Cincinnati Bengals @ Arizona Cardinals

8:30 PM EST, NBC – Line: Arizona -4,  Over/Under: 48

Somebody call Doctor Who, because the timeline is all screwed up as the past, present, and future are colliding in the desert as the Arizona Cardinals host the Cincinnati Bengals at University of Phoenix Stadium in a matchup between first place teams.  What makes this game so damn intriguing is not necessarily the fact that this could very well be a potential Super Bowl preview, but for the ties that bind these two franchises, more specifically the men under Center.  In Cincinnati you have Andy Dalton, who emerged as a rookie back in 2011 to guide the Bengals to the first of four consecutive Playoff births, while in Arizona, you have the man he replaced, Carson Palmer, who departed that same season.  And in the middle lies Marvin Lewis, who drafted both men, while overseeing the grand rebuilding of a once-downtrodden franchise over the past thirteen years.  Given what they were before he arrived, the job that Lewis has done in Cincinnati (8-1, 1st in AFC North) is no minor miracle, with them now a regular fixture in the postseason picture over the last four seasons.  Intelligent drafting has been the key to their sustained success, as few teams have been able to cultivate homegrown talent they way this one has; of the fifty-eight players to hold a spot on their roster thus far in 2015, a whopping forty-four were drafted by Lewis and Co. with six more signed as undrafted Free Agents.  With that said, many of those players are entering the prime of their respective careers.  And as they continue to mature, the Bengals have evolved into a power house that up until last Monday Night had taken the league by storm.  Getting off to an 8-0 start for the first time in franchise history, Lewis’ outfit looked determined to shed their stereotype of postseason ineptitude, pulling out victories in all manner of ways; whether it was beating up on teams they were supposed to (at Oakland 33-13, v. Kansas City 36-21), or coming from behind on the road against division rivals (at Baltimore 28-24, at Pittsburgh 16-10), or erasing a two-touchdown deficit against the two-time defending champions (v. Seattle 27-24 in OT), these Bengals just kept winning.  Even the primetime bug that has hung with them in recent years seemed to disappear for a moment as they dumped in-state rival Cleveland two weeks ago on a Thursday Night (31-10).  However, as the boxing phrase goes, you’re unbeatable until you’re not, everything changed Monday Night…

Dalton has emerged as a bonafide MVP candidate this season, largely due to his improvement throwing the deep ball.

A game that many predicted to be a rout, was in reality anything but, as Cincinnati was taken to the woodshed by the struggling Houston Texans in 10-6 loss, their first of the season.  Over the course of three hours, all the good will that the Bengals had built over the previous nine weeks of play seemingly dissipated in thin air as they were confounded by a team that entered Paul Brown Stadium a bonafide mess.  While the defense kept the visiting side in check (256 yards), the offense was absolutely dreadful; Andy Dalton and Co. were absolutely listless, compiling just 256 yards, including a mere 182 through the air, while committing a pair of turnovers.  Sloppy doesn’t begin to describe their performance, as they were flagged for nine penalties (70 yards), managed to convert just four of their fourteen opportunities on Third Down (28.6%), and relinquished four sacks to a team playing without a number of pass-rushers.  Dalton received the majority of the blame for this one, even though he was far from alone in deserving credit for the debacle; despite completing just 22-of-38 passes (57.9%) for a mundane 197 yards and an interception, many of those incompletion can be attributed to his targets simply dropping passes, which was the case with both A.J. Green and Tyler Eifert, the former who fumbled a catch on the final drive that effectively ended the game, while the latter failed to haul in two routine receptions on that same series.  The running game didn’t help much either, as the two-headed monster of Giovanni Bernard and Jeremy Hill could muster just fifty-one yards on fifteen carries (3.4 yards per carry).  Indeed, it was a very discouraging performance for a team, more particularly an offense that has been one of the league’s best in 2015.  With nine games in the books, Lewis has seen his offense average 26.1 points (5th Overall) on a very balanced 384.4 yards per game (7th Overall), including 269.2 yards through the air (11th Overall) on an impressive 7.5 net yards per attempt (2nd Overall), along with another 115.2 yards on the ground (13th Overall) on 3.9 yards per carry (22nd Overall).  Though he played poorly against Houston, Dalton’s season thus far has bene largely stellar, as he has improved in a number of areas; the Red Rifle has achieved career-bests in completion percentage (66.2%), passing yards per game (269.2), touchdown percentage (6.1%), interception percentage (1.7%), and QBR (71.69).  However, the most significant realm of improvement has been his newfound ability to throw the deep ball with accuracy.  Through the first four terms of his career, No. 14 had been shaky at best in terms of pushing the ball past twenty yards, even with weapons such as the aforementioned Green and Eifert at his disposal, averaging just 6.3 net yards per attempt over that time.  in 2015 it’s been a far different story, as Dalton has averaged 7.55 net yards per attempt, which is second among starting Quarterbacks.  Offensive Coordinator has done a tremendous job mixing deep throws with a power running game, keeping opposing defenses on their toes so that his Quarterback can take advantage of deep coverages.  Houston succeeded largely in taking that away from him, for his 5.18 yards per attempt on Monday Night was easily the worst such figure that he had posted this season.  And despite, their poor performances last week, Green and Eifiert have been outstanding as well, with the former hauling in 769 yards and four touchdowns on fifty-five catches, while the latter has reeled in 460 yards and a league-leading nine touchdown receptions on forty catches of his own.

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Meanwhile, the once and former Quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals is thriving in the desert, as Carson Palmer has led the Cardinals (7-2, 1st in NFC West) to yet another stellar start.  However, Cardinals’ fans will be hoping that this start proves sustainable, as Arizona slowly began to crumble after Palmer suffered a torn ACL eight weeks into the 2014 campaign.  Perhaps the 36-year old is motivated in a way by his successor’s success in his former stomping grounds, for back in 2003, he was the guy tapped to bring the Bengals franchise out the cellar and into a new era of prosperity.  The former Heisman and No. One Overall Pick looked like he was indeed on track to do exactly what his counterpart is doing in the present, having led his former club to a division crown and playoff appearance in 2005 (both of which were firsts since 1990), in what was just his second term as the starting Quarterback.  That, folks, is when everything fell apart.  In their first Playoff game that season, Palmer horrendously tore his ACL on a low hit to his knee suffered on his first throw of the day.  As he watched his team fall to eventual Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh, all he could do was wonder what might have been…. which perfectly sums up the remainder of his tenure in the Queen City.  From that fateful day forward, Palmer would go just 29-39 in his final five seasons  wearing a striped helmet, leading the Bengals back to the postseason just once (2009), before shockingly threatening to retire if not traded during the 2011 offseason.  Eventually, Marvin Lewis and the Front Office acquiesced, but only after they had an opportunity to see what their young Quarterback (Andy Dalton) had to offer.  The rest is how we say history, as Palmer was sent to Oakland midway through the 2011 campaign for a king’ s ransom, where he spent eighteen mediocre months before he was sent to Arizona for a Sixth and Seventh Round Pick in 2013 and 2014 respectively.  At the age of 34 and on his third team in three years, many began to believe that that the epithet on this guy’s career headstone would indeed read what might have been.  As fate would have it, the football gods were not done with Carson Palmer, as he would meet a man named Bruce Arians, who would alter the trajectory of his career.

At 36, Palmer has found the Fountain of Youth, posting career-highs in a wealth of categories.

Spending the last six years as the Offensive Coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts, Arians, whom Arizona hired to succeed another former Steelers’ assistant Ken Whisenhunt, as Head Coach, knew a thing or two about Quarterbacks.  Arians was crucial in the development of both Ben Roethlisberger and Andrew Luck, while also playing a not-so-minor hand in the growth of one Peyton Manning during his formative stages in Indianapolis.  Respected around the league as an excellent play-caller, it wasn’t until his arrival in the desert that he would become better known for his work in the field of resurrection.  Seriously folks, all hyperbole aside, this guy is simply magical.  Look no further than the job he’s done with Palmer; in two and a half season in Arizona, Palmer has completed 63.4% of his passes for an average of 279.0 yards (7.8 y/a), fifty-eight touchdowns to thirty-two interceptions, all the while posting a solid record of 23-8 as the starter.  Winning was something that the 36-year old was often maligned for not doing enough of throughout his career, but that has begun to change now that he’s working with Arians.  There is an odd sense of deja vu with this franchise, for it was just seven short years ago when another Steelers’ assistant arrived to resurrect the career of a former Pro Bowl Quarterback, which very nearly ended in both hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.  Time will tell if history will repeat itself, but in the meantime, all praise must go towards Arians for his Quarterback’s sensational play thus far; now in his twelfth year in the NFL, Palmer has posted career-highs in yards per attempt (8.9), yards per completion (14.0), yards per game (305.4), and QBR (82.31), while tossing twenty-three touchdowns to seven interceptions.  Last week at Seattle, through bad weather and insane crowd noise, the grizzled veteran put on a show, completing 29-of-48 passes (60.4%) for 363 yards (7.56 y/a), three touchdowns and an interception in the 39-32 victory.  He found Michael Floyd for two of those scores (27 and 35 yards respectively), repeatedly braving a furious Seahawks’ pass-rush that seemed to get the better of him in the Third Quarter.  All in all, it was a textbook performance against arguably the league’s top defense, compiling a staggering 451 total yards of offense on the night.  Then again, that’s what they’ve been doing all season; Arizona has averaged 33.6 points (2nd Overall) on a league-high 430.5 total yards per game (1st Overall), including 306.6 through the air (4th Overall) on 8.2 net yards per attempt (1st Overall), along with another 123.9 on the ground (8th Overall) on 4.4 yards per carry (9th Overall).  However, don’t get it confused, folks, for the theme of resurrection doesn’t stop with Palmer, for it has spread throughout the whole team.  All-Pro Receiver Larry Fitzgerald was coming off statistically his worst season, so much so that he was very nearly released in the Spring, but has returned with a vengeance post career-highs in a number of categories (92.9 yards per game).  Former 2,000-yard rusher Chris Johnson nearly died in a shooting during the offseason, but has since rebounded to rush for 724 yards, second-most in the league.  Even on defense, former Pro Bowler Dwight Freeney, who was all but retired, joined the team in October and has become a Third Down specialist, notching a pair of sacks in just four games.  Throughout the roster, there is something about this team, for Arians has taken a bunch of cast-offs and also-rans and turned them into a well-oiled machine.  We’ll see just how significant the returns are come February…

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