The Arizona Cardinals are about to open their 30th season in the desert
It’s that time. The Arizona Cardinals have just gone on their first plane ride of the 2017 season. They are in Detroit Friday night in order to take on the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
Everywhere you turn you will get a completely different opinion than the last guy about what to expect from the Cardinals and how they think they will do this season. A lot will have to do with health.
A lot of it though will have to do with performance. Even when healthy last year, the Cardinals had their issues. Special teams, turnovers, sacks, you name it, it happened.
Now our staff takes a look at 2017 and makes their prediction for the upcoming season. What they are saying:
“I’m predicting a NFC Championship game for this team, with AZ losing to Green Bay 34-28. I felt like Arizona was going to make it to the Superbowl last year, but I honestly think the online series we participated in was too much publicity, causing our team to lose sight of what was real….football.” – Nick Szarowski
“I think we’ll go 11 – 5 this season because we have a relatively easy schedule. I believe we’ll do well against non division teams, but regress within division. We went 4-1-1 last year in division and with the off season adjustments LA and San Fran made I think we’ll split with both of them. I do believe we’ll sweep Seattle this year making us 4-2 in division. I think Seattle and us will meet week 17 both 10 – 5 and play for the division in which I believe we’ll win.” – Zackary Maus
“Cardinals go 11-5, winning the NFC West. My biggest question mark coming in was that of the special teams. With Andy Lee and Phil Dawson now on the team, I fell like this is once again a complete football team.” – Mark Hernandez
“Brutal special teams’ play probably cost the Arizona Cardinals three victories last year. Newcomers Phil Dawson and Andy Lee could fix all of that. That improvement combined with a big year from Carson Palmer results in an 11-5 record and possible Super Bowl appearance. “- Jim Koch
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The Cardinals should go 12-4 at best, 10-6 at worst. Sure, some have them going as 7-9, I’ve seen a couple at 13-3. I’ve seen Super Bowl predictions and I’ve seen them predicted to miss the postseason again.
The cool thing as we sit now under 48 hours from kickoff as no one is right and no one is wrong. It’s just all opinion. We don’t all have to agree. We also don’t all have to disagree.
The Cardinals have one of the widest ranges of predictions out there in the NFL. People just don’t know if an aging quarterback can win, especially with a guy like Palmer. There are also a lot of new faces on this team.
A loss against the Lions doesn’t mean the Cardinals won’t make the playoffs. It doesn’t help certainly, but also it’s a long season.
On the flip side a win on Sunday doesn’t mean Super Bowl or even a postseason berth. It just means it’s a win in game one of 16.
The other cool thing is no matter what happens, we all want the best for this team and organization. They’ve put in a lot of hard work to get to this point.
The schedule lines up well down the stretch but a little brutal to start. It isn’t anything the Cardinals can’t handle though. Teams that handle the tough schedules are the ones that deserve the rewards at the end.