Cardinals vs. Colts: Highlights, game tracker and more

The Arizona Cardinals faced the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, Sept. 17 in NFL Week 2. Here are the highlights from the game.

It’s always unfortunate when you have two teams going into the NFL season without their star players. In Week 2, however, that’s exactly the case as it pertains to the Arizona Cardinals and Indianapolis Colts.

The Colts started the year behind the 8-ball. With Andrew Luck still recovering from shoulder surgery in the offseason, they were forced to start Scott Tolzien in Week 1. Given their already hole-filled roster on both sides of the ball, that left them vulnerable to a beatdown. They indeed took said beatdown as the Los Angeles Rams buried them.

As for the Cardinals, they started the year at full health, but that’s not how they left Week 1. Star running back David Johnson succumbed to a wrist injury that will keep him out for the majority of the 2017 season. To worsen matters, starting left tackle D.J. Humphries will also be out of action with an injury. They too suffered a bad loss to open the year, falling to the Detroit Lions.

With the way Tolzien played, the Colts elected to move to Jacoby Brissett, who they traded for before the start of the regular season. That proved to be the right call. Brissett didn’t look like the next great NFL quarterback by any means. However, he came out and was more than competent against the Cardinals, which is more than can be said of what Tolzien was. What’s more, the Cardinals continued to look abysmal.

Not having Johnson in the lineup was just brutal for the offense. Palmer looked like an aging veteran just as much as he did in Week 1. And despite the Colts defense being, truthfully, not very good, they stuffed the Cards offense time and again to take a 10-3 lead into halftime.

Coming out of the half, neither team had much of anything going for them on offense. Both teams struggled to move the ball in the third quarter, which resulted in a scoreless period. And that was the case for the Colts in the fourth quarter as well. However, the Cardinals found some late life.

With a 45-yard touchdown pass to J.J. Nelson, the Cards seemed to get revived. What’s more, they drove again late to kick a field goal. And when they got another stop, that allowed them to move again and have a shot at yet another field goal. However, Phil Dawson missed the 42-yard attempt to send the game to overtime.

In the extra period, the Colts got the ball first and hoped to find new life. Instead, things got worse. Brissett made a bad read and threw an interception to Tyrann Mathieu, who delivered a nice return before going down on his own accord. That allowed for redemption for Dawson, who drilled the game-winning kick.

Highlight

Next: NFL Power Rankings 2017: Best players by jersey number

Both the Colts and Cardinals would like to forget what happened to them in Week 1. Getting a win in this matchup in Week 2 would be a good way to go about doing that.