The Cardinals ended a two-game skid by beating the Saints last Thursday night, moving to 3-4.
Arizona hadn’t scored 30 points in a game, let alone 42, to that point in the season. Getting a pair of pick-sixes from the defense certainly helped. But head coach Kliff Kingsbury said after a long weekend on Monday that he’s hoping his team has turned a corner.
“I like what I’m seeing,” Kingsbury said in his press conference. “Like I said, I think a lot of the adversity has helped us kind of build some character throughout the first seven weeks. Hopefully, that’s on display moving forward, but we had a different look in our eyes out there on Thursday and hopefully that continues.”
It also helps that the NFC West doesn’t have any teams that have separated themselves from the pack. The Seahawks lead at 4-3, the Rams — coming off a bye — are 3-3, and the 49ers are tied with the Cardinals at 3-4.
“I think across the entire NFC really,” Kingsbury said. “If you look at some really good teams, really good quarterbacks are all just kind of hanging around the same record and battling it out. Last year this time we were 7-0 and didn’t play very well down the stretch, so hopefully we can flip that and be better later on.
“You never know in the NFL how it’s going to go. There’s a lot of football left to play, and it’s really who stays healthy and who gets hot late that usually ends up in the big game.”