The Lookaround: Cards win but lose Carson Palmer for year

Well, the Seahawks won and the Cardinals won but another way to say it is that the Seahawks won and the Cardinals lost. Though Seattle lost Brandon Mebane to a hamstring injury, Arizona's loss was much more dire. Ian Rapaport has reported that the Cards fear that quarterback Carson Palmer has torn his ACL, which would put Drew Stanton in charge of the Arizona offense for the rest of the season.

That's more of a concern than Bruce Arians will let on.

The Cards beat the Rams 31-14, but now it's Stanton's team to lead with seven games to go. Arizona is 8-1, two games ahead of the Seahawks at 6-3, and the team's play each other in Week 12 and Week 16. The Cards take on the 7-2 Detroit Lions this week, a game that will have major consequences to playoff seeding, while Seattle plays the Chiefs in Kansas City, a game that will have major consequences on noise records maybe?

Either way, the most important news here is that when the Seahawks play the Cardinals twice over the last seven games, the QB for Arizona will be Drew Stanton. At this point, Stanton has made seven career starts in seven years. Seven. That's fewer starts than Russell Wilson has made this year. And while experience may not always be consequential to success, the fact that Stanton has played for seven years is a good indicator that nobody finds his talent to be transcendent.

That being said, Arizona has already survived the losses of Daryl Washington, Darnell Dockett, and John Abraham. They've also gone 2-1 without Palmer, save a loss to the Denver Broncos. Does that mean they are resilient or just close to the edge of falling into oblivion with one more major injurhy?

We won't know the answer to that today or tomorrow or the next day. Maybe we'll have the answer to that question in a month or two. But we do know this: It's definitely not ideal for the Cardinals. This is not that path they would have chosen.

- The Rams lost that game, dropping them to 3-6, three games behind Seattle and likely out of any race.

- The 49ers beat the Saints in overtime, even though it appeared Jimmy Graham had an easy hail mary touchdown catch to win the game at the end of regulation. Unfortunately Graham was called offensive pass interference despite the fact that it appeared he would have been able to make an easy catch without pushing off because he's supposed to be Jimmy Graham.

San Francisco improves to 5-4 and stay within a game of Seattle. A loss may have doomed their season, but the Niners stay alive and Aldon Smith returns this week.

- The 49ers play at the Giants, the Rams play at home against the Broncos, and the Cards host the Lions. Feasibly every team in the NFC West faces  difficult challenge this week.

- The Cowboys currently own the first wild card spot and they dominated the Jaguars in London, so nothing changes there. The other team to pay attention to in the NFC East is the Eagles, who play the Panthers on Monday Night Football.

- Percy Harvin had three catches for 23 yards and six carries for 33 yards as the Jets upset the Steelers 20-13. New York definitely got what it wanted in the win, but should any receiver really get more carries than he gets targets? Seems like Pete Carroll isn't the only one lost on what to do with him.