Realistic 8th Ranked Cardinals NFL Power Rankings

[cardinals2025]

2024 Pre-Playoffs Rankings

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Explanation of Terms​

• SRS (Simple Rating System): This is a number that shows how strong a team is overall. It looks at how much a team wins or loses by and how tough their opponents are. A higher SRS means the team is better.
• DSRS (Defensive Simple Rating System): This part of SRS shows how good a team is at stopping the other side from scoring. A higher DSRS means the team has a stronger defense.
• OSRS (Offensive Simple Rating System): This part of SRS shows how good a team is at scoring points. A higher OSRS means the team has a better offense.
• MOV (Margin of Victory): This is the average difference between a team’s score and their opponents’ score in each game. If it’s positive, the team usually wins by that amount; if it’s negative, they usually lose by that amount.

If our defense is going to improve big time I think that jumps us over PITT, LAC, DEN, GB and WAS at this point.

Nothing they did in Free Agency seems that impressive and GB apparently got poor ratings.

Even if our offense is the same or just has a mild improvement. That would put us closer to 8th right now with:

DET, PHI, BUF, TB, BAL and KC ahead of us.

Do you guys think we can beat out TB this year and get the 3rd seed?

 

[BritCard]

We should be winning our division. We have the 11th easiest schedule on paper (not that it means much now) with only the Niners with an easier one.

The Seahawks have a new QB learning a new scheme and lost DK and Lockett. The Niners decimated their roster and rely on an aging, often injured RB. We should finish above both.

The Rams are my main concern. Like us, much will come down to how their QB plays. If Kyler isn't trash we should win the division.

 

[blindseyed]

Power rankings in May are hilarious lol

 

[kerouac9]

If our defense is going to improve big time

But your rating system has us 11th. What does "Big time" improvement mean in this context? Third?

SRS is not a sophisticated model (as the name would imply). You're reading too much into this.

 

[CardNots]

Power rankings in May are hilarious lol

with zero mention how accurate their previous year rankings were.

 

[kerouac9]

with zero mention how accurate their previous year rankings were.

There's nothing to be "accurate" about, but definitely zero mention of how predictive they were. Power Rankings are nothing more than a hype meter.

But I think you'll like this:

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

 

[Chopper0080]

We should be winning our division. We have the 11th easiest schedule on paper (not that it means much now) with only the Niners with an easier one.

The Seahawks have a new QB learning a new scheme and lost DK and Lockett. The Niners decimated their roster and rely on an aging, often injured RB. We should finish above both.

The Rams are my main concern. Like us, much will come down to how their QB plays. If Kyler isn't trash we should win the division.

I don't believe the 49ers are actually as decimated as you state. I do believe their depth has been crushed, but they still have a lot of talent.

Seahawks have a new QB, but I don't know that the difference will be as noticeable. They want to run the ball more which they should.

Rams always good.

Once again, the tough part is can Gannon elevate himself to the 3rd best HC in the division? Can Kyler surpass Stafford and Purdy as the best QB in the division? Can the youth on the defense step up to support the vets that are on the roster and have been added this offseason?

 

[BurqueCardFan]

2024 Pre-Playoffs Rankings

You must be registered for see images attach

Explanation of Terms​

• SRS (Simple Rating System): This is a number that shows how strong a team is overall. It looks at how much a team wins or loses by and how tough their opponents are. A higher SRS means the team is better.
• DSRS (Defensive Simple Rating System): This part of SRS shows how good a team is at stopping the other side from scoring. A higher DSRS means the team has a stronger defense.
• OSRS (Offensive Simple Rating System): This part of SRS shows how good a team is at scoring points. A higher OSRS means the team has a better offense.
• MOV (Margin of Victory): This is the average difference between a team’s score and their opponents’ score in each game. If it’s positive, the team usually wins by that amount; if it’s negative, they usually lose by that amount.

If our defense is going to improve big time I think that jumps us over PITT, LAC, DEN, GB and WAS at this point.

Nothing they did in Free Agency seems that impressive and GB apparently got poor ratings.

Even if our offense is the same or just has a mild improvement. That would put us closer to 8th right now with:

DET, PHI, BUF, TB, BAL and KC ahead of us.

Do you guys think we can beat out TB this year and get the 3rd seed?

Until we prove otherwise on the field, we are exactly where we belong. Middle of the pack. It's wishful thinking to think we are top 10 in anything at this point.

 

[kerouac9]

Rams always good.

Yup. Rams made the playoffs with a -19 point differential and ranked 20th in points scored, 17th in points against. They outperformed their win expectancy by two games(!!).

That could mean they'll crash back to earth, and the result was an aberration. It could and likely does.

But it might also be that they were a young, extremely well-coached team that is likely to be better this season than last.

 

[BirdGangThing]

i think our fg unit is going to be extremely important this year - like super super important

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

i think our fg unit is going to be extremely important this year - like super super important

Justin Tucker is available.

 

[BritCard]

I don't believe the 49ers are actually as decimated as you state. I do believe their depth has been crushed, but they still have a lot of talent.

Seahawks have a new QB, but I don't know that the difference will be as noticeable. They want to run the ball more which they should.

Rams always good.

Once again, the tough part is can Gannon elevate himself to the 3rd best HC in the division? Can Kyler surpass Stafford and Purdy as the best QB in the division? Can the youth on the defense step up to support the vets that are on the roster and have been added this offseason?

We beat the 49ers twice last year, and they have got demonstrably worse while we have got better. We absolutely should beat them twice this year as well.

But as I say every pre-season, how well we do will come down to how well Kyler plays. If he has a spell again this year like he did post bye week last year, then we have no chance.

 

[kerouac9]

We beat the 49ers twice last year, and they have got demonstrably worse while we have got better. We absolutely should beat them twice this year as well.

But as I say every pre-season, how well we do will come down to how well Kyler plays. If he has a spell again this year like he did post bye week last year, then we have no chance.

They’re demonstrably worse than a 6-11 team? Is their rookie gonna get shot again? Is Brandon Aiyuk only gonna play seven games again?

 

[GeorgiaCard88]

They’re demonstrably worse than a 6-11 team? Is their rookie gonna get shot again? Is Brandon Aiyuk only gonna play seven games again?

It's true - everyone dogs on purdy saying he is so-so, but the dude was missing his rookie wr, aiyuk, and McCaffrey for the majority of the season. Wouldn't want to see kylers performance if he loses MHjr and Conner

 

[cardinals2025]

Power rankings in May are hilarious lol

I saw a NE fan put them at 15th the other day and getting the divisional round.

 

[cardinals2025]

It's true - everyone dogs on purdy saying he is so-so, but the dude was missing his rookie wr, aiyuk, and McCaffrey for the majority of the season. Wouldn't want to see kylers performance if he loses MHjr and Conner

You can do the season simulator right now because the home and away opponents are already known.

Free NFL Playoff Predictor 2025-2026

Pro Football Network's NFL Playoff Predictor allows you to predict each game of the 2025 NFL season to see how it impacts the playoff picture and matchups.

www.profootballnetwork.com

No one is saying SF will be worse, just not good enough.

Division could easily go like this..

AZ 10-7
LA 9-8
SEA 9-8
SF 8-9

I mean you can switch SEA and SF if you want to give them a 3 win improvement from last year and we still win division. My major arguement against SF is the worst defense has never won the NFC West in the history of the division. They will have the worst defense this year just like last year.

Defensively, they have major holes especially in the secondary and their depth on both sides of the ball is severely lacking. They just signed DJ Humphries for a reason.

If any of their stars get hurt this year, then yeah they are in deep trouble.

Also they had a losing record even when Mccaffrey was playing. 1-5 vs the division shouldn’t just be ignored. They have had injuries before and overcame that so why not last year? Because of how bad their defense was.

28th in ppg allowed.

AZ was 14th

LA was 18th

SEA was 11th

They will be last again.

 

[cardinals2025]

with zero mention how accurate their previous year rankings were.

Playoffs are a crap shoot especially if you are a wild card team. The goal is to get there with home field advantage. Especially if it is highly doubtful (probably impossible) we can get a bye.

Are you saying the Cardinals should be ranked ahead of the Lions or Bucs because of their playoff performance?

Cuz I am all for that

If the Bills hypothetically were 15-2 and the Chiefs were 10-6, should BUF just be behind KC regardless of how they are playing in the regular season because of the fact they cant beat them in the playoffs?


Obviously regular season stats matter more than the result of single playoff games.

Unless you want to rank WAS in the top 5.

I think it is more relevant to know that the Chargers were the 2nd best defense in the league imo.

The goal of this post was a convo on how we should be ranked following FA and the Draft so I put up some stats on how the teams finished the reg season. Obviously, playoff results matter but I don’t think we learn an awful lot from TB who we play this year based on their loss to WAS for instance. I am sure Rallis will look at the tape, but a FG decided the result of that game.

 

[kerouac9]

No one is saying SF will be worse, just not good enough.

@BritCard just said they will be worse two posts above????

If any of their stars get hurt this year, then yeah they are in deep trouble.

You can say this about any team in the NFL.

 

[Chopper0080]

We beat the 49ers twice last year, and they have got demonstrably worse while we have got better. We absolutely should beat them twice this year as well.

But as I say every pre-season, how well we do will come down to how well Kyler plays. If he has a spell again this year like he did post bye week last year, then we have no chance.

I don't know that this is true.

CMC played 4 games.

Brandon Aiyuk played 7 games.

Trent Williams played 10 games.

The argument is that they have lost players but they also had bad injury luck to three of their best players. Easy to argue that those players are good enough to offset any losses.

 

[cardinals2025]

There's nothing to be "accurate" about, but definitely zero mention of how predictive they were. Power Rankings are nothing more than a hype meter.

But I think you'll like this:

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

I was just curious of what we thought after FA and the Draft in terms of getting the 3rd seed over TB. That was my question that no one wants to take a shot at lol

Thought it would be nice if people knew how the teams were ranked mathematically based on strength of schedule and margin of victory instead of ESPN or SI doing it. With bias towards the east and west coast always.

 

[cardinals2025]

But your rating system has us 11th. What does "Big time" improvement mean in this context? Third?

SRS is not a sophisticated model (as the name would imply). You're reading too much into this.

It is more sophisticated than an SI or ESPN article making power rankings. With an obvious east and west coast bias every year and being wrong about our record now 2 straight years in a row. (This includes vegas over under at this point in the offseason and before the season started)

I said our SRS could jump from 13th to 8th.

I guess the better number to look at for defense would be that we were 14th in ppg. I think we can improve on that and be 10th at least.

So our offense improves to 11th in ppg from 12th.

Our def goes from 14th to 10th.

Seems like a 10-11 win team.

Right now vegas has us at over under 8.5 wins. I do not see how we don’t get 9 wins if we avoid major injury. It would be a catastrophe and end of Kyler for sure.

When is everyone else gonna acknowledge the fact that even though we were disappointed last year, we still overachieved our national expectations for the 2nd straight season in every possible way.

 

[Shane]

They’re demonstrably worse than a 6-11 team? Is their rookie gonna get shot again? Is Brandon Aiyuk only gonna play seven games again?

Aiyuks 3 catches a game 52 yards PG and 0 TDs in 7 games was tits for them! That was while fully healthy and not less than a year from recovering from ACL surgery.

 

[BirdGangThing]

nfc west is a crapshoot - chickens will have a new qb but sf/la/az are all in the mix

 

[cardinals2025]

I don't believe the 49ers are actually as decimated as you state. I do believe their depth has been crushed, but they still have a lot of talent.

Seahawks have a new QB, but I don't know that the difference will be as noticeable. They want to run the ball more which they should.

Rams always good.

Once again, the tough part is can Gannon elevate himself to the 3rd best HC in the division? Can Kyler surpass Stafford and Purdy as the best QB in the division? Can the youth on the defense step up to support the vets that are on the roster and have been added this offseason?

Stafford is aging.

We were a helmet away from sweeping the Rams.

I also believe Mcvay is one of the best offensive coordinators in the league and the fact LA put up only 23 PTS on us in two games last year is continually ignored by Cardinals fans.

What was their excuse for only scoring 13, especially with James Connor out of the game in the 2nd half?

The Rams are the biggest threat but SEA can’t be ignored. They continually compete when the national media marks them out and their def could be better than last year too. They were the best in the division on def for a reason last year.

I believe Darnold, who beat SF last year, will split with them at worst and SEA has a good chance to sweep SF this year. If you think about the fact that SEA’s def has a massive advantage over SF’s def it is not hard to imagine that happening. And then all we have to do is not get swept by anyone.

There are multiple ways we can only go 3-3 in the division again and still end up with 10 wins. We are not going worse than 3-3.

Also, you gotta be more optimistic. We were a mathematic favorite to win 9 games last year. (CAR or LAR) should have been a split in terms of the % chances of winning.

NFL playoff predictor delivers shocking revelation about 49ers' postseason hopes

Pro Football Network's NFL playoff predictor didn't exactly cast the 49ers in a positive light following the 2025 draft.

ninernoise.com

This has the result AZ and SEA getting a wildcard.

I would love to see that happen so the national media can be shocked to death.

 

[BirdGangThing]

qbs win mvps and superbowls at age 37 - stafford isn't done