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First meets last in the NFC West as we kick off week 15 with Thursday Night Football.
The 10-3 Arizona Cardinals come into tonight's game one win ahead of the 9-4 Seattle Seahawks, whom they play next week. In fact, all three of their final three regular season games are within the division; a win tonight would at least maintain their one-game lead going into the week 16 home rematch against the Seahawks, whom they lost to 19-3 in week 12.
The St. Louis Rams may be 6-7, just one win behind the suddenly mortal 7-5 San Francisco 49ers but, coinciding with Bears guard Kyle Long's brother Chris' return from injury, they're coming off a two-game win streak in which they shut out the Oakland Raiders and Washington - granted, not two of the more high-functioning offenses in the league right now - and have won 3 of the last 4, including a 22-7 home demolition of the Denver Broncos.
Spicing up the contest is the fact that not only has the Cardinals' offense been struggling to put up points with Drew Stanton filling in for Carson Palmer, having failed to put more than 18 on the scoreboard in each of their last four games, but they've just lost leading rusher Andre Ellington to a season-ending hip pointer. Jeff Fisher and the Rams would no doubt dearly love to be the first team to post three consecutive shutouts since the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers.
Have fun, and open thread Schweickertly!