Cardinals Must Continue This Trend in 2025

The Arizona Cardinals haven't had much in the way of divisional success in recent years, but that's something that's begun to shift in the early days of the Jonathan Gannon era.

From 2019-2023, beginning when Kyler Murray arrived in the desert, the Cardinals went an abysmal 8-22 against divisional opponents. In fact, a 4-2 divisional record in a hot 2021 season was the best Arizona fared against their rivals since Bruce Arians was the head coach back in 2016.

And by all accounts, that 2021 season was a top-heavy fluke. Simply put, the Cardinals have had little to no divisional success in the last decade.

While it's understandable to have poor overall game outcomes during the course of not one but two 4-13 seasons in 2022 and 2023, the fact is that the Arizona couldn't muster more than one singular victory in 12 divisional matchups.

That victory was a 27-17 win over the Rams in Los Angeles week 10, with Colt McCoy playing in place of an injured Murray.

Football is a fickle sport, and one of the most curious and wonderful aspects of division rivalries is the general concept that even the poorest-performing teams can find scrappy, ugly ways to knock off their rivals. To steal a phrase from the college football world, it simply means more.

But the Cardinals have been exceptions to that rule. Instead, they've been Seattle's, Los Angeles' and San Francisco's collective punching bag in recent seasons.

It's time for that to change, and the Cardinals could be heading in the right direction in that regard.

In the brutal 2023 season - year one of the official rebuild, mind you - the Cardinals were held winless against the NFC West.

In fact, only two of the six matchups were even close (both being against a relatively weak Seattle squad). Granted, two missed kicks by Matt Prater doomed what appeared to be a game-winning drive in the season finale, but I digress.

In 2024, the Cardinals doubled their win total from four to eight games. But this time, nearly half of those eight wins were against divisional opponents, as Gannon's squad finished 3-3 in the West.

And they weren't fluke-fueled victories, either. Arizona demolished the Rams at home 41-10 in week two. They swept the 49ers, completing a 13-point comeback in week five and a dominant 47-24 win at home to close out the season.

In fact, of their three divisional losses, two of them came down to roughly one key play that swung the game in their opponents' favor.

To compete in the deep NFC, winning divisions is a premium. The NFC West will never stay down for long.

A 3-3 record is a massive step in the right direction, tripling their margin of wins over the past two years.

But it can't stop there. The Cardinals cannot simply sit back and hope for Wild Card berths to come to them. If they want to compete in the playoffs, they have to find ways to beat teams that are fundamentally sound, well-coached and talent-ridden.

Arizona is edging towards those factors themselves, don't misunderstand. But it has to show up in tangible results, and in big moments.

While the Cardinals were more successful in the west, they also folded in two of their biggest games of the year - both losses to an unstable Seahawks team.

It's encouraging to see them dominate the 49ers and put up fireworks against the Rams, but they'll have to be a more holistic divisional competitor as the years progress. If Gannon wants to take his seat next to Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, his team has to become a consistent problem for them.

It's time to win the West again, for the first time since 2015.