After their first win of the season, the Arizona Cardinals are moving in the right direction in the latest set of power rankings from USA TODAY. However, beating the winless Cincinnati Bengals dod not yield much progress.
After dropping to No. 29 following their Week 4 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the Cardinals moved back up only to No. 28 with their win over the Bengals.
Maybe redub offense “Ground Raid”? It apparently works much better when Arizona runs ball (season-high 266 yards in Sunday’s win).
The Cardinals did run the ball extremely well against Cincinnati. However, allowing the Bengals to rally from 14 points down to tie the game was not a good look. That would explain the lack of more movement in the power rankings. The Bengals even moved up a spot in the loss.
The Cardinals have a pair of winnable games coming up. Next up are the Atlanta Falcons at home, who are No. 26. Then they get cornerback Patrick Peterson back from suspension and travel to take on the New York Giants, who are No. 24 overall.
As for the rest of the NFC West, The L.A. Rams rank 15th this week, the Seattle Seahawks are 11th and the undefeated San Francisco 49ers are sixth.
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