While the Arizona Cardinals have absolutely earned the right to host this playoff game, this group of Eagle players and coaching staff has been preparing to play in this game for nearly a decade.
It was already suggested that the Cardinals "want" this game more.
How can a team that's never been to an NFC championship want it more than a team without a Super Bowl victory that's been here 5 times?
You think any single player on that field today wants this win more than Donovan McNabb?
Alot of negative and frankly ridiculous things have been said about him in this post and while there may be justification for some of it, to call him an "average" quarterback is just plain wrong. We all know it, and he'll prove that today. This is possibly the most calm and collected he's ever looked in his career. He's not going to throw this game.
The scope of this game and the emotional effect it has on it's participants is huge, and you can't even compare these two teams in that regard.
I won't rehash all the statistics that IrishEyez and Riteside already posted in the Eagles favor, but needless to say, they're hard to ignore.
What I really believe is the bottom line, is that the Arizona Cardinals are about to reminded what playing football in the NFC East feels like, and I know that even a bitter Giant fan would have to agree with that, and I fully expect the Eagles to be the more physical team today.
It was also suggested earlier in this post that the Cardinals have way too much offense for the "defensive-minded" Eagle defense - the quotation marks suggesting that defense is just some kind of fancy idea or mood the Eagles hope to emulate . . . .
I can't even begin to express how silly, short-sighted, and clearly uninformed that statement is.
Besides the fact that the statistics speak for themselves, I think the two pro-bowlers in the Eagle backfield might have something to say about that as well, one of whom has already been called a "bum" in this post?
You talking about the same guy who's made 2 huge interceptions for scores in the past two weeks?
Again, the Cardinals are playing great football and they fully deserve to be here, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is a close game . . . but Arizona, from top to bottom, is overmatched in this game, from coaching staff to player right on down the ladder, and they aren't ready for a game of this scope, against a team with this much playoff experience.
The Eagles minus the chalk is the play