NFL Winners and Losers: Overrated Arizona Cardinals back to earth

This is why it makes sense to take a look at the past schedule in the NFL, and not just the standings.

A lot of people were anointing the Arizona Cardinals as one of the best teams in football after three weeks. They had defeated the New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers, arguably the three worst teams in the NFL.

The Cardinals don’t look like one of the best teams in the NFL anymore. The St. Louis Rams came into Arizona and won 24-22. The Rams never trailed. The Cardinals weren’t blown out or anything — they out-gained the Rams 447-328 and had a chance to win in the last two minutes but turned it over on downs — but they also didn’t look all that dominant either.

The Cardinals aren’t a bad team, but are they one of the absolute best? Maybe not. The Rams’ offensive line hasn’t been able to block well all season, but it helped rookie Todd Gurley gain 144 yards in the second half. Nick Foles isn’t a great quarterback, but he completed 16-of-24 passes for 171 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions against Arizona. The offense that everyone was so excited about didn’t score a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter, when the Rams were up 24-15.

And this was a Rams team that was 1-2 with losses to Washington and a Pittsburgh Steelers team that lost Ben Roethlisberger. Life looked different for the Cardinals when 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick wasn’t handing them interceptions.

One loss doesn’t mean the Cardinals aren’t good or even that we should cross them off a painfully short list of Super Bowl contenders. But we just need to slow down a little. Had the Seattle Seahawks played the Saints, Bears and 49ers, they would have been an impressive 3-0, too. A nice scheduling stretch didn’t mean the Cardinals had overtaken the Seahawks in the NFC West.

The Cardinals are still a good team. They’ll probably be a playoff team. But they’re not one of the top two or three teams in the NFL. They might not be the best team in the NFC West. Just something to keep in mind next year when we go crazy about an undefeated team: Always keep in mind who it has had to beat.

Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 4 in the NFL:

WINNERS

New York Giants: OK, fine, that was convincing.

I was holding out before giving the Giants too much credit, but after a really impressive 24-10 win at a Buffalo Bills team that smashed Indianapolis and Miami in the first three weeks, a new narrative should emerge. The Giants probably should have been 4-0 right now against a pretty tough schedule.

The Giants should have defeated the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1 if not for a ridiculous clock management fiasco. And that was the Tony Romo-Dez Bryant Cowboys, who were considered a Super Bowl contender. The Atlanta Falcons have played really well in their 4-0 start, and the Giants were up 20-10 on them in the fourth quarter before losing on a touchdown with 1:14 left.

The Giants are that close to being 4-0 against the Cowboys (with Romo), Falcons, Redskins (hey, they’re 2-1 in their other three games) and Bills. Sunday’s win at Buffalo revealed a lot about them.

Andy Dalton: We’re all waiting for The Andy Dalton Collapse, but week after week it’s looking like we might be waiting a lot longer than we anticipated.

Dalton looked very good again in an another impressive Cincinnati Bengals win. The Bengals beat the Kansas City Chiefs 36-21 and Dalton completed 17-of-24 passes for 321 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions. This just continued his hot streak. Dalton came into this week with a better quarterback rating than Tom Brady. He has been tremendous. Dalton threw it great against the Chiefs, and had a really athletic scramble on a third and 4 in the fourth quarter, avoiding the rush to get 8 yards.

The Bengals are Super Bowl contenders, and a big reason is Dalton. That might sound weird, but it has played out four weeks in a row to start the season.

Devonta Freeman: The NFL moves so fast, you can lose out on your chance before you even get one. Freeman obviously felt some urgency this season.

Last year he was a fourth-round pick, a decent investment for the Atlanta Falcons. He looked like the back of the future, once Steven Jackson was done. But he had a quiet rookie season and then the Falcons used a third-round pick on Tevin Coleman, which must have been a jolt to Freeman. It looked like he had been supplanted as the back of the future.

But since Coleman broke some ribs, Freeman has taken over. The past two weeks he has 342 total yards and six touchdowns, and he didn’t even play a ton in the second half of a total blowout of the Houston Texans on Sunday. That’s how you take advantage of a situation. In offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s running back-friendly scheme, Freeman looks like a great fit for the 4-0 Falcons.

Minnesota Vikings: I know, they fell short to the Denver Broncos. But, going back to the beginning of this post, it’s worthwhile to note who and where a team plays, and how they look.

And the Vikings looked pretty good on Sunday. The Broncos are one of the handful of teams in the NFL that should legitimately feel they can win a Super Bowl, because their defense is that good. And the Vikings were tied with them until late, when the Broncos hit a game-winning field goal.

Teddy Bridgewater was under constant pressure from a great Broncos pass rush, but he kept his poise and played very well. Adrian Peterson broke a long touchdown run on fourth and 1 in the fourth quarter. The Vikings’ defense gave up a 72-yard run to Ronnie Hillman, but the Broncos had just 272 yards other than that play.

The Vikings didn’t win on Sunday. But they won’t have many dates as tough the rest of the way as playing at Denver. That was a pretty good outing. They should feel pretty confident going forward.

Adam Vinatieri: There wasn’t much to like about the Indianapolis Colts’ win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, but Vinatieri was a bright spot. He became the first player in NFL history to score 1,000 points for two different teams. He had obviously done so with the New England Patriots in the first chapter of his career.

And on a day in which kickers struggled mightily, Vinatieri hit all three of his attempts, including a 54-yarder, and an overtime winner (yeah it was a short one, but the New Orleans Saints missed a short one, so ask them about reliable kickers). Vinatieri had a tough start to the season, missing his first two field-goal attempts, but his day Sunday was a reminder of how great he has been for many, many years.

LOSERS

Bills penalties: I can’t totally blame the Bills for taking 17 penalties, because the NFL officials seem like they’re getting paid by the flag this season. The New York Jets-Miami Dolphins game in London, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ET, bled into the 1 p.m. ET games mostly because the officials threw so many penalties the people of England will see bright yellow in their sleep.

But still, 17 penalties for 135 yards for the Bills? Rex Ryan’s teams will always play with toughness, and sometimes they cross a line. There were mental errors too, like an illegal formation on a field-goal try by the Giants. After that penalty was accepted for a first down, the Giants scored a touchdown.

This was not a good loss by any means for the Bills, looking overmatched at home. There was a chance for a letdown after big games against the Colts, Patriots and Dolphins. But this was a big letdown. The New England Patriots rarely have losses this bad, and that’s a reason the rest of the AFC East is constantly a step behind them.

Houston Texans: The Texans have taken a big step back from last year's 9-7 squad, and it isn’t because Ryan Fitzpatrick was that much better than Brian Hoyer.

The Texans weren’t the type of team that had a lot of margin of error, but what has happened this season has been very surprising. Houston lost 48-21 at Atlanta in a game that wasn’t nearly that close. Houston scored three straight garbage-time touchdowns in the fourth quarter after falling behind 42-0.

"Awful," J.J. Watt said, according to the Houston Chronicle. "It was terrible. Everyone deserves blame, (because) it was an awful performance.

"Every single loss is terrible. Today was especially terrible. We played absolutely pitiful football today.”

Where do the Texans even go from here? Hoyer played OK in relief of Ryan Mallett, but that was entirely meaningless playing time with the game out of hand. Will the Texans make another move at quarterback? Maybe, but there’s no magic solution awaiting there.

Houston isn’t good right now, and Sunday was probably rock bottom. It can’t get much worse.

The Jacksonville Jaguars and Blake Bortles: It’s not like Bortles hasn’t shown anything positive since he was drafted in the first round in 2014. But games like Sunday make you wonder if he’s ever going to be as good as Jacksonville needs him to be. 

You watch Derek Carr and Bridgewater, and they’re not perfect. But they seem further along than Bortles, the fourth pick last year. So does Marcus Mariota, the second pick this year. Sunday’s game against Indianapolis without Andrew Luck was entirely winnable. The Colts scored 13 points in regulation. The Jaguars couldn’t beat them.

Blame kicker Jason Myers, who missed two potential game-winning field goals, but it’s on Bortles too. Against a Colts defense that isn’t very good, Bortles was just 28 of 50 for 298 yards. With the game in the balance, Bortles didn’t make one play to win it. He had Allen Robinson open on a wheel route down the sideline in overtime, and a good throw might have been a touchdown. Bortles threw it too far outside and it was incomplete out of bounds. Bortles missed a few passes to relatively open receivers by miles. He just wasn’t nearly as good as he needed to be in a game that the Jaguars really should have won.

Bortles still has time to develop, but it’s more than a little concerning there’s been so little development to this point.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab