Arizona Cardinals enter Week 13 with minute chance at making 2022 NFL playoffs

The Arizona Cardinals are nowhere close to reaching their 2022 expectations 12 games into the season.

Sitting at 4-8 following another disappointing home loss this past Sunday, the sun has appeared to set on this Cardinals team. If the season ended in Week 12, Arizona would hold the No. 7 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Only four teams have won fewer games than the Cardinals up to this point.

But while the Cardinals’ trajectory is trending downward heading into the bye week, they technically still have a sliver of playoff hope.

Entering Week 13 play, Arizona has a 1% chance at earning a postseason berth, per FiveThirtyEight.

Despite the Los Angeles Rams sporting a worse record than the Cardinals, Sean McVay’s team actually has more of a chance to crack the playoffs at 3%.

The track back to the postseason will have to come through the NFC Wild Card race from the looks of it, with Arizona sporting less than a 1% chance to win the division.

And even if they did manage to go on a run, it’s likely too little, too late for head coach Kliff Kingsbury and Co.

If the Cardinals go on a heater and rip off five-straight victories to finish the year and get to 9-8, the team’s playoff chances still sit at just 39%. Divisional hopes improve ever so slightly to 1%.

But if they lose just one of the next five games, Arizona’s postseason hopes stay bleak.

Wins over the remaining three NFC teams and one of the two AFC squads left on the docket gives the Cardinals a 4-5% chance at getting back to the playoffs. Any loss to either the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons and San Francisco 49ers, however, drops the Cardinals down to a 2% chance.

Heading into Week 13, the Cardinals sit three games and a tiebreaker behind the 49ers in the division. In terms of the NFC Wild Card, Arizona is three games back from the Washington Commanders, with the Seattle Seahawks (6-5) still squarely in the hunt.

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