Cardinals’ Key Players will miss the sensational matchup against Bills but unfortunately they would….
Bills Mafia, the wait is finally over. We can officially say it is game day for the Buffalo Bills and they are set to take on the Arizona Cardinals. Going into this game, the Bills are lucky to heal from their injuries and setbacks that they had to deal with in training camp in the preseason. At one point, Buffalo was signing multiple veteran free agents like Kareem Jackson and Terrell Burgess just to provide some stability.
The good news for the Bills is that they will have a good amount of their team back with the exception of Matt Milano, who is out for a majority of the season after tearing his bicep during the preseason.
Before the inactive list came out, the Bills had announced that defensive end Dawuane Smoot was ruled out with a toe injury, and both DE Kameron Cline and OL Will Clapp were elevated from the practice squad. In Addition, rookie defensive end Javon Solomon was also ruled out earlier this week.
Bishop suffered an injury during training camp and has slowly started to come back into action, but not having him suit up for this game is the right move. New Bills fan favorite Joe Andreessen will need to wait to make his official regular season debut. One surprise move is seeing Van Pran-Granger inactive. It would have been smart to also have him suit, but it looks like Clapp is replacing him for this week.
Both teams don’t have any major missing players going into this game so this should be an exciting first matchup in Orchard Park. Buffalo comes into this game with a little bit of a new look, but they are still one of the premier teams in the NFL until proven otherwise. The Cardinals have had a rough two seasons but they had a bounce back offseason with many moves in free agency and the NFL draft.
We have overcome the long wait in the offseason and there will finally be some real football this coming week. The Buffalo Bills kick off their season in front of their home crowd for a 1PM showdown with the slowly rising Arizona Cardinals. It is going to be electric at Highmark Stadium as it is the first time in two years since the Bills started their season at home.
The Cardinals are a good first test to see how this new look Bills performs. They aren’t a powerhouse team but they had some of the biggest improvements out of all 32 teams this offseason. After back-to-back bad seasons, the Cardinals attacked the offseason in various stages to improve their roster.
Despite having a solid offseason on paper, nothing matters until we see what happens on the field. Last season, the Cardinals were near the bottom of the league in terms of defending the run. They gave up 143 yards on the ground per game last season (2,434 yards total on the ground).
Arizona only had three games where they didn’t give up 100+ rushing yards (no less than 91 yards in every single game).
The Bills had one of the better rushing attacks last season, especially when Joe Brady took over as the interim offensive coordinator. From Week 10 and on, the Bills averaged 154 yards per game on the ground (and had 180 rushing yards per game throughout the playoffs). Brady showed Bills fans that rather than revolving the offense around one particular player, he will get the ball to all of the playmakers. Buffalo’s offense was unpredictable at certain points under Brady.
