The Cardinals clinched a postseason berth a couple of weeks ago. But with the NFC West still up for grabs between them and the Rams entering Week 18.
Arizona will host Seattle to end the regular season while San Francisco will play Los Angeles. If the Cardinals beat the Seahawks and the Rams fall to the 49ers, then Arizona will win the NFC West and stay at home for the Wild Card round.
Either way, the Cardinals are playing next week. And that’s likely part of why Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray said he won’t watch the scoreboard to keep tabs on what’s happening in L.A.
“I’m not monitoring anything,” Murray said in his Wednesday press conference. “I’m sure we’ll see the score on Sunday for whatever happens, whatever the implications. I’m not too worried about it. Me personally, I’m focused on the Seahawks. As far as staying healthy goes, that’s the idea. The idea is to keep everyone healthy going into the playoffs. I don’t really think about getting hurt. I just go play my game and try to stay as safe as possible while doing it.”
Murray noted that he didn’t think anyone was taking Seattle lightly given that the club is a division rival. And even though the team had a rough stretch by losing three in a row in December, the fact that the team could still win the division for the first time since 2015 means something.
“That just goes to show our record before we started losing was just that good,” Murray said. “We put ourselves in a position to, I don’t want to say, ‘lose a couple,’ but obviously that’s what happened. We were undefeated, then lose to the Packers, then fell to some other teams, but we put ourselves in a position to have a little bit of that wiggle room.
“It’s the NFL, everybody has gone through it, but now we’re in. At this point to be able to win the division would be a huge milestone and accomplishment for us, but at the end of the day, it’s just something that you can say you did. It doesn’t matter once you get into the playoffs. I’m looking forward to Sunday and that’s my focus.”
