 6. Guess who? Yep, it's big, bad Marcel Shipp, the baddest man in the whole damn... er... chip. I suppose. Dodgy rhyme-scheme or no dodgy rhyme-scheme, he smashes over the line to put us back in front. ARI 14-7 WAS We've still got exactly sod-all answer to the Washington passing-game, and they drive down to our red-zone without any real difficulty. Gah. We need a play, so I take my life in my hands, cross my fingers and dial up a seven-man blitz. What the hell? They're going to score anyway, you know? It looks like the gamble's failed as Ramsey winds up to fire at a wide-open Rod Gardner, but just as he's about to release, Paul Grasmanis arrives from behind. The ball spirals crazily ten yards straight up and back, coming to ground near the right sideline and bounding forward where Tay Cody, showing admirable presence of mind, falls on the damn thing to secure the turnover. Woo hoo!
But not for long. Tay Cody, who's led the team by miles this year in passes defended and whose big strength all season has been his mental discipline, has decided to save his biggest blunder for our biggest game. He goes walkabout when, on the whole, he probably ought to have been covering Rod Gardner, and Gardner is only prevented from going all the way by Jed Bowden's blazing catch-up speed from the other corner. All the same, it's first down at our 1, and Ramsey makes short work of converting that with a quarterback keeper. Damn. ARI 14-14 WAS However, a hallmark of our team is how we respond to a crisis. Specifically, we normally manage to find a way of making matters worse. Jeff Blake goes a-looking for Marcel Shipp on a swing-pass, somehow fails to notice Fred Smoot between him and the receiver and 30 yards later we're behind for the first time all evening. Damn. Again. ARI 14-21 WAS There's still plenty of time left on the clock, so we don't allow ourselves to become panicked, we don't get knocked out of our game-plan, we just drive calmly downfield, spreading the ball about and using everyone, first down at the Washington 31. The defence lines up in an overload on the strongside, so we audible into a counter-weak run. Johnno makes a lovely block on the outside, and Marcel shows a ton of patience, waiting 'till Lenny Davis and James Hodgins have opened up a freeway-sized running-lane before bursting through it and racing untouched to the endzone. Nice. Two minutes left, ARI 21-21 WAS
Can we hang on to a tie-game 'till the half? What do you think? Ramsey is playing like he's Dan Marino reincarnated (what do you mean Dan Marino isn't dead? Didn't you see Ace Ventura? I've never seen anyone so stiff) and no matter what we do - tight coverage, loose coverage, man, zone, blitz - we can't stop him finding a receiver. It's almost a relief when Rod Gardner drags across the front of the endzone, as open as open can be, to bring the drive and the half to a close. We're still in this, just about, but we desperately need to find an answer to Ramsey in the second half. ARI 21-28 WAS - Well, on the upside we've not really shown any signs of this turning into a hangover game following the excitement of beating the Packers. On the downside, the only times we've stopped their offence is when they've more or less stopped themselves. On the upside of the downside, time of possession is firmly in our favour, and hopefully that'll help us as the game goes on and the Indigenous-Person front 7 starts to wear down. Hopefully. With that in mind it's a controlled drive that starts the second half, power-running and short passing that moves us 50 yards in five minutes and ends with Whosamaflip Gramatica making no mistake on a 42-yard field-goal that cuts the deficit to 4. ARI 24-28 WAS And good God almighty, if the defence doesn't do its bit, as well. Pressure on Ramsey forces him to hurry and he overthrows Gardner by a smidgeon - enough of a smidgeon for Jed Bowden to reach in for his second pick of the day and his third of the playoffs. For a change, we can't convert the short field and Gramatica comes in to add another figgie from close range. ARI 27-28 WAS It looks ominous when Chad Morton brings the ensuing kickoff out to the Indigenous-Persons 46, but our defence continues its decent second-half play by holding them to a long John Hall figgie to end the third quarter. ARI 27-31 WAS I think this is what they technically call a "shootout". So far there's only been one drive in the entire game that hasn't ended in points or a turnover. Oh, spoke too soon. Three and out. Damn. We still can't stop the bloody Redskin offence moving the ball, though, or at least we can't 'till they reach our red-zone and the field becomes too crowded for Ramsey to thread the pass, forcing Hall back onto the field for another kick. An absolutely vital stop, that one - with 7 minutes left coming back from two scores down would be a very tough ask. ARI 27-34 WAS Right. That's it. Time to stop messing about. If we want back into this game, we need to make a play right friggin' now. Josh Scobey tries to bring the kickoff out of the endzone, but gets cut down at the 15. Great. First down, Blake drops back... sack. Great. 2nd and 17 at our 8. Hmmm. The plan is to run a quick, high-percentage route just to get some of those yards back and give us a fighting chance on 3rd down. So it's a quick slant to Mr. Reliable - or, to be more exact, Mr. Johnson. Johnno gets a clean release off the line, Jeff Blake hits him in-stride, as he's been doing all year, and the receiver turns upfield. Fred Smoot makes The Least Successful Attempt At A Tackle In The History Of Professional Sport - not only missing Johnno by a good three yards but in the process diving across his safety's line of running. By the time the defenders have disentangled themselves, Bryant Johnson has a five-stride head start - and there's no-one who's going to catch him giving away that much. 92 yards, Steve Spurrier looks like he's swallowed a bar of soap, game on. ARI 34-34 WAS
How much do I hate Rod Gardner? Hmm. About five times more than I did before he took a simple post-pattern 80 yards and wiped off the parity we'd fought hard to regain in one fell bloody swoop. Gah. ARI 34-41 WAS Still six minutes to play, though, so it's not like we're out of this just yet. The way this is going, the game's going to fall to the team who end up with the ball last, so we just have to pull ourselves together and make it happen. Let's get it on. Neck or nothing. No guts, no glory. Grace under pressure. Buy one, get one free. You don't get anything for a pair, not in this game. Etcetera. That'll be a three-and-out, then. Jolly good. And, naturally, the Washington offence goes right through us like prunes through a short grandmother. Again, we stop them in the red zone, but they've eaten three minutes of clock and advanced out to a ten-point lead. 2:52 to play, ARI 34-44 WAS Two scores. Three minutes. If any offence can do it, ours can... Oh. It can't. Jeff Blake throws the game-icing interception, and the Indigenous Persons are headed to the NFC championship while we're heading home. They've managed a net 4 yards rushing, but Patrick Ramsey has sort've partially made up for that, totalling over 500 yards through the air. We were close, we were damned close, but as any fool knows that only counts in horseshoes, hand-grenades and lawn-bowls. Final score, ARI 34-44 WAS [
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