Do the Cardinals have the edge over the Rams?

Yahoo Sports' Scott Pianowski and Frank Schwab discuss Monday's matchup between Arizona and Los Angeles.

Video Transcript

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Here's a good one on Monday, Rams, Cardinals. You nailed the Rams last week. You got me on the Rams side. You said, look, these guys are bullies. They play a team they're supposed to beat. They name the score. That's what they did against Jacksonville.

Now they go to Arizona, number one in the Schwab power rankings, number one in the NFC. Kyler Murray looked healthy last week, was running proactively. Cardinals are a 3 point favorite on Monday. The total is 52. Can the Rams hang with a real team? They can beat the bad teams. What can they do at Arizona?

FRANK SCHWAB: I got to keep going with this theme, right, like the Rams are frontrunners, until proven otherwise. They are really, really good against bad teams. And against good teams, they're just not that. I think they gained a win because the Colts are now over 500, which makes them 2 and 4 against teams over 500 this year. And then, they're, I believe, 7 and 0 against teams that are under 500 or less, however, the math breaks down there.

Basically, if you're a good team, the Rams are not going to be great against you. And if you're a bad team, look out, because the Rams are going to blow you out. Well the Cardinals are a really, really good team. There is not one reason in this world to not believe in the Arizona Cardinals right now.

If you, get rid of what you thought about them pre-season, if you haven't already. If you're still thinking like, oh, this Cardinals team, I don't know, you just haven't been watching. They're really, really, really good. They're good in every way. Kyler's back and healthy. He looked good last week. There's a big game for them to basically put away the NFC West. So I think whatever you need out of Kyler this week, as far as a runner, I think you're going to do that. You're not going to save him. I think this is one of your games of the season.

I like the Cardinals a lot here. I think they're just-- this, this idea that the Rams are this great team, they might be. Like you said, get into the tournament this year, anything can happen, and maybe they're the Bucs, and turn it on at the end. I just don't trust them against a good team.

There's, there's not enough there that leads me to believe that this team can go in, on the road, and beat a Cardinals team, who by the way dominated them in LA. Like that wasn't a fluke, that was, the Cardinals are the better team here. And I don't know how much has changed since then. I just, this is pretty easy for me. I got the Cardinals all day, and I feel really, really good about it.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I think the big thing for me, I was a late adopter to accepting how good the Cardinals were, and it was Kingsbury for me. I just didn't trust Kingsbury into the season. And I held on to my priors with that. And he's done, I think his coaching chops have been-- and again, coaching can be hard to to evaluate sometimes because we're not on the bus, we're not in the meetings, we're not in the locker room. But this guy kept the ship afloat when Colt McCoy, 35-year-old journeyman had to play. And that says a lot to me.

FRANK SCHWAB: By the way, not just Colt, not just Colt. It was, DeAndre Hopkins was out. Chase Edmonds was out. JJ Watt was out. Like there was a lot of injuries and they went 2 and 1. Absolutely, that kind of sold me. I was already kind of like, hey, I got to let go of my Kliff stuff. And then that three game stretch happened, and I'm like, this guy has a great case for NFL coach of the year, and it's legit.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: He sure does. And I would say, if they did it by conference, I would give him the NFC vote. I'd give Belichick the AFC vote. And we'll see how it ultimately comes down. But so often, a team that ends up with the number one seed, which Arizona is in place to get, it's like, oh, look at how injury free they were. That's not the case, as you just listed, a bunch of their most important players have been hurt. And especially the quarterback, and their marquee receiver, and they've been able to do it. I have to play Arizona, as well.