Last week, Kurt Warner threw five interceptions. This week, Warner threw five touchdown passes.
Warner’s turnaround led the Arizona Cardinals to a big win over the Chicago Bears Sunday at Soldier Field -- a big win that put the Cardinals in control of the NFC West and the Bears in big trouble in the NFC North.
Going from five picks to five touchdowns doesn’t happen often -- the last NFL quarterback to do it was Gary Danielson, as Dan Patrick mentioned while having both Warner and Danielson on his radio show today. But Warner showed again on Sunday that just when he looks like he’s starting to show his age, he responds with a big game.
Overall, Warner completed 22 of 32 passes for 261 yards, and he didn’t throw an interception.
“It’s especially nice to balance all of my picks from last week with my touchdowns from this week,” Warner said afterward, per the Arizona Republic. “But that’s part of the game. It’s one of those things that I’ve been through many times. Unfortunately, I will probably go through it again. But so much of this business is how you respond.”
Larry Fitzgerald was his usual spectacular self, with nine catches for 123 yards and two touchdowns. Warner also found Ben Patrick, Anthony Becht, and Steve Breaston for touchdown passes.
The only issue for the Cardinals’ passing game is whether wide receiver Anquan Boldin is on the same page as the coaching staff. Boldin was inactive with an ankle injury, and he complained not only that he was healthy enough to go, but that coach Ken Whisenhunt wasn’t “man enough” to tell Boldin he was being sidelined.
Whisenhunt may have erred in benching Boldin, and he definitely erred in benching Warner in the fourth quarter. With the Cardinals up 34-14, Whisenhunt thought the game was safely in hand, so he pulled Warner in favor of Matt Leinart. His first pass was intercepted, and the Bears scored a touchdown on the ensuing possession. All of a sudden it was 34-21, and the Cardinals had a game on their hands.
That’s when Warner came back in, threw his fifth touchdown pass, and effectively ended it.
The passing game wasn’t the only thing that worked for the Cardinals; Tim Hightower and Beanie Wells both ran effectively: Hightower picked up 77 yards on 15 carries and Wells ran for 72 yards on 13 carries.
The Cardinals’ running game was aided by the absence of Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris, who was ejected just a minute into the game for punching Cardinals guard Deuce Lutui. Harris apparently felt that he had been hit with a cheap shot, but responding by punching Lutui -- in full view of referee Ed Hochuli -- was not a wise decision.
“Tommie Harris has to be smarter than that,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said afterward.
Harris didn’t talk to reporters afterward, but Lutui did. He said he doesn’t have any hard feelings toward Harris.
“It was nothing serious,” Lutui said. “It happened real quick. . . . It was just unfortunate he had to be [ejected] from the game. He’s a real competitive athlete and he looks real good on film. Things like that happen. Sometimes you lose your composure.”
Also hurting the Bears’ defense was the loss of cornerback Charles Tillman, who suffered a shoulder injury in the second quarter. If he’s out for a significant period of time, things will only get worse for the Bears.
Lost in the blowout was that Bears quarterback Jay Cutler played pretty well, completing 29 of 47 passes for 369 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception. Tight end Greg Olsen scored all three of the Bears’ touchdowns in one of his best games as a pro, but he wasn’t in any mood to celebrate his individual achievement afterward.
“Obviously nothing we did was good enough to win the game, so none of our performances were too special or else we would have won,” Olsen told the Chicago Tribune. “At the end of the day, this is a results business, and we didn’t get it done today. No matter what you do personally, the object is to win, and we didn’t do it.”
The Bears’ failure to do it drops them to 4-4, three games behind the first-place Minnesota Vikings in the NFC North. Halfway through the season, a division title looks very unlikely for Chicago, and they’ll need to be better over the next eight games than they were in the first eight if they want to earn a wild card playoff berth.
The Cardinals are now 5-3, including 4-0 on the road. With a two-game lead in the NFC West, they look like a playoff team again -- as long as Warner has more five-touchdown games than five-interception ones.