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Week 6 - Arizona Cardinals (5-0) @ Washington Redskins (3-2) +4

And so once again we take up arms against those responsible for all that is evil, rotten and corrupt in society - no, not the cast of Friends, although credit given for a good guess - in the shape of Lord Voldemort, Dobby The Elf and the StupidBowl champion Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous-Persons.

The attentive reader* will recall that it was these very same Indigenous-Persons who cruelly dumped us from the playoffs last year in the Divisional round off the back of a 500-yard day from have-the-blokes-who-do-stats-for-Madden-ever-seen-this-guy-actually-play? beneficiary Patrick Ramsey.

It's fair to say that not everything has gone entirely to plan in the Persons' attempt to retain their title. While the usual suspects - Coles, Gardner, Canidate. that expensively-assembled o-line - remain in place on offence, a fractured foot suffered by Jeremiah Trotter has inflicted more damage on a defence which, lest we forget, was no great shakes even last year. The unit now pretty much consists of Jesse Armstead, Fred Smoot, Champ Bailey and eight guys who can lace their shoes up two times out of three.

Some of you** might recall that Jed Bowden had two interceptions in that defeat in Washington, seemingly kick-starting our current happy knack for forcing turnovers. Facing an offence that ranks 6th in the NFL in terms of points scored, you have to feel we're going to need our D to continue that trend if we're to come out of this with another tick in the W column.

* = ie, DolFan.

**= ummm... still DolFan, really.

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The Person defence wastes no time in confirming that they are, as suspected, utterly useless as absolutely everything we try in the game's opening drive seems to work including, God help us, a quarterback-keeper from a yard out to put the first points on the board. However, the Person offence wastes no time in confirming that they are, as suspected, quite useful as absolutely everything they try on their first drive seems to work including, God help us, a Trung Canidate plunge from a yard out to level the scores.

Admittedly in the Persons' case, "everything they try" amounts to "short passes, long passes and, for a change of pace, some intermediate passes", but you know.

For our part, we've finally found a front 7 that Marcel Shipp seems to be effective against. The sun's out, it's a lovely day, we're in no real hurry and so take five and a half minutes to stroll 70 yards, big Marcel doing the honours from close range and midway through the second quarter it's ARI 14-7 WAS

Good God, it's a defensive stop! And another! And another! What is the world coming to? Ah, but here comes the last two minutes of the half, which predictably means that my secondary decides to knock off early and allow Ramsey carte blanche to move the ball as he likes. With a minute and a half to the break, he hits Rod Gardner over the top of nickel linebacker Skip Benson, and we're level-pegging once again.

So, with ninety seconds on the clock and eighty yards of field to defend, what genius call comes in from the Redskin sideline? A safety-blitz, that's what. Freddie Jones finds an acre of space up the seam and that's 15 yards and a first down. "Ah!" thinks the Person braintrust. "What's the very last thing they'll be expecting on this play? I know, exactly what we tried and failed on for the last play!"

Ideal, Holmes. Okay, so this time it's Anquan Boldin who gets left in single coverage, dodges a Champ Bailey tackle and takes off downfield. Alright, so a desperate attempt to cover back by rookie safety Andre Lott ends in the mother of all stiff-arms and a 60-yard score but all credit to Washington - that really was the very last thing we were expecting. Half time, ARI 21-14 WAS

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First play of the second half, and we send one of our rare full blitzes as a bit of a change of pace. Levar Fisher comes off the edge way too fast for the tight end assigned to block him and bears down on Patrick Ramsey with bloody murder in his eyes. The young quarterback sees that his tight end appears to have gotten open, gives thanks to God and heaves it in that direction a nanosecond before the linebacker is due to arrive and relocate Ramsey's sternum to somewhere down by his kneecap.

The QB has, however, reckoned without former Super Bowl MVP Dexter Jackson who goes from looking absolutely miles out of the play to being Johnny-On-The-Spot with alacrity that Speedy Gonzales wouldn't have been ashamed off. Jackson reaches in and takes the ball away for the first turnover of the day.

He swerves outside, beats Rock Cartwright to the pylon by just a couple of steps and crosses the goal-line airbourne to put us two touchdowns ahead.

The pick seems to knock the stuffing out of the formerly-potent Persons offence, and they stumble and bumble their way to a punt that leads to our icing score - ironically a broken play in which Jeff Blake rolls out left and is forced to keep rolling as the entire Person linebacker corps comes belting after him. There's absolutely no options available downfield... or rather there isn't until a brilliant piece of Anquan Boldin improvisation, breaking off his route to sidle sneakily across the field and find a little gap between the hashmarks. Blake wastes little time wondering how the defence have managed to misplace a 6'1", 220-pound two-time Pro-Bowler and instead gives the pass what my grandad would have described as "plenty of welly". 9-yard TD, 21 point lead, end of the 3rd quarter  and it's pretty much a case of th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks.

We tack on an extra couple of touchdowns (for Johnno and Marcel)  late on, though, because if you can't take a golden opportunity to put the boot into the bloody Potomac Drainage-Basin Indigenous-Persons, then what sort of sick, sad world are we living in, eh?

Last week we had less than 250 yards of offence. This week, we've held the opposition to less than 250 yards of offence. The wheel turns does it not, Ambassador? More importantly, both games have been wins, this one by ARI 49-14 WAS - 6-0, baby, and revenge is a dish best served in Steve Spurrier's face.

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(c) daniel roe 2004