NFL Power Rankings, Week 1: Titans ink Clowney, Chiefs remain clear favorites

All aboard the Arizona Cardinals hype train.

The narrative entering last season was the uncertainty about what the franchise was doing from a philosophical standpoint. They traded away their first-round pick quarterback from 2018 (Josh Rosen) to take Kyler Murray first overall in the 2019 draft. Arizona also hired Kliff Kingsbury, fresh off him getting ousted at Texas Tech for not winning enough games in Lubbock, to introduce an air-raid offense that they hoped would take the NFL by storm.

While the Cardinals weren’t a playoff team last season, Murray and Kingsbury answered a ton of questions about the viability of the plan as they not only had success but they got better throughout the year as well. And now they should be even better.

Arizona pulled off the coup of the 2020 offseason, trading a second-round pick and David Johnson (an expensive player they no longer needed) for DeAndre Hopkins, one of the best receivers in the league. Now Murray has Hopkins, Christian Kirk, ageless Larry Fitzgerald and running back Kenyan Drake to run Kingsbury’s high-powered offense with.

This team should be incredibly exciting and, in truth, tough to beat. At the same time, there are obvious flaws. The offensive line is still problematic and the defense, though it has playmakers, is lacking. On the whole, though, Arizona is another team to watch this season who may only miss the playoffs by proxy of playing in the toughest division in the league.