A broken clock is still right twice a day.
For the Arizona Cardinals, however, nothing was going right the past three weeks.
Someone apparently fixed what was broken just in time to pull off one of the best wins of the season, a 25-22 thriller over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17.
Let’s give a lot of credit to head coach Kliff Kingsbury for devising a game plan that gave quarterback Kyler Murray room to run the ball himself and take deep shots down field in the passing game. The Cardinals are pretty special when both of those elements from Murray are working.
Kingsbury has taken a lot of criticism in recent weeks for strange play calls, bad timeouts and overall poor game plans or not having the team prepared to play against the Lions, Colts and Rams (all losses). But Sunday in Dallas might make us forget about all of it for awhile.
The key moment came early in the third quarter, when the Cardinals appeared to have the offense on the field to go for it on a 4th and 5 from the Dallas 8 yard line instead of kicking a field goal. A confused Dallas defense was forced to burn its first timeout of the second half.
That wasted timeout came back to hurt the Cowboys later in the game when Arizona running back Chase Edmonds — trying to run out the clock late in the fourth quarter — appeared to fumble the ball. The officials didn’t see it, but since Dallas had used all its timeouts they could not challenge. Had they not burned that timeout earlier in the half, it’s likely Dallas gets the ball back there with a chance to win or tie the game before time runs out.
Whether Kingsbury planned that move or not, it will go down in the history of this game as the pivotal coaching move that helped clinched the Cardinals 11th win of the season.
On defense, coordinator Vance Joseph came up with a brilliant scheme that limited Dallas to 45 yards rushing and slowed down Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott just enough.
The Cardinals also took advantage of ten Dallas penalties, a missed field goal and a fumble forced by linebacker Isaiah Simmons with 10:42 left in the fourth quarter — arguably the biggest impact play of the game from a player on the field.
The win snaps a three game losing streak for Arizona and keeps them in play in Week 18 for a shot at the NFC West Division title. They’ll need to beat Seattle at home while they also need the L.A. Rams to lose at home to the San Francisco 49ers. Both games kick off at 2:25pm local time on Sunday.
The 49ers still need a win to clinch a playoff berth, so they have something to play for. The division title is still very much within reach for the Cardinals.
If they are able to turn it around in these final weeks of the season, it might be safe to say whatever was broken has been fixed.
