The Arizona Cardinals evened their record to 2-2 Sunday with a 26-16 win over the Carolina Panthers. They kept themselves relevant and on schedule while they tread water with DeAndre Hopkins suspended and a number of players injured.
The win gave them a boost in the newest power rankings from Touchdown Wire’s Mark Lane.
They moved up to 16th after ranking 19th after Week 3.
The Cardinals are at least finding ways to beat the lesser competition in the NFL as opposed to playing down to it. The win over the Panthers will help them keep pace with the rest of the NFC West, which appears to be a wide open division in 2022 as opposed to highly competitive as it was last year. Once the Cardinals’ playmakers get back, it should be a much improved squad.
With the new rankings, they are now ninth among NFC teams, which isn’t a bad spot to be considering the Cardinals’ early-season struggles.
They seem to have found themselves defensively but have yet to put together a full game of good offensive play, and the offense is supposed to be the strength of this team.
They face the unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles, who are No. 1 in these power rankings, this week.
If they can somehow get a win over a top team, snapping their seven-game losing streak at home, everyone will feel a lot better about the direction of the team.
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