Cardinals-Redskins: A Must Win For The Skins

The Washington Redskins are facing a tough two game stretch following this week's game against the Arizona Cardinals. They travel to Dallas and then Philadelphia after this week, meaning this week's game is crucial.

What will test the Skins' mettle even more is the fact that the Cardinals aren't their usual underachieving selves. They have a high powered offense that has thus far scored 27 points a game while amassing 365 yards a game. Meanwhile the defense has only surrendered 11.5 points a game, ranking 5th in the league.

Intimidating numbers for sure, but the Cardinals have only played the 49ers and Dolphins. Both these teams are far from the class of the NFL, but one can't ignore the numbers.

In short, the Cardinals have got the job done against teams they should beat. This will be their first big test against Washington who are coming off a huge win over New Orleans last week.

Jason Campbell will be facing a defense featuring the hard hitting Karlos Dansby and steady pass rusher Bertrand Berry. Adrian Wilson anchors the secondary at safety and Campbell will likely have a much tougher time against a defense that is healthy and only gives up 173.5 yards of passing per game.

Arizona knows how to put pressure on the QB as they have six sacks on the year. The Skins' O-line will need to step it up a notch so Campbell will have time to get the ball out to receivers downfield.

Campbell has minimized his mistakes thus far and more of the same needs to happen so the Skins can get into an offensive rhythm early. Clinton Portis played very well last week as the Skins mixed up the playcalling masterfully, allowing Portis to find running lanes that haven't been there for some time.

I see the Skins struggling to match last week's performance early on, but as the game wears on look to see the offense establish a rythym that will put them over the top in  what should be a close game.

The Cardinals offense has been surging with a rejuvenated Kurt Warner at the helm. Warner threw for 361 yards last week against Miami and he has two great targets in Larry Fitzgerald and Anquaan Boldin.

The secondary will indeed face its toughest challenge yet and they need to assert themselves. Shawn Springs will be healthy and able to man up on one of the two receivers while LaRon Landry will help the other corner shadow the remaining threats.

Warner will most likely work on the side Springs is not as he should be able to exploit whoever Fred Smoot is matched up against. Smoot is not going to be able to handle either Boldin or Fitzgerald so Warner will work on him.

The Skins defensive line has come a long ways thanks to some help from Jason Taylor and their matchup against the Cards O-line will be crucial. Russ Grimm has helped Arizona's line to improve with the likes of Levi Brown and Deuce Lutui and the struggle in the trenches will be one to watch.

The Skins front seven will need to make the Cards one-dimensional in order to make things easier for the secondary. I like their chances to shut down Edgerrin James which would be a big victory.

Overall, this game is very important to the Skins and they are playing at home. They had a breakout performance last week and it is imperative they build on that with more success tomorrow. The upcoming pair of games requires that the Skins go in with some sort of momentum so I'm going to roll with the Skins winning 27-22.