Arizona Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals are 9-1 this season and will face the Seattle Seahawks on the road this Sunday. Despite their obvious positive record, the Cards are heading into Seattle as the underdogs this weekend. In response to this mindset, Arizona head coach Bruce Arians noted he was not surprised by this Seattle favoritism, noting many teams are not favored to win when playing at Century Link Field, a notoriously loud stadium that has provided the home team an advantage, contributing to visiting opponents’ false start penalties, time and time again.

The Cards began their season at home, beating the San Diego Chargers 18-17. They continued to remain victorious the following 2 weeks and after returning from an early season bye week, suffered their only loss in early October against the Denver Broncos on the road, falling 41-20. Since then, they have managed to stay victorious beating teams from coast-to-coast. Arizona is 1st in the NFC West division, which includes the Seahawks, the San Francisco 49ers, who the Cards beat 23-14 in week 3, and the St. Louis Rams who the team beat 31-14 in week 10. Arizona will finish their regular season play this year with 3 division rivalry games.

While they have been playing great throughout the season, the Cardinals did suffer another loss, that of their quarterback Carson Palmer who tore his ACL during the team’s faceoff with the Rams. This is Carson’s 2nd career ACL injury although the timetable for return is more optimistic this time around based on the severity of the injury. Fortunately for the Cards, Drew Stanton has been able to step in at quarterback and the team also has impressive wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and cornerback Antonio Cromartie.

After this Sunday, the Seahawks and Cardinals will face off again in week 16 in Phoenix. Last season the Cardinals upset the Super Bowl championship team 17-10 in the final regular season game. This was Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s first loss at home and also ended the Seahawks’ home winning streak of 14-games. The Cardinals know it won’t come easily, but they will try for a similar victorious outcome with each of these 2 games against the Seahawks.