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The Arizona Cardinals won for the fifth straight game and improved to 9-2 on the season. So in the latest power polls and power rankings after Week 12, where do the Cardinals stand? They are either in third or fourth in all of the lists we look at, except for one, who lists them as fifth. Some had them dropping a spot, but no one has them dropping more than one spot.
Let's see where they stand after their 19-13 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
SB Nation dropped them one spot, from third to fifth.
The Bengals moved to 9-2 as well with a blowout victory over the Rams. Tyler Eifert caught his league-leading 12th touchdown pass and their defense snuffed out any semblance of fight St. Louis could muster. Meanwhile, the Cardinals survived an uncharacteristically sluggish day on offense to beat the 49ers in Santa Clara, improving to 9-2 on the year.
ESPN, who was the only site we follow who had the Cardinals lower than third overall, has them maintaining that number four slot.
One more win and the Cardinals will have won 10 games in three consecutive seasons. The last time they did that was 1974-76, when they were in St. Louis.
Pete Prisco at CBS Sports has the Cardinals staying right where they were last week at third overall.
They struggled some at San Francisco, but that can be expected some weeks for all teams. Now they just can't let it linger.
The Cardinals stay at number three in the list FOX Sports put together.
With both Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington now dealing with injuries, rookie RB David Johnson will be tasked with inheriting a major role down the stretch. Based on his production on a per-snap basis, the Cardinals could be on the verge of some more explosive plays.
USA Today dropped the Cards from three to four, but based on concerns with recent injuries.
Concerned that they may be leaking oil as injuries (Chris Johnson) mount? Or just natural letdown against weaker foe Sunday?
Over at NFL.com, Arizona is still behind only Carolina and New England.
The Cardinals are the NFC's foremost opponent to the Panthers' dominance of the conference. But this is the Power Rankings -- the article of truth! -- so let's be honest here: They got bailed out in San Francisco. A ticky-tacky roughing-the-passer on Quinton Dial, failure by the refs to call a delay-of-game penalty and dropped interceptions allowed Arizona to snatch victory from the jaws of a flat freaking performance. That said, good teams find ways to win these kinds of games. Bad teams don't.
Yahoo! Sports, who mostly have not been on the Cardinals hype train this year, still keeps Arizona third overall.
Their running game gets a bit thin with Chris Johnson or Andre Ellington injured. It's a big spot for rookie David Johnson to shine.
Lastly, our favorite site, which uses numbers instead of opinion, numberFire still has the Cardinals as the top team in the NFL. They have a 99.9-percent of making the playoffs and an 83-percent chance of getting a first round bye in the playoffs.