The Arizona Cardinals are 2-4 heading into Week 7 following their shocking 18-16 road upset over the divisional rival Los Angeles Rams.
Arizona has now won both games on the road in SoFi Stadium, including a Week 1 upset over the Los Angeles Chargers. But with the Chargers still winless and the Rams failing to live up to their contender status, it's wise to temper expectations as far as what this means for the remainder of the season.
Rebuilding Cardinals should still turn to Carson Beck
This rebuilding roster simply isn't ready for a playoff spot in general, but especially in the NFC West where they still have to beat out the defending champion Seattle Seahawks and undefeated San Francisco 49ers. That's contributed to a demanding schedule that includes two of those brutal divisional matchups.
Here is Arizona's upcoming schedule: Denver, at Dallas, at Seattle, LA Rams, at Kansas City. The Cardinals will, in all likelihood, enter each of those contests as underdogs, threatening to push them further out of the playoff picture.
Their 2-4 start to the season has actually exceeded expectations considering many viewed the Cardinals in the mix for the No. 1 overall pick next summer. It's a fine line, however, as they don't want to be stuck in purgatory without a long-term solution at the most important position in all of football.
Arizona reworked Jacoby Brissett's deal, paying him roughly $10 million more to make it more reflective of the starting quarterback he was projected to be. Mike LaFleur clearly has firm belief that Brissett gives this team the best chance to win. He's already said he won't make the switch for third-round rookie Carson Beck against the Broncos, which was to be expected after the Cardinals just pulled off arguably the biggest upset of the entire season so far.
We saw a different Cardinals team in the upset over the Rams, one that ran off a successful blitz-heavy approach by defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. Brissett played just well enough to give their defense a chance to win, but also struggled to generate a single touchdown for this offense.
The concern is that Arizona will wait too long to give themselves a chance to properly evaluate Beck. There's a handful of quarterbacks in the 2027 class that are projected to be drafted in the first round, which is currently headlined by Drew Mestemaker. That said, they haven't necessarily impressed to the extent analysts were expecting entering the season. Texas' Arch Manning and Oregon's Dante Moore are two examples of prospects that were initially viewed as headliners in this class only to see their respective draft stocks take a massive hit.
That makes it increasingly difficult for Arizona to decide whether to take quarterback or the best available prospect when they are on the clock. At one point it seemed those two answers would be one and the same, but that’s becoming less likely with the relatively poor quarterback play from Manning, Moore and others.
That should give the Cardinals even more reason to see what they have in Beck, as it would skip a huge, uncertain step in their rebuilding process if they already had that position solidified.
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