Where the Cardinals Rank in the NFC West After Free Agency

The NFC West is a three-headed monster entering the 2026 season with the Arizona Cardinals tagging along.

The Cardinals had massive work to do on their overall team and barely got festivities underway in free agency. It was hard to see Arizona turning things around like they have, though the organization took a few small steps in the right direction.

Still, compared to the other three teams in the division, Arizona had some incredibly tough sledding and still does approaching free agency.

It feels like you can mix any of the other three organizations in any order with success, while the Cardinals' placement on this list is expected:

1. Los Angeles Rams

The Rams addressed arguably their weakest position, heavily, at cornerback with Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson.

Los Angeles is a team that was pretty close to making the Super Bowl before the Seattle Seahawks outlasted them.

The Rams' roster is mostly returning for what appears to be one final hurrah with Matthew Stafford, and with a glaring weakness now at least improved, they should be a fun team to track in 2026 on both sides of the ball now.

2. San Francisco 49ers

In terms of just free agency, it's hard to see a better stretch of time than the 49ers.

San Francisco got an ice boost offensively with wide receiver Mike Evans on a nice deal while also adding Christian Kirk to the room.

Defensively, the Osa Odighizuwa trade shored up the trenches and was probably one of the more underrated moves of the NFL offseason.

When fully healthy, this 49ers squad can make some noise. That was the case last year, though the supplemental help was icing on the cake.

3. Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks by absolutely no means had a bad free agent period, but such is life for the Super Bowl champs after seeing player after player depart in free agency.

Champagne problems, right? I'm sure they'll feel fine after raising a Super Bowl banner.

The Seahawks did manage to keep Rashid Shaheed and a few other key contributors while still boasting a strong roster — though in terms of getting better or worse in free agency, Seattle is a clear third behind the other two.

4. Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals, expectedly, land in the bottom of the basement.

They didn't, at least in our opinion, have a glaringly bad offseason so far. They needed to pull the plug on the Kyler Murray experiment and there just wasn't a viable, long-term solution available immediately.

Isaac Seumalo and Tyler Allgeier were very solid adds. You could throw Jack Gibbens in that realm, too.

Yet the rest of the bunch are just rotational/depth guys, and no matter how you slice it, it's not good enough to get Arizona out of fourth in an extremely tough division.