Cardinals rise in NFL power rankings, now have less than 1% chance of landing No.1 pick

The Arizona Cardinals hit a turning point Sunday during their Week 8 win against the Dallas Cowboys.

Backup quarterback Gardner Minshew relieved a struggling Jacoby Brissett and rallied the Cardinals back from multiple two-score deficits for an overtime win that improved the team’s record to 3-5.

The win resulted in two key developments: Arizona climbed the current NFL ladder, but also had its odds of landing a top pick in the upcoming NFL draft drop significantly, according to ESPN.

Now closer to the middle of the NFL pack than the bottom, the Cardinals jumped from No. 28 to No. 24 in ESPN’s latest power rankings. Their win total of three is now more than or tied with 13 other teams, making their remaining games an opportunity to rise even higher if they can carry the momentum from Sunday’s win.

At the same time, however, the more Arizona wins, the more it strays away from a top pick in the 2027 NFL Draft — an outcome many fans hoped for going into the season.

ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) projection has the Cardinals with less than 1% odds of finishing the season with a record that would give them the No. 1 pick, 14% odds of a top-five pick and 56% odds of a top-10 pick. The FPI’s simulations give the Cardinals an average draft position of 10th, the eighth-highest in the league.

While that position would still give Arizona a chance to draft a high-quality player, it may not be high enough for the organization to select one of the top quarterbacks in the class — another scenario that fans imagined.

The good news for those fans is that the top quarterback talent hasn’t exactly panned out as expected, as Texas’ Arch Manning, Oregon’s Dante Moore and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin have seen their draft stock plummet either due to injury or underperformance.

Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, Miami’s Darian Mensah and Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss are now considered the top quarterback prospects in the 2027 draft.

The Cardinals are in the mix of teams vying for a wild-card spot in the NFC — only two games behind the Green Bay Packers for the final one — but have just a 1.1% chance of making the playoffs, according to ESPN’s FPI.

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