Lu Ke returns from injury and the San Francisco 49ers win strongly!
In the fifth week of the regular season, the powerful showdown of "Lu Ke VS Watt" failed to achieve the excitement expected. The San Francisco 49ers, from players to fans, burst out with amazing energy and dominated the entire game with a devastating attitude. Although Watt tried his best, he still failed to change the course of the game.
The Houston Texans, who had fought fiercely to the last minute in the past four games, suffered a complete collapse in this game. They have been on a decline since the beginning of the new season, but they don't know whether this will be the beginning of a complete collapse of the team; and the previous three games The San Francisco 49ers, who had little ability to resist during the losing streak, have recovered with a new look in all aspects and finally stopped their continuous decline. It is still unclear whether this will be a turning point for the defending champion to make a strong comeback.
For the Houston Texans, the season is still not over.
For the San Francisco 49ers, the crisis has not been completely resolved.
The season has just begun and anything is possible!
In the upcoming sixth week of the regular season, the San Francisco 49ers will sit at Candlestick Stadium for the second consecutive week to face the rival Arizona Cardinals in the same district. This is a game that the team cannot afford to miss.
San Francisco's current division record of 49 is zero wins and two losses. After losing to the Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams, San Francisco has now been severely left behind by its opponents in the same division. Infinite is a sharp contrast; now facing the Arizona Cardinals, it is worth pondering that the Cardinals are exactly the team that gave the 49ers their only division loss in the past two seasons. As fate would have it, now the 49ers People must break the winless predicament of this season's divisional civil war from the Cardinals, and this game becomes even more crucial.
In fact, the Arizona Cardinals are no longer the soft persimmons they were in the 2011 season.
Last season, this team started with four consecutive victories, showing its comprehensive improvement on the offensive and defensive ends. Together with its opponents in the same district, it built the National League West into the league's first devil division; but then they encountered serious problems. After the quarterback injury crisis, the team continued to decline, with only one win in the remaining twelve games, ending the season with five wins and 11 losses.
This season, the Arizona Cardinals, who have learned from the painful experience, have also launched drastic reforms. They were the first to fire head coach Ken-hisenhunt, and then hired Bruce Arians, the league's best head coach last season. -Arians) poached people to lead the team.
Bruce Arians, who is 61 years old this year, is a veteran coach. His coaching career began in 1975. He was mainly responsible for the offensive team. He has served as a coach for multiple positions such as wide receivers, quarterbacks, and tight ends. In 2004, By 2011, he stayed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and followed the team to two Super Bowls.
In 2012, Arians went to the Indianapolis Colts as the offensive team coach, responsible for training/coaching the offensive team led by rookie quarterback Andrew Luck. In October, head coach Chuck who just joined the team this season - When Chuck Pagano suffered from cancer, Arians was appointed as the interim head coach and subsequently led the team to a record of nine wins and three losses.
He was the vice president of the league a season ago, and returned to the playoffs a season later. This was the biggest counterattack in terms of wins and losses between two seasons in the history of the league. At the same time, he won nine games as the interim head coach, which was also the biggest counterattack in the league. The best in history. At the end of the regular season, Arians defeated Jim Harper, who created the myth of an undefeated season, and won the title of the league's best head coach.
In the offseason, Pagano, who returned after defeating cancer, once again took over the coaching reins of the Indianapolis Colts, while Arians came to the Arizona Cardinals.
The first thing Arians did when he took over the Cardinals was to solve the quarterback problem that had plagued the team for many years. Because there was no rookie quarterback worthy of selection in the draft, he set his sights on the free agent market.
Carson Palmer finally became the new head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.
This quarterback can be said to be the pride of heaven. Heisman Trophy winner in 2002. He joined the Cincinnati Bengals as the No. 1 pick in 2003. He was the league leader in touchdowns in 2005 and was selected for two consecutive years in 2005 and 2006. Pro Bowl; at the same time, his alma mater, the University of Southern California, retired his No. 3 jersey.
But in the following seasons, the Cincinnati Bengals' team record was very, very bad. In 2010, it reached the bottom, finishing with four wins and 12 losses. Palmer asked to be traded in search of a more competitive team; but the Bengals rejected Palmer's request, which led to a fierce conflict between the player and the team, which eventually broke out.
In the 2011 draft, the Cincinnati Bengals selected Andy Dalton in the second round. Later, the team announced that they would not trade Palmer and did not expect Palmer to return to the court. It is tantamount to relegating Palmer to limbo.
Palmer refused to sit still.
During the offseason, Palmer began to try out around the league, looking for a team willing to take over him. This is when Palmer and Lu Ke met - they both appeared in the San Francisco 49ers' trial camp. Jim Hubble was very, very close to choosing Palmer as Colin Kaepernick's mentor, but in the end he chose Lu Ke.
Later, Palmer still failed to find a team and had no choice but to return to Arizona, but failed to return to the starting lineup.
During the regular season of the 2011 season, when the San Francisco 49ers faced off against the Cincinnati Bengals, the quarterback standing opposite Lu Ke was Dalton, not Palmer; until October, the Oakland Raiders had a temporary injury to the quarterback. The player, desperate for a quarterback, finally convinced the Bengals to bring Palmer back to the Bay Area.
After two tepid seasons in Oakland, Palmer joined the Cardinals this year.
Although Lu Ke and Palmer are not sworn enemies or rivals, the fates of the two quarterbacks, who came from the traditional rivals UCLA and USC respectively, have been quietly entangled together. After entering the league, it seems that they have always been There was a confrontation waiting for them, but it never took place.
Starting from the unexpected confrontation in the trial camp, they missed the opportunity to face off between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. Now, after going full circle, the official confrontation between Lu Ke and Palmer finally arrived, and it ended with The status of rivals in the same district seems to be back to the 2011 offseason. Both players are fighting for survival and cannot afford to lose.
For the first time, Lu Ke had the last laugh as a nobody; so, what will happen this time?
The topic returned to the Arizona Cardinals. After Arians determined the quarterback candidate, he determined the overall structure of the team, and then began to replenish the team around Palmer, first filling the important defensive group through the draft. position, as well as an important addition to the offensive line; and then traded for five-time Pro Bowl defensive end John Abrahan in the free agent market - the previous team was the Atlanta Falcons. In the NFC finals at the beginning of the year, Abrahan Khan performed quite well.
Compared to the offensive team, Arians spent more time on the defensive team to ensure that the team can show more potential in tough battles.
In the preseason, the Arizona Cardinals achieved three wins and one loss, including two games with a clean sheet against the Denver Broncos and a narrow victory over the Green Bay Packers, which initially demonstrated the team's ability to compete in tough battles. This makes people have more expectations for this team's new season.
Sure enough, after the start of the new season, the Arizona Cardinals showed good form, losing to the St. Louis Rams and New Orleans Saints respectively, and defeated the Detroit Lions and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In the new season with a new lineup, During the running-in process, they showed their great potential.
In the fifth week of the regular season, after defeating the Carolina Panthers at home, the Arizona Cardinals currently have a record of three wins and two losses, which is the same record as the St. Louis Rams. However, due to the win-loss relationship between them, they are still temporarily ranked third in the division. By the way, the Seattle Seahawks, who started the season with four straight wins, lost to the Indianapolis Colts this week and currently lead the NFC West with four wins and one loss.
Because the season has just begun, the gap between wins and losses has not been completely widened. The outcome of a division civil war can overturn the entire ranking. This also means that the importance of this confrontation between the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals has become increasingly prominent. come out.
Now the Arizona Cardinals really have the ability to disrupt the situation in the National League West:
The offensive team ranks 13th in the league, and the passing offense is even among the top ten. Unfortunately, the ground offensive ability is only 23rd, which is a serious hindrance; the defensive team ranks 10th in the league, and the ground defense Currently ranked first in the league, pass defense is 14th in the league.
It can be clearly noticed that under the leadership of head coach Arians, the passing offense has improved by leaps and bounds, and the overall rise of the defensive team has given the team more tenacity in the strong confrontation, and can have more at critical moments. More capital to fight and chances to win.
Objectively speaking, although the Houston Texans were a playoff team last season and the Arizona Cardinals have not entered the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, in terms of strength and status this season, the Arizona Cardinals are better. The win, coupled with the atmosphere of rivals in the same district, makes this game full of more suspense.
From industry analysts and commentators to fans of both teams, the general view is that this is a severe test for Lu Ke, especially the Cardinals, who currently top the league in ground defense, are much tougher than the Texans——
Once the Cardinals cut off the ground support of the running back, Lu Ke's passing ability will inevitably bear more pressure; if his passing accuracy still cannot be restored in time, he will not be able to execute it by relying solely on mental layout. Pass the ball, then the game will be very, very difficult.
So, has Lu Ke really fully recovered?
