Cardinals Might Play It Safe With Nothing Much To Play For

An ugly win over the Lions coupled with an Eagles victory over the Forty-Niners last weekend gave the Arizona Cardinals their second straight division title. That’s great news for the team and for long-suffering Cardinals fans. Congratulations!

It’s not good for fantasy owners counting on Cardinals to bring them to a fantasy championship though. The Cardinals could play it cautious with any starter that is slightly injured, or they could pull players from games quickly once the issue is settled one way or another.

The Favre-Childress argument aside, it will take a strange sequence of events for the Cards to steal the #2 seed from the Vikings.

The Minnesota Vikings (11-3) would have to lose their last two games -- to the Chicago Bears and New York Giants -- and the Cardinals (9-5) must win their last two over the Rams and Green Bay Packers, then several other things would have to occur.

It’s a remote possibility, at best.

See? A remote possibility. Now of course, Head Coach Jim Whisenhunt is saying that his team is planning to play hard in every game.

“I think it’s more important that we continue to try to improve and get on a hot streak going into the playoffs.”

But...WR Larry Fitzgerald is battling an injury. RB Beanie Wells has a history of injury issues. QB Kurt Warner has been injured since 1998. Arizona has a chance to return to the Super Bowl and they won’t be able to do it with an offense led by Matt Leinart and Steve Breaston. I don’t see how they risk their injured starters just so the team can “get on a hot streak”. It makes just as much sense for them to bench their starters in order to get Leinart some quality time with the first team.

Expect them to rest Warner and Fitzgerald in the second half this week against St. Louis with even more rest in Week 17.