Arizona Cardinals schedule not as easy as you think

The Arizona Cardinals schedule in first six weeks not as much as a cake walk as you might think

Much has been made by national, and local, media about how the Arizona Cardinals are only winning because of their schedule. The knock has been that they arguably have beaten only really bad teams and they lost games to the two toughest teams they’ve faced.

On the surface it sure appears that way. However if you take a look at the Cardinals schedule so far, their opponents are 13-22.

For comparison:

The Green Bay Packers (6-0) and the Cincinnati Bengals (6-0) opponents records are both 11-24. So, about that talk the Cardinals have faced the easiest competition. Sure, no one can claim they’ve faced the stiffest competition yet because trust me, the second half of the season is full of good teams, but the teams they’ve faced are not complete walk overs.

Then there is always the saying you can only beat who they schedule for you. A lot of people are going around complaining about the Cardinals schedule being easy. Well, if you don’t know how the NFL schedule rules work, you might want to read up. The Cardinals have no control over who they play and when.

The only schedule control is where they finish record wise in the standings in the NFC West determines which place team they play from the other NFC divisions that they don’t play as a whole the following year. So this year, by virtue of their second-place finish in 2014, they play the second-place New Orleans Saints from the NFC South and the second-place Philadelphia Eagles from the NFC East. They play the entire NFC North this season.

The Cardinals opponent’s record this week takes a dive with the 1-5 Baltimore Ravens coming to town for Monday Night Football. So it’s not always about record. The Ravens I think we can agree are better than their record.

There’s no need to defend the Cardinals schedule but yet I feel like I should anyway. Their play speaks for itself. Their two losses they still beat up their opponent statistically on offense. The problem there was the offense came between the 20’s and not the red zone. You could argue the Cardinals are only a couple of plays from being 6-0.

As I said the other day though, good teams should be beating up on lesser talent. The Cardinals are doing that and getting the fights from the teams that you would expect to fight them tougher. The Cardinals will be just fine but yes, things will start getting tougher in a few weeks.

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