You know how it is when you're packing for a trip. There are just times when you forget to stuff something in the suitcase. That's what happened to Carson Palmer on the way out to Detroit — forgot to put his knee brace in his bag. So for the first time since he hurt his knee last year, Palmer played without it Sunday in the easy win.
What's the best way to make that work? Run the ball. And that's exactly what the Cardinals did: 187 yards on the ground. I mean, there were only 25 rushing attempts, and three of those were Drew Stanton kneeldowns to end the game, but the Cardinals only went back to pass 20 times total anyway.
(That's what happens when the offense is efficient and the defense gets turnovers for short fields; 45 offensive plays, compared to 89 for the Lions. Detroit threw 70 passes, for goodness sake.)
Palmer was efficient, knee brace or no. He was 11-for-14 for three touchdown passes. But that run game … the Cardinals were fairly sure Chris Johnson had something left but like this? He has 405 yards in five games, and that's after barely playing the opener. Toss in Andre Ellington — who showed what he can do with his 63-yard touchdown romp — and the Cards are in better shape running the ball than … well, a long time. I've been covering this team since 2000, and it's easily the best running game the Cardinals have had since then.
-- The Cardinals have to hope the calf injury of Alex Okafor isn't serious. They need him as a pass rusher. It's eerie — when Okafor suffered a serious biceps injury in 2013 against the Saints, it was in the game that was the front end of the Cards' week away from Arizona. Let's hope it's not a repeat. Sean Weatherspoon doesn't play that spot, although Weatherspoon will need to play given Kenny Demens' knee injury. Weatherspoon hasn't played special teams. Does that change now, with Demens — who was very good on special teams — down?
-- Fitz had his quietest day of the year, but he had five catches for 58 yards and his sixth touchdown. And the 26-yard catch he had to set up his own TD? What hands, what concentration.
-- Tight end Darren Fells scored the first touchdown of the game for the Cardinals on a nice catch of his own. It has to be an emotional time for Fells, whose brother Daniel, a New York Giants tight end, is battling a bad staph infection in his foot. Fells said he'd rather not talk about the situation.
-- Arians said defensive line coach Brentson Buckner recognized the Lions' formation and was able to predict the screen pass that was intercepted — oh so nimbly — by defensive end Cory Redding. Arians later said it was really a lucky guess, when he was asked if the Lions' plays were telegraphed.
-- The gutsy bomb from the Cardinals' own end zone from Palmer to Smokey Brown, which went for 49 yards, was pure Bruce Arians. Sometimes I think Arians loves taking deep shots from deep in his own end more than anything.
-- Patrick Peterson, who is one of the guys who runs the players-only defensive meeting Fridays, said if he would have realized Redding had been drafted by the Lions and played his first six years in Detroit, he would have had Redding speak. "It was a big game for him," Peterson said, and Redding punctuated it with his pick.
-- It's late here in West Virginia. The Cardinals, for the first time on these East Coast-stay-back-a-week trips, have won the first leg (Lost in Washington in 2008, lost in New Orleans in 2013.) There's work ahead at The Greenbrier, and the Cardinals will try for the sweep in Pittsburgh.
In the meantime, stay tuned to azcardinals.com. We're here all week, chronicling the stay.
