An Early Look Back at Week 4, 2007

Obviously, over the next two weeks we're going to see plenty of footage of Ken Whisenhunt's Cardinals in the desert handing Mike Tomlin his first loss as Steelers head coach early last season. Taking a quick gaze back at the stat line, it followed the Cards' MO that given them success during these playoffs: Larry Fitzgerald had 10 catches for 120 yards (though he did lose a fumble), Edge James had a decent 21 carries for 77 yards while Arizona's defense held Willie Parker to 37 yards on 21 carries and intercepted Ben twice, once memorably in the endzone on a pass he tried to force to Heath Miller.

Remember, though, that Hines Ward did not play in that game, having been injured the week before against San Francisco. The Steelers were winning 7-0 at half, but the defense struggled when Polamalu left the game at the half with an injury.

Of the encouraging signs in what I remember being a flat performance out of the Steelers was Santonio Holmes hauling in six catches for 128 yards and two scores, including a huge Roethlisberger bomb on a 3rd and 26 to open scoring. A less comforting thought is that this happened when Whisenhunt was still foolishly shifting between Warner and Leinart at quarterback. Now it's clearly Warner's team and he's much more comfortable with the offense.

The time between then and now for young coaches is dramatic. The Steelers defense is improved. The Steelers, who gave up a huge return to Steve Breaston to set up a score, have shored up special teams coverage. Roethlisberger is playing smarter. Naturally, the key changes the Steelers will need to make is to get a semblance of a run game going, find a way to contain Fitzgerald and hope that Hines can be as close to 100 percent as possible in two weeks.

You could make an argument that Whiz and Grimm benefited early from a match-up at home that both were working for months earlier and that the team is much more Tomlin's animal now than it was then. Either way, they gameplanned well, and the Steelers will have to have answers for will probably be a similar strategy out of the Cards in two weeks.