If the Cards beat the Bengals and all the other 0-fer teams lose, they’d lose ground in the race to the top draft pick.
Excuse me sir, and I’m a Bengals fan, but…IF???
Well, Cincinnati is a 3.5 favorite… somehow.
At this point Andy Dalton is a better QB than Kyler Murray, if for no other reason than a lack of experience in the NFL. Murray is much more likely to make mistakes. I think he has what it takes to be a legit franchise QB and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t become Arizona’s best all-time QB (low bar I know) but that’s in the future.
That alone gives Cincinnati an edge.
You mean a low bar other than Hall of Fame QB Kurt Warner leading the Cardinals to the Superbowl?
Couple of days ago two hosts on my local sports-talk station were discussing the Dolphins and whether they would be able to lay a goose egg for the season. One of them opined that it was harder than it seemed, and hadn’t happened in about a decade. (“No, it happened two years ago!”, I yelled at the radio.) And no one, not the other host, nor a producer, nor a caller, corrected him. And these are folks who can tell you how many missed PATs the Falcons had in 2007.
Clearly the Browns front office has deployed some sort of memory-erasing ray on the rest of the country.
He played there but he was not his Hall of Fame self. He was plagued with injuries his first year, benched his second year to play backup to a rookie, played backup most of his third year, finally was named a starter the fourth year where he struggled at times but eventually looked like the great player he once was, and did indeed lead them to a SB (which they lost but not badly, and he was certainly great there). He did well the following year, got to the NFC Championship but got hurt in the loss (due to Bountygate) and retired.
So the Cardinals had two good years with him. Hardly what you’d call a real franchise QB. His glory years were with the Rams.
And as I like to remind people, the 0-16 was bad enough but they were 1-32. That’s a record that may never be broken while the NFL has rules to support parity.
I think his time in Arizona is what clinched his induction into the HoF. Without that third Superbowl appearance, I don’t think he has enough longevity as a successful QB to make it in.
Agreed that he only had two good seasons with the Cards, but he also only had three good (great) seasons with the Rams.
My feeling (feeling, mind you) is that if the Cardinals build around Murray they can have something really good. It could be his team and could be a contender year after year. I didn’t buy into the hype during the draft but seeing him on the field I’m impressed by him.
As a Seahawks fan I’m hoping he fizzles out of course. 
Agreed. And to your point, he could (and should; I expect him to) far surpass any “original” Cardinals QB, which is indeed a low bar. Matt Leinart didn’t pan out, so basically the bar was set by Jake Plummer, who never cracked an 80 passer rating in his 6 years in Arizona. (And only one of those years had him with more TDs than Ints!) He got decent when he went to Denver, but not until then.
I’m surprised Warner only had 3 good seasons with the Rams. When I looked it up I kept rechecking because that just seemed wrong. My only point with that was that the Cards did have a legit HoF QB in Warner because his Arizona resume played a significant role in getting him into the Hall. Unlike, say, Joe Montana, where the voting committee probably didn’t even mention his (pretty successful) time in Kansas City before voting him in.
Assuming we’re only talking about the Arizona era for the Cardinals, I’d agree that they haven’t had a lot of good QB play. If one’s willing to include the franchise’s tenure in St. Louis, there were two very good quarterbacks in Neil Lomax and Jim Hart.
Just going by wins and losses, I’ll have to take your word on Lomax but yeah, the team actually won under Hart. In particular from 74 to 76 he led the team to a solid 31-11 record. Maybe not great the other 10 years he led the team in passing, but that’s a legitimately good three year stretch. I stand corrected.
So the low bar should be qualified with “in the last 30-40 years.”
Of the two, Hart was undoubtedly the better QB. And, yeah, in the mid '70s, the Cardinals had one of the best offenses in the NFL, with Hart at QB, Terry Metcalf and Jim Otis in the backfield, and Mel Gray and Jackie Smith (and Metcalf) as receivers. They had the misfortune of playing in a loaded NFC in that era, and they couldn’t make it past the Rams, Vikings, and Cowboys. (Heck, in '76, the Cardinals finished at 10-4, and out of the playoffs!)
Lomax had put up some ridiculous passing numbers in college at Portland State; in the NFL, he had some extremely good years, but wasn’t particularly consistent (which reminds me, now that I think about it, of Warner’s tenure with the Cardinals), and he had to retire early due to an arthritic hip. Like Hart’s teams, those Cardinal teams had some good players on offense (Ottis Anderson, Stump Mitchell, Roy Green, J.T. Smith), but even in the years that the offense was good, the defense often wasn’t.
I read an interesting statistic today. Since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, no more than 6 teams have been winless in week 5. We have exactly that many now, matching the record. If at least 5 are winless by next week it will be a new record.
Two, count 'em, two teams got their first win this week. The Cardinals used a fellow contender to finally get a genuine win, meaning I don’t have to include them with an asterisk because of their stupid tie. The Broncos were probably the most surprising entrant in this contest anyway, and they got their inevitable win at long last.
[del]Arizona Cardinals[/del]
[del]Denver Broncos[/del]
Here are our remaining Four Fruitless Flocks, this time sorted fewest offensive touchdowns per game. Also showing is average margin of loss, and their next opponent:
Miami Dolphins 0.5 TDs/gm (-34.2 ppg) host Redskins (0-5, -15.6 ppg)
New York Jets 0.5 TDs/gm (-15.5 ppg) host Cowboys (3-2, +8.2 ppg)
Cincinnati Bengals 1.6 TDs/gm (-11.2 ppg) at Ravens (3-2, +7.6 ppg)
Washington Redskins 1.8 TDs/gm (-15.6 ppg) at Dolphins (0-4, -34.2 ppg)
My Eagles-fan friend texted me during his game against the Jets saying they might be worse than the Dolphins. He could be right, and unfortunately for fans of quality football play, they’re in the same division. The Jets defense has scored more touchdowns than the offense. They’ve only attempted three field goals in four games, and only made one of them.
The Bengals loss to the Cardinals may have looked close, but the win percentage for Arizona never dipped below 55% after their first-quarter TD. They’ll probably snag a win here and there, but the question is will the front office let Zac Taylor pick out a new QB?
Dan Snyder found another scapegoat, firing Jay Gruden. I wonder if he thinks that will “help” improve the team or “help” get a better draft pick.
I know three of the remaining teams have had to play the Patriots, but the fact that all are averaging double-digit losses just boggles.
Nothing will ruin a perfectly executed plan than someone else being such a fuckup that you can’t excape it.
The plan is the Dolphins’ season…the fuckup? Is that the Redskins’ music I hear!!!
We’re now at 4. 
Dammit Broncos! We could have made history! :mad:
(I can’t blame Cincy and the Cards for not tying. The Cards already did that once this year.
Unless it’s your own players. Management may be trying to tank, but the remaining players, in spite of their limited talents, instinctively want to win, and to show other teams they’re worth trading for.
It’s a shame the schedule rotation landed on the AFC East (Dolphins & Jets) playing both the AFC North (Bengals) as well as the NFC East (Redskins).