ARIZONA CARDINALS

Arizona Cardinals to face fifth-toughest schedule in NFL in 2015

Feb 12, 2015, 11:16 PM | Updated: 11:17 pm

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The Arizona Cardinals won 11 games in 2014, which was good enough to finish second in the ultra-competitive NFC West.

If they’re to post a similar record in 2015, they’re going to have to really earn it.

John Breech of CBSSports.com went over every team’s slate of opponents for this upcoming season, and ranked the schedules in order of difficulty.

That, of course, is done by overall winning percentage of opponents from the previous season, and according to that, Arizona’s schedule will be the fifth-toughest in all of football.

The Cardinals will have home games against the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams, along with road matchups with the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, Philadelphia Eagles, 49ers, Seahawks and Rams.

Six of those opponents reached the playoffs last season, giving Arizona seven games against 2014 playoff teams.

Not surprisingly, NFC West teams find themselves near the top of the list (they have to face each other twice, after all), with the 49ers and Seahawks each having a more difficult schedule than the Cardinals and the Rams just one spot easier than Arizona.

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