Cardinals Almost Let It Slip Away

Last week, the Arizona Cardinals nearly pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. This week, they almost allowed one.

“We should all be happy. It was like--phew!” said Arizona quarterback Jake Plummer, taking the kind of deep breath needed after the Cardinals’ 45-42 victory over the Washington Redskins in a game that had 857 total yards. “We survived. They just kept coming at us. You can’t get tired of games this exciting.”

Seriously, the Cardinals aren’t used to looking at the scoreboard and seeing a 31-0 lead in the second quarter, so maybe they didn’t know how to handle it. They let the Washington Redskins close to 38-35 before Plummer’s third touchdown, a one-yard sneak with 3:49 to play, stopped the second-half collapse to preserve Sunday’s 45-42 victory.

“In the nine years I’ve been here, we haven’t had many opportunities to blow away a team like we did today,” said fullback Larry Centers, who caught one of Plummer’s two touchdown passes. “It was very comfortable on the sidelines. Maybe it was too comfortable because we let them back in the game. We need to find a way to put them away. We must add some killer instinct and learn from this.”

The victory kept the Cardinals (6-5), who have played four close games in a row--including a 29-27 victory over Washington and last week’s 35-28 loss to Dallas in a game they trailed, 28-0--firmly in the race for their first playoff appearance since 1982.

The Redskins (2-9) assured themselves of a losing season for the fourth time in six years.

Washington quarterback Trent Green, completed 30 of 49 passes for 382 yards and a career-high four touchdowns.