So Saturday, Bruce Arians was blunt when saying why the Cardinals threw the ball with a little more than two minutes left and the Packers having no timeouts on second-and-8: "I play to win." In the couple of days since, Arians admitted a run had been called but there was a pass option for quarterback Carson Palmer, and when Palmer saw 10 men in the box and Larry Fitzgerald one-on-one with cornerback Sam Shields, Palmer decided to take the shot.

We know the result: An incompletion, and even with a run on third down, the Packers were left with 35 or 40 more seconds on the clock then they might have had. That was then, and this is now. Arians was asked if the results might influence how the play might be called if a similar situation comes up again -- say, Sunday night in Carolina.

"No," Arians said. (He always starts out blunt, right?) "We had the running play called and it was a bad running play. We had 10 guys, we've got Larry Fitzgerald one-on-one, that's as good as a running play."

In terms of play calling, Arians said the same about the decision to blitz Aaron Rodgers on the Hail Mary instead of keeping a bunch of guys deep. "I don't know if anybody else can make that throw, but we had them dead to rights and we didn't defend the back end."

The second-down playcall caught the attention of many national types (Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth were certainly disagreeing while calling the game for NBC) but anyone watching this team knows that's how Arians operates. And even if he does start with a running play, Arians also puts full trust in his quarterback, which is why Palmer gets the option to throw and why Arians backs his play.

It's not always conventional. It has worked (Saints, 49ers) and it hasn't worked (Ravens). But it's not going to change, not in the NFC Championship, and not in what is possible beyond that.