Cardinals need luck to beat Vikings

OK, Arizona. Listen up. Here’s a blueprint for upsetting the Minnesota Vikings at the Metrodome, courtesy of your NFC West partners, the New Orleans Saints.

Knock Randall Cunningham out of the game early, then make Brad Johnson play with an injury, like the broken throwing hand he endured during the second half against the Saints Nov. 8.

It’ll help if the officials blow a call or two. Like they did in allowing New Orleans return man Aaron Craver to get off the turf after being tripped and run past a bunch of confused players for a touchdown.

At least one big play from the defense is a must, too. Like the deflected pass Sammy Knight returned 91 yards for a touchdown, tying the score 24-24 in the fourth quarter.

In other words, a 15 1/2 -point underdog like the Cardinals will need plenty of luck just to stay close Sunday.

“If we can come in and establish ourselves early, then we have a chance against these guys,” Arizona offensive tackle Lomas Brown said. “If we go in there in awe of these guys, in awe of their record and the things they accomplished this year, then we’re going to put ourselves in a hole.”

Even if everything goes right for the Cardinals over three-plus quarters, they’ll still have to stop the highest-scoring offense in NFL history down the stretch and hope Jake Plummer has another miracle in him.

That’s where the Saints fizzled. Broken hand and all, Johnson led the Vikings to the go-ahead touchdown, and Billy Joe Tolliver isn’t Jake the Snake in the last-minute-rally department.

The Vikings beat the Saints 31-24 that day, but it was easily the closest game Minnesota had at home all season. The Vikings outscored their opponents by an average of nearly 24 points — including a 50-10 demolition of AFC Central champion Jacksonville in their final home game — on the way to their first 8-0 regular season at the noisy dome since 1989.

“It’ll be a major surprise to a lot of people if we win, but not to anybody on this team or associated with this organization,” Cardinals rookie cornerback Corey Chavous said. “We all realize the importance of this game and what it means to us reaching our ultimate goal.”

So do the Vikings.

That’s an ominous sign for the spunky Cardinals (10-7), whose victory at Dallas last weekend was their first postseason win in 51 years and served as a warning flare that they are a team of the future.

But the future is now for Minnesota.

The Vikings (15-1) aren’t dwelling on what they’ve accomplished to this point. They aren’t reveling in their NFL scoring record or in matching the most regular-season victories in league history. They aren’t looking ahead to the NFC championship game. They aren’t planning their itinerary for the Super Bowl, where they haven’t been since losing to the Oakland Raiders Jan. 9, 1977, five weeks before Randy Moss was born.

The Vikings simply are planning to take care of this week’s work, just like they have all season.

“We’ve accomplished a great deal in 1998, and what I like about that is that it was last year,” coach Dennis Green said. “We don’t have any difficulty distinguishing between what’s behind us and what lies ahead of us. … You want to be called champions, and we are in that position. It starts, though, with our ability to play our game every week, and we’ve done that this year.”

To do it again, the Vikings will need Cunningham to keep distributing the ball with the awesome proficiency he displayed on the way to the NFL’s highest quarterback rating.

To stop him, the Cardinals will have to cover Moss, Cris Carter, Jake Reed — and several other targets — while keeping Robert Smith from breaking long runs. And if the Cardinals can’t run the ball effectively, they probably will be sorry, just like most teams who visited Minnesota this season.

The Vikings know they’re supposed to win big again, and they seem ready to handle the burden of those expectations.

“Anything less than 35 points and (the fans) are going to drag me around in that truck again behind the Metrodome,” offensive coordinator Brian Billick said. “But that’s good.

“This team is beginning to put the expectations on itself that the 49ers of the last 10 years, the Cowboys of the last 10 years, put on themselves. We expect this because we’ve set the bar.

Associated Press