2017 Hall Of Fame Game
Well the NFL season officially starts tonight as the Arizona Cardinals take on the Dallas Cowboys in the 2017 NFL Hall Of Fame Game at 8 PM on NBC. This game doesn't count for standings, stats or anything like that. But this game is good to give both of these teams practice for this upcoming NFL Season.
In this game the Arizona Cardinals are going to look to see how well their rookies can play as they make the leap from college to the NFL like Haason Reddick and Budda Baker. They are also going to see if the free agents the Cardinals signed this offseason signed in Antoine Bethea and Jarvis Jones can become the impact players they saw when they played with their former teams. Jarvis Jones used to play with the Steelers and Antoine Bethea used to play with the Colts and 49ers. Also, Bethea won a Super Bowl with the Colts in his rookie year in 2006 so their is some Super Bowl experience that Bethea can bring to the team. We might be seeing the last two years of Carson Palmer in his career so the Cardinals might have to think about the future to see who could be their quarterback. One of the Cardinals back up quarterbacks in Blaine Gabbert could have a starting role in Arizona in maybe two years. The Cardinals are going to watch closely tonight at Blaine to see if he has any capability to become a full time starting quarterback again. Blaine needs to get in that mentality to realize that he can become a starter again like he was in 2011 and 2012 when he was leading the Jacksonville Jaguars. Blaine however though did pass for over 2,000 yards in eight games for the 49ers in 2015.
In this game the Dallas Cowboys are going to see who can backup their star players like Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, and Dez Bryant if any of those three players get injured. The big reason that Dallas was 13-3 and ranked the number one team in the NFC during the regular season last year was because Dak, Ezekiel, and Dez all played good and were all able to stay healthy. If Dak ever gets injured the Cowboys are going to have to think who's really going to back him up. Could it be Luke McCown or Kellen Moore? We just don't know. The Cowboys have both running backs Darren McFadden and Alfred Morris both former starters that really know how to handle the ball. So if Elliott ever did get injured they have both two good running backs that can back him up. But who will be the running back right behind Elliott? Well we will find out soon. If Dez gets injured at all this season we're going to need to see Cole Beasley, Brice Butler and Terrence Williams to step up big time and this game we're going to see if Butler or Williams can turn up their game in the right direction.
But at the end of this game I am going to predict that the Cardinals win this game because Blaine Gabbert will have a desire to win more than the Cowboys backup quarterbacks and make better passes. Besides we're going to see a lot of backups and rookies play so we really don't how they play yet.