Week 8 NFL Power Rankings: Steelers beat Titans and stand tall
By Will Lomas
10. Arizona Cardinals (+8)
Kyler Murray is one of the most annoying players in the world for defensive coordinators to try to contain, and that is great news for the Arizona Cardinals.
Sure, he may be erratic at times, but what he can do to put stress on a defense with his legs is truly unique and rare, and you can see teams try to stop it in different ways and it never quite works.
More than Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes, Murray presents an impossible problem for defenses around the league and the only way he can be stopped is if the play call doesn’t involve him or if he makes a mistake on his own.
More than any other team in the NFL, the Cardinals go how Murray goes, and knocking off the Seahawks is a great way to remind the NFL just how dangerous you can be.
9. San Francisco 49ers (+1)
Speaking of dangerous, the 49ers just knocked off the Patriots and they made it look easy. Nevermind that the box score says Jimmy G had two interceptions, he didn’t have a bad day. He looks comfortable and he looked like he was in complete control of the offense.
Honestly, I shouldn’t even have to say that because when you watched him on the field it really looked more like the offense just called passes to keep him warmed up. They could have run it every single play and the Patriots wouldn’t have been able to stop it and at a certain point, they were just playing the running backs on the bottom of their depth chart.
This defense still has some nice pieces and they made Cam Newton looked washed, but the story for me was that Bill Belichick usually takes away what teams like to do the most, and he couldn’t even slow down the 49ers forte of running the ball however they wanted.
This may be a little bit too high in the power rankings when you look at what they might have to overcome to beat some of the teams below them, but how can you doubt that offense and that coaching staff right now?