The NFC is off to a great start in Week 7 after the Chicago Bears took care of the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football.
There is a lot to unpack from Week 6, but there's even more coming in Week 7.
The Bears and Patriots on Thursday was just the tip of the iceberg. We have key players coming back from injury (hello, Baker Mayfield), key division matchups, and an inter-conference matchup that could end up being a Super Bowl preview.
Let's take a look at the state of the NFC heading into Week 7 and how every team stacks up against each other after the Bears' big win on Thursday.
NFL Power Rankings, Week 7: Cowboys and Rams losing control; Eagles a mess
16. Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles have gone from bad, to worse, to miserable in the blink of an eye. Even the Eagles’ two wins this season were relatively unimpressive.
Now, we’ve found out that Jalen Hurts is going to miss the rest of the season due to a scary blood clot discovery in both of his lungs. That news comes on top of the team already having traded away AJ Brown in the offseason, Lane Johnson’s surprise in-season retirement, the Cam Jurgens trade, and other injuries that have obviously impacted this team.
When it rains, it pours. The Eagles look poised for a “lost” season.
15. Arizona Cardinals
Even though the Cardinals are breaking in a rookie head coach and have a roster we would characterize as “unfinished”, they have been much more competitive this season than expected.
And for whatever reason, they own the LA teams.
The Cardinals are now 2-0 this season at SoFi Stadium, where they have pulled off impressive upsets over both the Chargers (before we knew what the Chargers were this season) and desperate Los Angeles Rams.
Arizona is still working through a lot of player development, but they have already been better than expected.
14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Buccaneers are poised to welcome back quarterback Baker Mayfield after a three-game absence, and luckily for Mayfield, not much ground has really been lost over the past month in the NFC South.
The Panthers currently lead the division at 3-2, but the Bucs are 1-5 and get to face off against the Panthers this weekend. And by “get to”, I don’t mean that the Panthers are going to be an easy win, by any means. What I mean is that Tampa Bay can make up some ground in a significant way with just one game.
Mayfield simply has to be better than we’ve seen, and the Bucs don’t have much margin for error the rest of the way.
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