{"id":242334,"date":"2025-07-28T09:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/242334\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T09:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:11:12","slug":"cardinals-look-to-make-prime-time-statement-against-rams-playoff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/242334\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Look To Make Prime Time Statement Against Rams&#8217; Playoff Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Standing in front of his locker, Christmas lights dangling from above, <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azcardinals.com\/team\/players-roster\/starling-thomas-v\/\" title=\"Starling Thomas V\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Starling Thomas V<\/a> admitted he loved playing football this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody wants to do good on the holidays and give everybody something to smile about,&#8221; the cornerback said.<\/p>\n<p>Well, not everybody. When the team travels to Los Angeles, they&#8217;re hoping the only ones left smiling are Cardinals-adjacent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We definitely want to be a spoiler,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;Everybody is still on that same mission of being winners and just trying to continue to change the narrative on how people see the Cardinals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After the Cardinals fell to the Panthers last weekend and were eliminated from playoff contention, the stakes of Saturday&#8217;s matchup against the Rams significantly changed. What was expected to be a battle for a postseason berth is no longer the case for the Cardinals. However, it&#8217;s still the case for their NFC West foe.<\/p>\n<p>The Rams, who sit in first place with an 9-6 record, could clinch the division with a victory over the Cardinals. With the Seahawks&#8217; win over the Bears on Thursday night, Seattle&#8217;s hopes remain slight. The Rams and Seahawks do play in Week 18, but the Rams end that hope with a win and the right results this weekend that would give them the strength of victory tiebreaker &#8212; the fifth measuring tiebreak to decide a division winner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to be a big Kyler Murray fan on Saturday. If they get it done, they get it done,&#8221; Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith said after Seattle&#8217;s win Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Cardinals are disappointed that they are no longer in the dance. This primetime game was a prime opportunity to make Week 18 a bit more eventful for the entire division. But defensive lineman Naquan Jones still recognizes they can shake up the division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing in front of his locker, Christmas lights dangling from above, Starling Thomas V admitted he loved playing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[36543,1051,7,1053,48872,1014,58,2444,2611,1052,88,6,424,1252],"class_list":{"0":"post-242334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-arizona-cardinals-at-los-angeles-rams-2024-reg-17","9":"tag-featured-articles","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-home-page-news-headlines","12":"tag-insiders-week-17","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-rams","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesrams","17":"tag-mega-feed","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-rams","21":"tag-zach-gershman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114930089333742451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}