Clayton: Right now, Cardinals are best team in NFC West

Through four games, the Arizona Cardinals lead the NFC West with a 3-1 record.

It could have been 4-0 had they not laid an egg at home against the St. Louis Rams in Week 4, but at any rate, they’ve done enough to find their way atop the division.

At the same time, the two-time defending NFC West and NFC champion Seattle Seahawks have rebounded from a 0-2 start to even their record at 2-2, albeit not without some hiccups along the way.

Going into the season, most expected the West to come down to a battle of the birds, and according to ESPN NFL insider John Clayton, nothing has changed.

“I’d say Arizona,” he told Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM when asked who the best team in the division is right now, noting the disappointment that was the Rams loss. “The most talented team is Seattle, the best team right now has been Arizona.”

Clayton said the loss to St. Louis — a team that also beat the Seahawks in Week 1 — was “a little bit of a dud,” but noted that the first three games, where the Cardinals beat the New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers fairly handily, showed their ability to play at a very high level.

“Seattle has kind of taken one of the tougher parts of their schedule and starting to climb back, then they got to the Chicago game and they got their defense back together,” he said. “But let’s put it this way: it’s still going to be a race between these two teams.

“We’ll see if St. Louis has enough to stay with this group, I don’t know if they can, they probably can’t. But what you’re looking at is two teams that are either going to have 11 wins or 12 wins, something of that nature, and see how that tiebreaker goes going into that last game to win the division.”

The Cardinals and Seahawks will first match up on Nov. 15 in Seattle, with their second and final meeting coming Jan. 3, in Week 17, in Glendale.

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